A company has a site on its own domain, while business cards and email signatures show an address on a free mail service. It works, but it looks less reliable and causes problems that surface later: emails land in spam, a former employee still has the mailbox, clients write to an old address.
Below is why email on your domain matters, where to host it, and what to check when setting it up.
Why an address on your domain
- An address like hello@your-domain shows at once that the email is from a company, not a private person
- It is harder to fake when the DNS records are set up properly
- Mailboxes belong to the company, not employees, and can be handed over
- Site form emails can be sent from the same domain and land in spam less often
Where to host mail
You can get domain email from your hosting provider, but a separate business mail service is usually more reliable. These services have better spam protection, convenient apps, and simpler mailbox management. Mail then does not depend on the hosting, and moving the site does not mean moving the email.
The mail admin account should belong to the business owner, just like the domain registrar. More on this in the note on domain, hosting, and access.
DNS records
For mail to work, the domain settings need a few records. MX says where to deliver incoming mail. SPF and DKIM confirm that outgoing mail was really sent by your servers. DMARC tells mail services what to do with messages that fail the check.
Without these records, mail from your domain is easier to fake, and genuine mail ends up in spam more often. Mail services give the exact record values, and they need to be copied carefully into DNS.
Shared and personal inboxes
For client enquiries a shared address such as info or hello, read by several people, is more convenient. Personal mailboxes are for employees’ own correspondence. That way a client does not lose contact when a manager changes, and site requests do not end up in one person’s inbox.
When an employee leaves
A departing employee’s mailbox is not deleted right away. First change the password, set up forwarding to a colleague or an auto-reply with a new contact, and keep the correspondence. That way you do not lose clients who keep writing to the old address.
If form emails are not arriving, see the note on missing form requests. We set up domains, mail, and hosting as part of hosting setup. If you need help, use the contact form.