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Why we don’t host your email with your website.

There’s nothing more ‘mood altering’ than receiving en evening phone call from a client who is unable to access their business email. Then, spending time troubleshooting and resolving the issue, finding the web server security had blocked their IP address due to too many failed login attempts from another user, taking the whole business offline. It wasn’t the first time.

It was after one of these sessions that we made the ‘right, that’s it, we don’t support email from our web servers’ decision and for some time now all of our clients enjoy robust, world class, email that is independent from their web server, and we get to spend evenings with our kids.

Webhosting and email are not one and the same.

When starting out it’s easy to make the assumption that you need to use your web server to host email on your own or business domain ( eg. [email protected] ). Web hosts make it seem that way, and make it easy. The expectation is that web server email will be business grade. The reality is far from it. Web server email is, at best, a convenience, but, if your business depends on email that convenience is not as solid, or reliable as a dedicated email service.

When it comes to budget shared hosting, and so called ‘unlimited’ plans, there are some serious limitations when it comes to email.

Email sender reputation.

On a shared host your website shares the IP address with all the other websites on that server. The reputation of your IP address, and therefore your email deliverability, relies on everyone on that server behaving themselves. Something you can’t control.

Email takes up space.

On a shared host, despite supposed ‘unlimited’ plans you will find yourself quite limited when it comes to disk space. Your email, especially with a number of accounts, will quickly fill up your available space.

Your shared server is quite suitable for your website ( at least until traffic warrants an upgrade ), not so for email.

Migrations are difficult, if not impossible.

Hosting your email on your web server locks you into that host. While migrating a WordPress website from one server to a new one is quite simple ( for us at least ), when there’s email involved it becomes quite difficult.

Web Server down = your business is down.

Of most concern is that any situation where your web server is down it will take your hosted email down with it. Admittedly even our budget care plans enjoy quality and reliable shared hosting, and we haven’t experienced any down time, but the risk is always there.

Email technology changed.

Modern dedicated email services like Google Workspace and Office 365 come with full productivity suites including contacts, calendars, documents, spreadsheets, and more. They are easy to configure on mobile devices, and work seamlessly wherever you are. Pricing for these systems is very affordable. Not so long ago the technology and infrastructure investment required to have the kind of capability was out of reach of most small businesses.

There are several quality dedicated email services.

At WebFoundations we happily use and recommend Google Workspace.

Office 365 is a great solution for businesses requiring MS Office.

Both systems allow you to use your own domain.

If you’re looking for simple and reliable email inboxes only ventraip ( our preferred server provider ) offer very affordable options.

If you’d like help or advice with your email setup please contact us and arrange a consultation.

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