BIMI Record Checker - Verify Your BIMI Records for errors

BIMI stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification. It's an email specification that allows your brand logo to appear next to your authenticated email messages in supporting email clients. This helps recipients recognize your emails, increases trust, and reduces the risk of phishing attacks.

Without BIMI, email clients display a generic placeholder logo with brand initials. The recipient might have a hard time recognizing your brand without resorting to the brand name. However, with BIMI implemented, the brand logo is displayed next to your email message, boosting brand awareness.

Below are the logo specifications:
1. The logo which we might want to display in the email should be in SVG Tiny 1.2 format and must be a square, centered.
2. The logo must be trademarked.
3. The logo should have a solid background color and file size should not exceeed 32KB.
4. The logo (in SVG format) must be hosted over internet over https and will be queried by the email receivers.
5. The logo must be certified with VMC (Verified Mark Certificate)

Implementing BIMI on your domain takes these steps:

1.Upload your brand logo;
2.Create a BIMI record;
3.Publish your BIMI record in the DNS;
4.Check the BIMI record to ensure success.

BIMI leverages existing email authentication protocols like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM. When your emails pass these authentication checks, your BIMI record tells email clients to display your logo. This requires setting up a BIMI record in your DNS and meeting specific technical requirements.

For BIMI to work, you must:

1. DMARC Enforcement: Achieve DMARC enforcement by setting a "p=quarantine" or "p=reject" policy on your email sending domain. This ensures your emails are authenticated and prevents spoofing.
2. Verified Mark Certificate (VMC): While not strictly mandatory, obtaining a VMC is highly recommended. It verifies brand ownership and increases trust with email providers and recipients. Some mailbox providers may require it for logo display.
3. Brand Logo (SVG): Upload your brand logo in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format to a secure, publicly accessible URL.
4. VMC (.pem): Upload your VMC in PEM format to a secure, publicly accessible URL.
5. BIMI Record: Generate a BIMI record linking your logo and VMC URLs to your domain. Publish this record in your DNS configuration.

VMC (Verified Mark Certificate) is a digital certificate that validates the authenticity of a brand's logo for BIMI implementation. It ensures that the logo displayed in emails is legitimate and authorized by the brand owner.

BIMI strengthens your brand identity by showcasing your logo in recipients' inboxes. This builds trust, recognition, and positive associations with your brand. It also helps differentiate your emails from spoofing attempts, protecting your brand reputation.

While BIMI itself doesn't directly impact deliverability, it can indirectly improve it by increasing trust and reducing spam complaints. This can lead email clients to view your emails more favorably and increase their chances of reaching recipients' inboxes.

You can easily check your BIMI record using ProDMARC's free BIMI checker tool. The tool will provide you with a detailed summary on your BIMI configuration and highlight any potential issues.

Navigate to our "BIMI Checker" page. Enter your domain name in the designated field and click "Check BIMI Record." The tool will instantly analyze your BIMI setup.

No, BIMI is currently not mandatory. However, as email security and brand protection become more crucial, it's becoming increasingly recommended for businesses to adopt BIMI.

Currently, the BIMI is supported by:

• Yahoo
• Apple Mail
• Cloudmark by Proofpoint
• Gmail
• La Poste
• Fastmail
• Zone Webmail

The following mailbox providers are considering supporting BIMI:

• BTInternet
• Atmail
• Comcast
• Qualitia
• Seznam
• GMX Email
• Yahoo Japan

If your BIMI logo is not appearing in emails, it could be due to several reasons:

1. Authentication Failure: Ensure that your domain has been properly authenticated using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. BIMI requires strict authentication to display logos.
2. DMARC Policy: Make sure your DMARC policy is set to enforcement mode (p=quarantine or p=reject). BIMI logos typically only appear for domains with DMARC enforcement policies.
3. Incorrect Configuration: Double-check that your BIMI record in DNS is correctly set up correctly. Double-check that the URL pointing to your SVG logo and VMC file (.pem) in the BIMI record is correct and leads to the accessible file. For Gmail and other mailbox providers requiring a VMC, make sure you have a valid VMC. For Yahoo! and other mailbox providers not requiring a VMC, ensure your domain has a sufficient reputation for displaying your logo. You can also contact their support teams for more information.
4. Logo Format: Ensure that your logo meets BIMI's requirements in terms of size, format (SVG), and resolution.
5. Unsupported Email Clients: Not all email clients support BIMI yet. Check if the email clients your recipients are using support BIMI.

Some common BIMI record issues and their solutions include:

1. DMARC policy not set up correctly: BIMI requires a strong DMARC policy with the "p" tag set to "quarantine" or "reject," not "none."
2. SPF and DKIM not implemented: BIMI builds on existing authentication protocols like SPF and DKIM. Make sure those are set up correctly before deploying BIMI.
3. Missing BIMI Record: Create a BIMI record in your domain's DNS settings if it's not present.
4. Incorrect Format: Ensure your BIMI record is correctly formatted according to the BIMI standard.
5. Invalid Logo & VMC URL: Verify that the URL in your BIMI record points to the correct location of your SVG logo file & pem file.
6. Unreachable Logo URL: Fix any issues with your web server configuration to ensure the logo file is accessible.
7. Incorrect VMC Reference: Ensure the reference to your Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) in the BIMI record matches the actual VMC.
8. Missing VMC (Verified Mark Certificate): This file verifies ownership of your logo and is crucial for most mailbox providers. Ensure it's present and accessible via HTTPS.
9. Incorrect logo format: our logo must be in the SVG P/S format. Find detailed logo specifications here

If your BIMI record is not found, it means you haven't set it up yet or there might be configuration errors. Contact us to get your brand BIMI compliant, including obtaining a VMC certificate through our partners. We'll ensure your BIMI record is properly configured and published, so your brand logo can be displayed next to your emails in the inbox.