Email Hosting
Email hosting is a service in which your email messages and associated files are all stored on a server. When you receive an email to your website’s domain address, the email is routed across the internet and stored on the recipient server. At this point, the server administrators will determine which action to take (reply or ignore) bearing in mind any spam filters, re-routing requests and if the sender is on any blacklists.
The server hosting email can be the same server that’s hosting your website content, a server managed by another host, or two different servers managed by the same hosting company.
Having a dedicated email server provides businesses with far more storage space meaning there will be less need to delete any emails. There was once a time when you got your email address from your internet service provider (like AOL) and that was good enough.
At some point, we got more comfortable with the idea of purchasing a domain and hosting plan with a branded email account added on (often for free). Most free email companies like Google offer basic email, but you’re stuck on their domain, which doesn’t project a professional tone for communication.
Traditionally, small businesses had their web and email hosting on the same server, while larger organizations had them split between dedicated web and email servers. Splitting the services like this used to mean you needed inhouse mail servers and IT staff, but over the past few years, many businesses have been getting the benefits of dedicated email hosting by utilizing cloud services.
Web-hosting email services allow you to send and receive mail and manage email accounts through webmail (POP) and email clients (IMAP). Free email account include Gmail and Yahoo, to name a few. There’s an abundance of free email hosting options that you are probably already familiar with: Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL are household names.
It’s not advised to use free email hosting if your business depends on email as a revenue driver — you get what you pay for. Free and standard email hosting packages don’t always deliver the kind of quality that professional users need. Professional (paid) email hosting services are most likely to fit the needs of a growing business better.
