Why are emails bouncing due to DMARC?
If you have a Squarespace domain and youβve been using email forwarding alongside a free Gmail account, you may have noticed that your emails are suddenly bouncing or not reaching recipients at all.
This has caught a lot of people off guard, and it's understandable - the setup worked fine for years.
This guide explains whatβs changed, why this issue is happening now, and the best options going forward. Whether you're running a business or just using a personal domain, this will help you get email working reliably again - with or without paying for a new service.
Why this is happening now (it's not just you)
This wave of email rejections is the result of two major changes coming together:
Email providers (like Gmail, Yahoo, and Apple Mail) have tightened their rules. They now strictly enforce DMARC checks - a system that helps stop spam, phishing, and spoofed emails.
At the same time, Squarespace began automatically adding a stricter DMARC policy (p=reject) when users enabled email forwarding. This surfaced email setups that were already vulnerable, even though they may have worked fine before.
This change is part of a broader, industry-wide effort to improve email security and combat fraud.
In recent years, spammers have increasingly used free email accounts to send messages pretending to come from legitimate businesses without any real connection to that company. To fight this, email providers now require proof that an email is genuinely allowed to come from the domain it claims to use.
Thatβs what DMARC (alongside SPF and DKIM) is for. It ensures that only properly authenticated servers can send emails using your domain name. If that proof is missing, the message is rejected, no matter how legitimate the sender's intent may be.
If you had a βfreeβ setup that worked for years, itβs understandable that this feels frustrating, but this isnβt a glitch or a policy change by one company. Itβs part of a necessary shift across the entire internet to keep email safe and trustworthy for everyone.
What are the options?
Hereβs how to move forward depending on what youβre trying to do:
Option 1: Use a free email service (with limitations)
You can continue using a free Gmail (or similar) email account, and you can still use forwarding to receive messages that are forwarded from your custom domain (like info@yourdomain.com) to your Gmail inbox. That part is unaffected.
However, when it comes to sending emails, things must change. You can no longer send emails that appear to come from your domain (e.g. info@yourdomain.com). Thatβs exactly what DMARC is designed to prevent.
To stay within the rules and ensure your emails are delivered, you should send messages from your actual Gmail address (like yourname@gmail.com), not one that pretends to be from your domain.
This is the easiest and most cost-effective option, but it does come with trade-offs:
Your emails wonβt look like theyβre coming from a professional domain.
If you're a freelancer or a small business trying to appear more established, this might not give the impression you want.
Still, this approach can work just fine, as long as you understand that you're not really using your domain to send email, just to receive it.
Option 2: Use a professional email service
If you want to send emails from your own domain name and have them reliably delivered without bouncing or going to spam, the best approach is to use a paid email service designed for this purpose.
Services like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or Zoho Mail are built to handle domain-based email properly. They provide the tools needed to set up your domainβs authentication records (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC), so other mail servers know youβre allowed to send from your domain.
This option gives you:
A fully professional email address (you@yourdomain.com) that builds trust
Strong deliverability (your emails are less likely to get rejected or flagged as spam)
Better security, with proper authentication built in
If projecting a professional brand is important to you, and you want email that just works, this is the option to choose. When I checked on costs (per user, per month) Google Workspace started at Β£5.90, Microsoft 365 started at Β£4.90 and Zoho Mail started at $1 (around Β£0.80).
Discounts!
If you decide to purchase a subscription to Google Workspace (affiliate link), and you are based in Europe, the Middle East or Africa (EMEA), you can get 10% off the first year by using one of the discount codes below:
Google Workspace Business Starter:
W6NGKGWW4CGTQ4F
Google Workspace Business Standard:
X6TJPUA9APMJTTV
Summary
This change exposed an underlying issue with the way some email services had been set up. I totally understand the frustration - especially when it worked fine before - but email standards have moved on, and domains are now expected to enforce better security.
If your email is important to your business or personal brand, itβs worth taking the time to switch to a setup that aligns with the new standards, or use your Gmail address directly without trying to send as your domain.
