SoulReaver
Active Member
In most cases when you first start your website or personal blog you choose to host it on a shared hosting in some well known and reviewed web hosting company. Also, you setup some email accounts associated with your domain name for easy management and better web presence.
However, that shared hosting account is being hosted on a shared server where you are sharing all resources and features with other users and by default all emails you send are being sent through the main shared IP address of that server. As result sometimes you may receive bounce back messages with errors or mail delivery failture notifications and you start to worry about the successful mail delivery because you know that you do not send any spam and you do not use the account for newsletters or mass mails.
This happens because some other users on the server are sending mass emails because of various reasons: shell exploits, hacked websites, newsletters and so on and often all other users are directly affected because of the main shared IP address of the server.
If your business emails are important for you and you want to keep the current hosting account and deal with this issue, the most effective option is to set custom email service for your domain names.
The most famous email providers worldwide are Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. Gmail offers such feature, however, it is now paid and is called Google Apps. You can setup unlimited email accounts and manage multiple other features such as Google Calendar, Docs and so on with full Google integration. Outlook.com was the other option for free email service but recentltly Microsoft changed their policy and now they are only offering paid subscriptions.
Well, there is another mail service provider which you may consider using: Zoho mail. Here I will show you how to successfully setup a new domain with that mail service.
Sign-up Process
1. Click here to go directly to their sign-up form to configure new domain name
2. Enter your domain name and click on 'Add Domain'
3. On the first field of the sign-up form you will have to enter your Zohomail ID, which will be associated with your domain name. Note that you will use that ID in future to log-in into your Zohomail account to manage it and create additional mailboxes. Simply choose something like [email protected]. After that proceed further with the rest of the fields. Note that the 'Contact Email' should be an active email account to which you have access, because it will be used during the process to receive confirmation messages.
4. After the successful sign-up you will receive a message into the 'Contact Email' account and you will be redirected to an overview page where you will see your main domain set, along with the allowed mailbox size and number of licenses that you have (email accounts that you may create)
Verification Process
In this step you will have to verify your domain name and update its MX records, so you can start using the external mail service
1. Click on the 'Proceed to verify the domain ownership' link on the overview page
2. You will be redirected to the 'Domain Setup' page, where you have to complete a few steps.
2.1 Domain verification: you may verify the domain by adding CNAME or TXT records into its local DNS zone or you can simply upload an HTML file (similar to the Google WMT verification). You have a very helpful tutorial at the bottom of that page so you can easily add the needed records. Once done click on 'Verify' to complete the verification process.
2.2 Add users: simple step in which you my create any email account you want, which will be associated with your domain name. For example you may create [email protected] or [email protected]
2.3 Create Email Groups: you may create different groups. More information about that can be found here.
2.4 MX Records Configuration: in this step you will have to configure the MX (Mail Exchange) records of your domain name, which the other servers refer to for email delivery. Again you will be provided with helpful tutorial based on the control panel or domain registrar that you are currently using.
2.5 Mail Migration: you may choose whether to migrate your current emails from your current mail provider. I have not personally tested this feature and I do not know if it works correctly.
Usage
When all off the above is set I recommend you to allow up to 24 hours for all MX record changes to take effect because of the propagation period. After that you will start using the Zohomail service for your domain name. You may log-in here with an existing user created in step 2.2 of the Verification process and you may start send and receive messages without worrying about their delivery, they all will be correctly delivered to their recipients. Additionally, you may create mail.yourdomain.com subdomain and redirect it to that page for easy access to the mail accounts and you can even setup a local account with Outlook or Thunderbird, because the IMAP and POP access of Zohomail is provided free of charge.
Sorry for the long post, I've tried to explain the process with single steps because many times I've heard different complains about unsuccessful mail delivery and I think that this is an easy, free and effective way to resolve that issue. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.
However, that shared hosting account is being hosted on a shared server where you are sharing all resources and features with other users and by default all emails you send are being sent through the main shared IP address of that server. As result sometimes you may receive bounce back messages with errors or mail delivery failture notifications and you start to worry about the successful mail delivery because you know that you do not send any spam and you do not use the account for newsletters or mass mails.
This happens because some other users on the server are sending mass emails because of various reasons: shell exploits, hacked websites, newsletters and so on and often all other users are directly affected because of the main shared IP address of the server.
If your business emails are important for you and you want to keep the current hosting account and deal with this issue, the most effective option is to set custom email service for your domain names.
The most famous email providers worldwide are Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. Gmail offers such feature, however, it is now paid and is called Google Apps. You can setup unlimited email accounts and manage multiple other features such as Google Calendar, Docs and so on with full Google integration. Outlook.com was the other option for free email service but recentltly Microsoft changed their policy and now they are only offering paid subscriptions.
Well, there is another mail service provider which you may consider using: Zoho mail. Here I will show you how to successfully setup a new domain with that mail service.
Sign-up Process
1. Click here to go directly to their sign-up form to configure new domain name
2. Enter your domain name and click on 'Add Domain'
3. On the first field of the sign-up form you will have to enter your Zohomail ID, which will be associated with your domain name. Note that you will use that ID in future to log-in into your Zohomail account to manage it and create additional mailboxes. Simply choose something like [email protected]. After that proceed further with the rest of the fields. Note that the 'Contact Email' should be an active email account to which you have access, because it will be used during the process to receive confirmation messages.
4. After the successful sign-up you will receive a message into the 'Contact Email' account and you will be redirected to an overview page where you will see your main domain set, along with the allowed mailbox size and number of licenses that you have (email accounts that you may create)
Verification Process
In this step you will have to verify your domain name and update its MX records, so you can start using the external mail service
1. Click on the 'Proceed to verify the domain ownership' link on the overview page
2. You will be redirected to the 'Domain Setup' page, where you have to complete a few steps.
2.1 Domain verification: you may verify the domain by adding CNAME or TXT records into its local DNS zone or you can simply upload an HTML file (similar to the Google WMT verification). You have a very helpful tutorial at the bottom of that page so you can easily add the needed records. Once done click on 'Verify' to complete the verification process.
2.2 Add users: simple step in which you my create any email account you want, which will be associated with your domain name. For example you may create [email protected] or [email protected]
2.3 Create Email Groups: you may create different groups. More information about that can be found here.
2.4 MX Records Configuration: in this step you will have to configure the MX (Mail Exchange) records of your domain name, which the other servers refer to for email delivery. Again you will be provided with helpful tutorial based on the control panel or domain registrar that you are currently using.
2.5 Mail Migration: you may choose whether to migrate your current emails from your current mail provider. I have not personally tested this feature and I do not know if it works correctly.
Usage
When all off the above is set I recommend you to allow up to 24 hours for all MX record changes to take effect because of the propagation period. After that you will start using the Zohomail service for your domain name. You may log-in here with an existing user created in step 2.2 of the Verification process and you may start send and receive messages without worrying about their delivery, they all will be correctly delivered to their recipients. Additionally, you may create mail.yourdomain.com subdomain and redirect it to that page for easy access to the mail accounts and you can even setup a local account with Outlook or Thunderbird, because the IMAP and POP access of Zohomail is provided free of charge.
Sorry for the long post, I've tried to explain the process with single steps because many times I've heard different complains about unsuccessful mail delivery and I think that this is an easy, free and effective way to resolve that issue. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.
