A Guide to Email Server Hosting in 2019

A Guide to Email Server Hosting in 2019

Emails play an indispensable role in business communication. Agreed, digitalization has spurred new avenues of communication including a host of instant messaging services. Emails, nevertheless, remain the primary mode of exchanging information for almost every kind of business.

For e-mail communication, we have a plethora of options in both free and paid email hosting categories. Gmail, Yahoo and Rediffmail offer reliable and effective modes of free e-mail communication. These services may work fine for personal communication but business communication involves the exchange of sensitive information and, therefore, calls for more secure channels.

Now, picture this for a moment. You use a generic email service for your business and someone hacks your email account. The situation will keep you perplexed until the issue gets resolved. Right? You can avoid the incidence of such unsavoury events by opting for e-mail server hosting.

What is E-Mail Server Hosting?

E-mail server hosting is a service that hosts your e-mail on a rented server. Email server hosting fulfils the needs of enterprises that need advanced email services for their business. Small and medium-sized companies that draw a lot of e-mail traffic and establishments seeking their own domain name to distinguish their business fall in this category.

Free e-mail servers usually offer all the basic features needed for business communication. But a professional email server hosting comes with an unmatched set of functionality and security. These services offer a bundle of unique features, for instance, effective spam and malware protection, autoresponders, e-mail rules, unlimited forwarders and aliases, archiving and backup.

Email server hosting allows organizations to focus on other vital aspects, while the service provider handles email hosting.

What Features are Usually Offered in E-Mail Server Hosting?

E-mail server hosting providers differ with respect to the services they offer. Some features are, however, common to most of the hosting services. These include:

1) SPAM Protection

E-mail server hosting providers offer spam protection through a spam filtering setup. This setup uses smart rules to ensure spam does not reach your inbox. The setup lets you blacklist and whitelist e-mail addresses, IP addresses and domains based on your preference. Some service providers also offer spam reports for user review.

2) Unlimited Email Addresses

E-mail service providers usually offer unlimited e-mail addresses as a part of their hosting plan. This allows companies to create and allocate e-mail addresses to as many employees as needed.

3) Webmail Software

E-mail server hosting providers typically offer webmail software for managing e-mails in addition to an e-mail client. Using webmail software, you can access e-mails from anywhere in the world.

4) Auto-Responders

Auto-responder allows you to send automated responses to all the received messages. The message can be customized according to your needs. For instance, if you are on a holiday and do not want interruption, you can set up a response that reads ‘Thanks for your email. I will be out of the office from [DATE] to [DATE] and will have limited access to e-mails.’

5) Email Forwarders

E-mail forwarders allow you to forward e-mails received on your address to any other address.

What Factors Should Be Considered While Choosing an E-Mail Server Hosting Service?     

Given the number of e-mail hosting service providers available today, businesses often need to think twice before finalizing a host. The following features should always be considered while opting for an email hosting service:

1) Security

Security is perhaps the most important factor that should be considered while selecting a host. One should use hosting services that employ advanced tools for securing valuable data. Anti-spam filtering, anti-malware and data protection capabilities should always be in place. A secure hosting service will have an effective disaster recovery plan in addition to a team of experts to monitor the servers round-the-clock.

2) Ease of Use

A good email hosting provider lets you manage your emails with the utmost convenience by offering you a near-complete control over your e-mail environment. Besides an easy-to-use web-based interface, the host should also offer assistance whenever needed. A reliable host offers 24*7 support through multiple communication channels.

3) Availability

In an era when internet users are always online, 24*7 availability is vital. Even an hour of downtime can cause you to lose millions. Since e-mail is an integral part of business communication, it is imperative to choose a service that offers at least 99.9% uptime.

In addition to a high uptime, the service should allow you to access emails on mobile regardless of the operating system on your phone.

4) Compatibility

It is vital to consider an email hosting service that offers synchronization with mobile devices and web applications. The email service should preferably be compatible with commonly used e-mail clients like Outlook and should be accessible on all the major browsers and devices.

5) Storage

To make sure you do not lose critical information, the hosting service should offer a system for archiving information. The host should have provision for keeping all the data in one place and automatically moving older e-mails to the archive. They should guarantee the protection of your data by offering a continuous back-up and disaster recovery.

Should E-Mail Server Hosting and Web Hosting Be Kept Separate?

These days, several hosting providers offer email server hosting bundled with web hosting. Businesses are often tempted to go for hosting plans that combine the two. However, it is wise to keep e-mail hosting and web hosting separate on account of the following reasons:

1) E-Mail is Just an Added Feature

Most of the web hosting providers offer email as an added service because it does not cost much. However, web hosts never offer the best e-mail server hosting as e-mail is just offered as an add-on feature.

2) E-Mail Hosting Takes up Valuable Space

E-mail service takes up valuable space on your server. Incoming and outgoing mails, as well as email attachments, consume space meant for running your website.

3) Web Hosting Experiences Downtime

In case your website goes down, the email goes down too. For businesses who rely on e-mail as their primary mode of communication, this can prove disastrous.

What Benefits does E-Mail Server Hosting Offer?

Now that we have understood the concept of e-mail server hosting, let us discuss the benefits it offers.

1) Security

All professional e-mail server hosting services come with industry-standard encryption. This ensures that the data coming to the server or going out from the server remains encrypted while the e-mail session is active. This ensures no information gets compromised at any point. Plus, there are anti-malware scanners and filters to block suspicious mails and keep your e-mail environment free of all potential threats.

2) Adequate Storage Space

Email hosting solutions offer adequate storage space to let you store and archive valuable information. Plus, you have the flexibility to increase or decrease storage as required.

3) Cost-Effective Option

As you start your business, you may be tempted to host your own e-mail. Self-hosting requires you to purchase expensive hardware and hire IT staff to maintain it. Considering the overheads involved in running and managing your own servers, it is more economical in the long run to choose an e-mail server hosting service.

4) Looks Professional

E-mail server hosting offers a custom domain name that looks professional and adds credibility to your brand. When you run campaigns and send marketing e-mails to your clients, they receive e-mails with the same domain name each time. Many e-mail hosts also allow you to attach your logo.

5) Address Book

Most of the email server hosting providers offer access to public and shared address book that allows users to store contacts and recover them as needed.

The Bottom Line

Considering the advantages e-mail server hosting offers, investing in a reliable email hosting plan is worth every penny spent. At Go4hosting.com, we offer top-notch e-mail hosting and SEO hosting solutions at the most affordable rates. For more information on email or SEO hosting, get in touch with our consultants today.

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