Is GoDaddy your DNS host?
If you bought the domain at GoDaddy and have not changed its nameservers, yes: they read ns01.domaincontrol.com, ns02.domaincontrol.com and so on, and the DNS page under the domain is where the records go. If they name another company — ns.cloudflare.com, vercel-dns.com — the records go there instead, and that host's guide is the one to follow.
Where the records go
- Sign in at godaddy.com and open your Domain Portfolio.
- Select the domain to open its Domain Settings page.
- Select DNS. Every record on the domain is listed, and Add New Record opens the form above them.
What GoDaddy calls each field
| On imado | On GoDaddy | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Type | Choose it from the Type menu: TXT, CNAME or MX. The fields under it change with it. |
| Host | Name | The prefix, without your domain — GoDaddy adds .example.com itself. For the MX record it is @, which means the domain itself. |
| Value | Value | Exactly as shown, copied with the button. |
| Priority | Priority | Appears once Type is MX. 10. |
| — | TTL | Leave it at 1 hour. |
What to put for the domain itself
One record — the MX record, the one that makes mail arrive — belongs to the domain itself rather than to anything in front of it. Every DNS panel has its own way of saying that, and instructions written for a different one are the usual reason a correct-looking MX record receives nothing.
On GoDaddy, type @. GoDaddy's own instructions for every record type say the same thing: enter @ to put the record on your root domain. The Name field is described as the prefix, without the domain name.
Leaving it blank is not the same thing here, and typing example.com is worse: GoDaddy appends your domain, so it becomes example.com.example.com, saves cleanly, and answers nothing.
The other five records all have something in front of the domain — _imado-challenge, _dmarc, the three _domainkey names — and those go in Name exactly as shown, with no domain after them. One GoDaddy rule to know while you are there: a CNAME's Name may never be @, which is why only the MX record uses it.
Add the six records
First the ownership record; then, once imado shows it as Added, the other five. Each is one press of Save. Add More Records lets you stage several rows at once and save them together with Save All Records — useful for the three CNAME records, as long as you finish with the save.
| Type | Name | Value | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| TXT | _imado-challenge | imado-verification=… | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| MX | @ | inbound-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com | 10 |
| TXT | _dmarc | v=DMARC1; p=none; | — |
What gets in the way
- GoDaddy's own email, still holding the MX records. GoDaddy sells Microsoft 365 and Professional Email, and adds the MX records for them itself when a domain is connected to one. Those records stay behind after a trial lapses. They point at names ending
mail.protection.outlook.comorsecureserver.net; delete them before adding imado's. Two sets of MX records on one domain send some mail each way. - Domain Protection asking who you are. If the domain has Domain Protection, GoDaddy will not save a DNS change until you pass an identity check — a code by SMS or from your authenticator app if two-step verification has been on for a day or more, otherwise a one-time password sent to the email address on your GoDaddy account. Have that to hand before you start, because the record is not saved until the code is entered.
- A staged row that was never saved. Add More Records keeps new rows on screen looking finished. Nothing exists until Save All Records.
- The name typed in full. GoDaddy appends your domain to whatever is in Name.
_dmarc.example.comin that field becomes_dmarc.example.com.example.com, saves without complaint, and is never found. Type_dmarc.
Then, on imado
Back on your domain's page, press Check again. GoDaddy says most changes take effect within an hour, and they are usually much quicker than that. When the ownership record is Added, the other records appear; when those are, create the mailbox and send yourself a message — steps 5 and 6 of the setup.
GoDaddy's own guides cover MX records and TXT records.
