Should I use my ISP email address?

Should I use my ISP email address?

The short answer in my opinion is NO!

Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as; Xtra, Clear, iHug, Vodafone offer a free email address as part of your package. The problem with this is that it is tied to the ISP and if you move then you loose your email address and all email that is sent to it! They offer you free email addresses to lock you into using there Internet services.

Time to take control of your own email as the last thing you want is for an important email to go missing because you have found a better ISP to provide you Internet Access.

What is an Domain Name?

It is your own peace of Internet Real Estate one of the greatest reasons to purchase a domain name is to protect your identity. One of the most popular reasons for buying a domain name, is to register yourname.com, or yourcompanyname.co.nz, regardless of whether you intend to use it in the near future or not.

Domain Names are host names that the Domain Name System (DNS) uses to identify and map to websites and other Internet Protocol (IP) resources. A good parallel would be to think of domain names as street names. Street names are important because they help people navigate. The IP addresses, on the other hand, are the geographical location of the streets themselves.

Domain names allow us to remember websites more easily than using an IP address. So, for example, instead of having to remember 192.168.1.146 to come to this website, instead you can simply remember www.elite6.co.nz.

The following example illustrates the difference between a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and a domain name:

URL: http://www.elite6.co.nz/about-elite6/
Domain name: www.elite6.co.nz

What is an Email Address?

An email address identifies an “email mailbox” to which email messages may be delivered. A better question what is a “email mailbox” it is the equivalent of a letter box in the postal system these “email mailboxes” are NOT on your computer the are normally looked after by your Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

So you could use any Internet Service Provider to get access to the Internet and use a Free “email mailbox” provider to store your email such as; Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. In my opinion Gmail is the most respected email provider and it is part of Google so they know how to handle spam and scams mail the best as they have a better overview of the Internet than anyone. You can also setup Gmail to check your Xtra, Clear, iHug email accounts and filter out the spam.

Use your domain name as your business e-mail address

Why promote your ISP when you send and receive email when you could be promoting your business? You can be [email protected] rather than [email protected] or [email protected] giving you a more professional online presence.

Change your ISP without changing your e-mail address

If you change Internet Service Providers your customers will still be able to email you and you won’t need to reprint business cards and other stationery – simply update your e-mail forwarding settings and your mail will still get to you.

That means instead of having to change your email address every time you change your provider, you can keep one email address for life.

Make your domain name a customised email address

Email forwarding solution provides your business with a customised, easy to remember and professional looking e-mail address you can give to your customers. Email sent to [email protected] will be redirected to any existing email address that you choose (such as your ISP account) and you can set up your email address so that email appears to come from your customised email address as well.

[email protected]                    [email protected]
                         [email protected]

An email address is composed of a username and a domain name. In the example [email protected],  danny is the username and www.elite6.co.nz is the domain name.

The best way to handle email is Using Domain based E-mail routing this is handled by the company that looks after your Website, you should beable to ask your hosting company to setup a forwarding email address using your own domain and forward the email to your POP/IMAP to your Gmail account such as; [email protected] this way you get to look professional and I have the option to switch email providers and any point without losing any emails ever again.