Basic Email Concepts

SMTP

SMTP — Simple Mail Transfer Protocol — is the standard for sending and receiving email over the internet. Much like the email version of HTTP, the standard for sending documents over the internet.

This is not a specific feature to look for in hosting plans because any plan that has email will be using SMTP to do so.

IMAP Support

IMAP — Internet Message Access Protocol — is one of two protocols defining the relationship between an email client and an email server.

In an IMAP configuration, all messages are retained on the email server, along with information about whether they have been read or responded to. This allows for multiple email clients to be used for a single account without risk of redundancy (seeing the same message twice as if it were unread) or lost messages.

The obvious use case for IMAP is a person who checks their mail on their desktop and their phone. You want both the phone and desktop experience to stay in sync.

POP3 Support

POP — Post Office Protocol — is the other of the two client-server email protocols. POP3 is the third, and current, version of this protocol.

In a POP configuration, the server acts as a post office (hence the name), relaying messages but keeping no record of them. Email management is heavily reliant on the client, rather than the server.

POP3 is less resource-intensive on the server, but the ability to sync across several clients is lost.

Important Email-Related Hosting Features

Email Accounts

Some hosting companies will limit the number of email addresses you may set up, while others allow for an unlimited number of accounts. Think about how many email addresses you might actually need before committing to a plan with a limit. You might find you need more than you think, especially if you use “departmental” emails ([email protected], [email protected]) in addition to personal email addresses.

Mailbox Space

Email doesn’t take up a lot of disk space, but email attachments can. Again, some hosting companies have unlimited plans and others put specific limits on this. Be sure to know what you’re buying.

Email Aliases and Email Forwarding

The features are related. With email aliasing, you can have multiple email addresses that all tie to the same account. Email forwarding allows you to automatically forward incoming email from the receiving address to one you specify.

Email Aliasing is especially useful if you want to use title-based email addresses ([email protected]) in addition to personal name-based addresses. If aliasing is not available, you may end up relying on Email Forwarding.

Auto Responders

Auto responders are good for “Away from the Office” messages. If you are planning to use your hosting plan for business-related email, this is an important feature to look for.

Catch-all email

Where does email go if it is sent to [email protected], but there is no such address. On some systems, this email is essentially lost, or stored in a hidden log someplace it won’t be found until someone goes looking for it.

A Catch-all email account will receive all email sent to an non-existent email address at your domain. This is an essential in a business context where you can’t afford to miss any emails, even the misspelled ones.

Spam Filter

Spam filters detect and deal with unwanted incoming mail. The most popular Spam Filter is:

• SpamAssassin

Webmail

Accessing your email requires an email client of some sort. You may use a local client, such as Outlook on your desktop or the mail app on your phone. Another option is to use a web-based mail client.

Popular webmail clients include: – SquirrelMail – GigaMail – Uebimiau – NutsMail

Advanced Email Features and Applications

Contact Forms

These are applications that turn contact form submissions into email messages.

• cgiemail
• FormMail

Mailers

These are applications that can be used to send email programatically (i.e. out of another application).

• Railgun
• AspSmartMail

Custom MX Records

You do not have to host your own email service, and you do not have to run your email from the same hosting plan that you use for your website.

However if you are going host your email with host or email service (Google Apps, for example), you will need to direct email messages to the appropriate place.

The MX Records, part of the DNS record, specifies where domain-addressed email is routed — it associates the human-readable @example.com domain name to the IP address of a specific mail server.

Changing the MX Record is not difficult, but you need to make sure that your domain name registrar (which may or may not be your hosting company) allows you to edit these records. Most do, but not all. (And some allow it, but make it very difficult or annoying.)

SPF

SPF — Sender Policy Framework — is an email validation system that can help detect email spoofing (the sending of email as if it came from a domain not owned by the sender).

SPF allows servers receiving messages to validate the origin of the message against a list of hosts which have authority to send mail for a particular domain. The list is controlled by the domain owner, via the registrar, through the SPF system.

Implementing SPF can be helpful in avoiding receiving backscatter (bounced messages based on forged mail appearing to come from your domain) and also spam-related black-listing based on behavior you did not authorize.

Setting up SPF records works differently for different hosts and may not be available for some hosts. If you are going to be heavily reliant on your domain-based email for your business (i.e. you cannot afford to get blacklisted even once), you’ll want to check to make sure this feature is available, and relatively simple to set up. Also, this is important if you are going to be sending mail from a different host than your website.