e-mail domains

[Electric_Andy]

A friend of mine (lets call her Jane Bloggs) is starting up her own business and wants an e-mail domain. She wants janebloggs@direct

I've been on 121 domain and her desired domain is available (£12/year), but who would her provider be? Could she simply add this account to gmail/hotmail or whatever? She's also concerned that it doesn't have an @ in it! Does this matter?

 

[midlife]

I thought all email addresses had a @ to separate the name from the domain?

 

[AndyRM]

Her email address will be janebloggs@domain.com (or .co.uk etc).

You can use your mail client of choice to connect to it (Outlook/Mail/whatever) or set up a redirect to a 3rd party like Gmail/Yahoo.

 

[cisamcgu]

I use Roundcube email client - but whatever domain provider you choose, they will have a default one - but you can link it to pretty much anything, as other have said.

 

[Seevio]

Depending on the package, when you buy a domain name, you just get the actual name. You probably still have to buy somewhere to actually handle your website data. The domain package may well include some mail hosting. If not, or if it doesn't meet your needs, you can either buy mail hosting or use one of the free services like hotmail or gmail. (a quick search "how to link custom domains to hotmail/gmail" shows it can be done.)

Alternatively, as an email server doesn't take up many resources, you can run one from a computer at the business. There are free open source programs to do this. The downside is that a computer will need to be turned on 24/7 and you will probably need a static IP from your IS

The name part of the email address(es) will be customisable but the domain will be the @domain name that was purchased.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Thanks all, I will pass on the info. Home server is a no, because she's not very IT literate. Thanks again

 

[Tin Pot]

Thanks all, I will pass on the info. Home server is a no, because she's not very IT literate. Thanks again

I’m going to have a go at simplifying it for you, but I’m a bit off colour today so bear with me.

First, there’s no such distinct thing as an “email domain”, they are all internet domains.

What you are buying when you buy a domain is essentially an address. That address can be used for email, web sites, any number of things. Owning/registering the domain lets the internet know your address exists.

The next bit is where that address leads to. And you rightly think of service providers. The internet know your domain is real, but doesn’t yet know where to send your emails to. You friend would pick an email provider *that allows* you to configure your own domain and email addresses. During this process the email provider checks with the internet that you are allowed to do this, and publishes the fact that emails to your domain should be routed to them.

Hey presto, you’ll be receiving spam in no time.

 

[KneesUp]

I use google to carry my mail on my own domain for free. Other mail on another domain is carried by a webhost, who charge the very reasonable sum of (iirc) £2.99 a month for hosting the domain (website and email - website not used really)