What is an Email?
An Email is a short word for electronic mail; it is the information (text message, files, images, or other attachments) shared between two or more users via an electronic device(s).
abc@xyz.com
An email is broken into two parts; the 1st part before the ‘@’ (i.e. ABC) and the 2nd part after the ‘@’ (i.e. XYZ). The first part contains the name of the user, the name of the group, department in a company. The last part is the (XYZ) is the domain name the user belongs to.
What is Email Hosting?
Email hosting is a digital service where all your email messages and associated files are stored on a server. When an email is sent to your email, it is sent across the internet to your website’s domain address’ server. From here, the server administrators will determine which action to take (reply or ignore) having in mind any spam filters, re-routing requests and if the sender is on any blacklists.
Types of Email Hosting
There are several types of email services that a hosting company may offer. The value of each service depends on your needs. Taking the time to evaluate your email needs today and how they might change as your business or team grows, will set you up for the future. Let’s look at the options available to you. There are two types of Email Hosting, they are:
- Free or Standard.
- Professional or Paid.
Free or Standard Email Hosting
This kind of email services allows you to send, receive mail and manage your email accounts through webmail (POP) and email clients (IMAP). Examples of such email account are Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, to name a few. There is an abundance of free email hosting options that you are already familiar with: Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL are the popular ones in the group. They usually end with @gmail.com, @yahoomail.com, @hotmail.com etc.
Advantages
- It is free with no commitment or contract
- They have storage space enough to meet the needs of small business and individuals as well.
Disadvantages
- Might have irritating banners, or on/off page advertisement.
- The security is weaker.
- Redundant help and customer support options
- Authenticity is doubted by visitors.
- Though the cloud space is enough for your immediate use but can be limited for wider expansion or usage
- No personalized domain name (e.g., name@yourbusinessname.com) might lead to difficulty when remembering long and unbranded email addresses.
Professional or Paid Email Hosting:
Free email hosting is not the best or advisable to use if your business depends on email as a source of revenue, you get what you pay for. Free or Standard email hosting packages can’t always deliver the quality that professional users need. Professional (paid) email hosting services are very likely to better fit the needs of a growing business.
Features
- A personalized domain name. This will work towards helping you build your business’ brand. Whom would you prefer to deal with? Someone whose email address reads marcey@bankrestaurant.com or marcey@freemail.com. The former, of course, since the person communicating with an email of their company is likely to be more authentic than the free email hosting ID user. We’re living in tech-savvy times, people are wary of email fraud and spam.
- More storage space
- The antivirus and spam filters are very effective.
- Security measures are very powerful that it keeps kinks at bay, i.e. in cases of natural disasters or network failures, your email is safe and secure. And they help keep cyber-attack at bay.
- Advertisement is non-existence.
- Collaboration tools come bundled with many professional email services.
- Email is synchronized across all connected devices.
- Email authentication schemes — filtering, replication and rerouting
- Folder and contacts management
- Large attachments
- Using an outside hosting company is good for cost reduction. Since maintenance and management tasks and other updates are handled externally, you’ll need fewer onsite management requirements and hardware resources.
