TXT records are a type of domain record that can contain arbitary text data.

These days the  record type is primarily used to add an SPIF anti-spam record to a domain. This record defines what mail servers can legitimately send email on behalf of the domain. When a spam checking email service receives an email it will read the SPIF record for the emails "from" address, if the originating email server is not found in the SPIF record then the email is probably spam with a forged "from" address.

For help in setting up an SPIF record, use this wizard .