Do you use your own domain for e-mail?
 

Do you use your own domain for e-mail?

What are the pros and cons of it, in your opinion? Would you do it again? Are you considering of just letting your domain expire or do you find it's something that you want to do for as long as possible?

I'm basically thinking about doing it and would like to hear more about it..

I'm using pobox (www.pobox.com) since 2001 and am very satisfied :)
Pobox forwards my incoming messages to my email account(s).
I can change my email account(s) as many times as I wish but my emailaddress (@pobox.com) never changes!
It's true I could do just the same with my domain, but the highlight of pobox are their spam filters. I have zero spam in my inbox!!
The price I pay is $20 per year (if you pay for 5 years you get one more year for free) and it's not much more than you pay for a domain.
Joining pobox was definitely one of my best online deals.

I primarily use my own domain but I still have some addresses at mac.com and gmail.com. There are some services that do not allow registrations from free email services, and there are some cases where services like Gmail and Hotmail judge mail reputation by the sending domain if they have received a large number of spam reports from it. Having your own domain puts you in control of your identity and allows you the freedom to not be bound by the policies of a single company.

Just imagine if you use a shared domain and the company adds a policy that deeply offends you for whatever reason. It happens all the time, but then you either deal with it or you slowly migrate from it while begging everyone you know to update their address books so you can finally stop routing mail through them.

In this day and age, I see no reason at all to NOT own your own domain name, unless you are in a position where you just cannot afford it.

Even if you do not want to pay for hosting, your domain name registrar will usually offer you free forwarding.

What kind of domains do you guys own?

Something that uses your own name or just something random?

Having your own domain is a requirement for a professional or business email address. For personal messages, not a requirement but certainly very handy. The ability to switch email providers without changing addresses is a huge benefit. You need to be slightly techy, however, to set it up.There is a monetary cost, but I think its well worth it. There are some casual users who just don't want to bother with the set up and even a minimal cost.

X2. It's a real pain if you change ISPs or email host and have to inform EVERYBODY of your new address. Domain = a "forever" email address.
I use a couple aliases for business / professional.
One alias for personal (close friends, family).
One for e-commerce (receipts, order confirmations, etc).
One for forums communications.
One for softwares registration.
Etc, etc.
Agreed as well. I even bought domains for niece, nephew, godson. Got lucky and managed to acquire first initial & last name for all (i.e: Jane Doe = jdoe.net, etc.)
I would think name so that recipients may better recognize who belongs to any communications (vs: 17pm@magnoliatree.net (or whatever)).

In the case of Jane Doe = jdoe.net, what email would you use for that?

JaneDoe@jdoe.net? It looks bad imo, you're writing the same twice..

If Jane owns a flower shop, for example:
jane @ jdoe.net
florist @ jdoe.net
sales @ jdoe.net
info @ jdoe.net
If Jane has kids or employees:
billy @ jdoe.net
cindy @ jdoe.net
You're limited only by your imagination.

I use my own domain, I got lucky enough to have @lastname.net. So my whole family now uses our domain. Best decision ever. I put it in on Google Apps free back when it was free, very good decision. People comment on our email addresses a lot and its great because if we move no more worrying about changing ISP addresses or if something ever happens to Gmail, just change the MX records and were good to go somewhere else.

My domain is of the @firstnamelastname.com variety, and I highly recommend something similar if you can get it. As others have stated, whether I switch email providers or not, I don't have to notify my entire address book of an address change, and it appears more professional I think.

and what kind of e-mail do you use with that domain?

firstnamelastname@firstnamelastname.com?

middlename@firstnamelastname.com?

mail@firstnamelastname.com? ...

FWIW, I'm apparently in the vast minority. While I did have a domain a few years ago (for email purposes only), I haven't used one since I let it expire. Of course, that's because I really don't need email as much for communication as I did years ago. Plus, all of the people I routinely corresponded with by email, including the few business customers for whom that means is necessary, gave me funny looks or weird questions when I told them my email address. Not that the address itself was necessarily odd. But they were barely familiar with the big names in free email, much less the lesser known companies (like FM, EuMX, etc.). So a personal domain name — which didn’t actually use any part of my name — just went further in making things… well,… awkward (to me).

So now I have a lite family FM account with loads of aliases, and that's fine for my present purposes. And I don't even notice the various outages that occur which impact others far more. In addition, since I also have a EuMX account as well as a RB account, to both of which I forward my FM email for back-up, I can use any of the 9 or so total interfaces for sending/receiving email. They're enough to satisfy my short attention span. ;)

I also am the owner of a familyname.net domain, and just noticed that today is the 15th anniversary of my purchasing the domain. I have some basic websites for personal use and information, but mainly use the domain for email. I have a Fastmail Enhanced account, so the domain is hosted at Fastmail and no forwarding is required when using the domain. Forwarding can cause difficulties with email reputation and delivery, since SPF is broken by forwarding unless SRS is used. Too many geeky acronyms! :p

I use "firstname @ familyname.net" for my normal private email, and other aliases at the domain for business purposes. Last year I prepaid the domain ownership and related registrar fees for another decade to get a big discount on the fees (and so I don't need to worry about forgetting to renew for many years).

Bill

For most folks I deal with, it's mail@firstnamelastname.com.