What Is an Email Security Score?
An email security score is a 0–100 rating that measures how well your domain is protected against spoofing, phishing, and delivery failures. MailShield evaluates eight critical protocols and gives you a single number your entire team can understand.
How Your Email Security Score Is Calculated
MailShield performs a comprehensive email security check across eight protocols, weighted by their impact on your domain's protection. The result is a domain security score from 0 to 100.
8 Protocol Checks
Every domain is evaluated against SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT, BIMI, and DNSSEC/DANE.
Weighted Scoring
Core protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC carry more weight. Advanced protocols like BIMI and DANE add bonus points.
Continuous Monitoring
Your score updates automatically whenever your DNS records change. Get alerted the moment your score drops.
Understanding Your Score
Your email security score falls into one of four ranges. Each tells you how well your domain is protected and what to focus on next.
Excellent
All critical protocols are properly configured and enforced. Your domain is well-protected against spoofing and impersonation.
Good
Most protocols are in place, but there are opportunities to strengthen your configuration. A few improvements can get you to full protection.
Fair
Basic authentication is set up, but significant gaps remain. Your domain is partially exposed to spoofing and delivery issues.
Poor
Critical protocols are missing or misconfigured. Your domain is vulnerable to impersonation and emails may land in spam.
What Gets Checked
A complete email security check evaluates all eight protocols that protect your domain. Here is what MailShield looks at for each one.
Verifies which servers are authorized to send email for your domain. Checks record validity, DNS lookup count, and policy strength.
Validates cryptographic signatures on your outgoing emails. Checks key strength, selector configuration, and signing practices.
Evaluates your domain's policy for handling authentication failures. Checks policy level, alignment mode, and reporting configuration.
Inspects your mail server records for proper configuration. Checks redundancy, TLS support, and certificate validity.
Checks whether your domain enforces encrypted email delivery. Validates the policy file, DNS record, and mode setting.
Confirms you receive reports when encrypted connections to your mail servers fail. Checks reporting address and record format.
Validates your brand logo configuration for email clients. Checks the DNS record, logo format, and certificate requirements.
Assesses DNS integrity and certificate pinning. Validates the DNSSEC chain of trust and TLSA records for your mail servers.
Why Your Email Security Score Matters
A domain security score is not just a technical metric. It is a business tool that helps you communicate, prioritize, and prove progress.
Share with stakeholders
A single number your leadership team, board, or clients can understand. No technical jargon required.
Track progress over time
Watch your score improve as you implement recommendations. Document your security posture journey.
Meet sender requirements
Google and Yahoo require SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for bulk senders. Your score tells you if you comply.
Improve email deliverability
Properly configured authentication means fewer emails landing in spam and more reaching the inbox.
Prevent domain impersonation
A high score means attackers cannot easily send phishing emails pretending to be your domain.
Benchmark against standards
Compare your domain's security posture against industry best practices and know exactly where you stand.
Improve Your Score with Prioritized Recommendations
MailShield does not just tell you your score. It tells you exactly how to improve it. Every issue comes with a clear explanation, a priority level, and step-by-step instructions, including ready-to-use DNS records.
- Issues ranked by impact so you fix what matters most first
- Ready-to-use DNS records you can copy and paste
- Clear explanations of what each change does and why
- Score recalculates automatically after you make changes
- Historical tracking so you can see your progress over time
Check your email security score
Add your domain and get a complete security assessment across all eight protocols in under a minute. Free plan includes 2 domains.