Do you use your own domain for e-mail?

[17pm]

Originally Posted by n5bb

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!

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

I'm also thinking about buying a fastmail enhanced account. Even though I hate the fact that they're an australian company and have servers in the US, their webclient is just the best in the market... I also like their 2-factor-authentication, which I need to do some more research before making my decision..

[kijinbear]

Originally Posted by Mugwhamp

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

I use firstname@firstnamelastname.com. It works because all parts of my name are pretty short, but I can see that this might be a problem for people with longer names.

I don't like mail@, contact@, etc. because they look too generic and impersonal. They are the kind of address that a company might assign to a low-ranking employee whose job is to forward each incoming mail to the appropriate department.

[17pm]

I have one question:

Can one use the same domain (example.com) in 2 different e-mail providers?

Let's say I've a family member who uses fastmail who wants to use my domain name. I, however, am a member of runbox.

Is it possible to use 17pm@example.com and 17pmfamilymember@example.com while using different e-mail providers?

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by 17pm

Can one use the same domain (example.com) in 2 different e-mail providers?...

Yes, by using subdomain email addresses (which might confuse people). Or you can make this work indirectly with addresses as you described (using Fastmail to redirect some messages to Runbox). Let me explain:

• The DNS records for your domain specify what happens to all email sent to a domain. The MX email record specifies where all email sent to your domain is delivered, ignoring everything to the left of the @ symbol. The email server (at Fastmail or Runbox) deals with the aliases (the part before @).
• But you could set up subdomains at your domain in your DNS records which separate email providers by subdomain. If you use Fastmail to manage your domain DNS records, this is easy to set up. So me@17pm.example.com could be delivered to Runbox, but me@example.com could be delivered to Fastmail. The two DNS MX records would specify different destination servers for 17pm.example.com and example.com. This assumes you have an Enhanced or equivalent Fastmail account which supports "virtual domains" and some similar feature at Runbox.
• An easier way to do this is to host the domain at Fastmail and not use subdomains, but just target some aliases to Runbox and others to Fastmail. All messages would go through Fastmail servers, but some would be redirected to Runbox without being saved at Fastmail. You would want to enable SRS on the Fastmail Virtual Domains setup page for the aliases which target Runbox so that SPF would not fail. SPF affects the reputation of messages so can affect spam filtering in some cases.

Bill

[17pm]

Thank you Bill! That was helpfull..

Now I need to decide if I want to use a ".net" or ".eu"... Damn, hard decisions I've ahead..

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by 17pm

...Now I need to decide if I want to use a ".net" or ".eu"....

I'm in the US and use ".net" for my personal domain. I have owned and used the domain for 15 years and that top-level domain has worked well for me. Of course, I'm not very familiar with the ".eu" domain.

[17pm]

Oh, one final question (hopefully)..

By sending e-mail using my own domain (17pm@example.com), will my mails go into the spam folder or be blocked all-together (by certain e-mail providers) more frequently?

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by 17pm

Thank you Bill! That was helpfull..
Now I need to decide if I want to use a ".net" or ".eu"... Damn, hard decisions I've ahead..

If not available, consider a .me domain.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by 17pm

By sending e-mail using my own domain (17pm@example.com), will my mails go into the spam folder or be blocked all-together (by certain e-mail providers) more frequently?

In general, email should not be marked as spam more frequently based only on the From email address. The only exception would be some services which treat email from sources offering free email accounts as more suspect, but Fastmail currently has no free accounts and your own domain should not be classified as free. But you might get messages marked as spam based on the message content, of course. And the reputation of your email provider sending server IP and host name has a large effect on the spam scoring. Fastmail does a good job maintaining their reputation and I have no rejected messages when using their service. I'm sure Runbox also maintains a good reputation.

Bill

[werewolf]

Originally Posted by 17pm

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..

For me it was a big hassle figuring out how to get a domain and then set it up and then set it up with Fastmail, and I found Fastmail a hassle too, so now I moved to Outlook free email and I don't even use my domain any more. I guess if you own a business it would be different, but I don't.

[danieldk]

Originally Posted by kijinbear

I don't like mail@, contact@, etc. because they look too generic and impersonal

For this reason, I use me@danieldk.tld, my wife is lucky enough to have a fairly unique first name, so she uses me@<hername>.eu.

me@ is more personal and short & sweet.

On using a domain name: it's something you should definitely do. As others have said, moving from one e-mail provider to another and having to inform hundreds of contacts is a pain. And 75% of them will forget to update their address books (or just look up your last conversation with them and e-mail to that address).

[FredOnline]

Originally Posted by danieldk

me@ is more personal and short & sweet.

IMHO, looking at it from the other side - the person doing the sending - me@ seems somewhat egotistical.

[jarland]

Originally Posted by FredOnline

IMHO, looking at it from the other side - the person doing the sending - me@ seems somewhat egotistical.

Like my father always said...

"Hey now, I resemble that remark."

[William9]

Originally Posted by werewolf

For me it was a big hassle figuring out how to get a domain and then set it up and then set it up with Fastmail, and I found Fastmail a hassle too, so now I moved to Outlook free email and I don't even use my domain any more. I guess if you own a business it would be different, but I don't.

One important advantage that you lose by having free Outlook.com email is the ability to move to another provider -- without changing your email address. If something better comes up such as better spam control, better mail handling, or better user interface, for example, and you want to take advantage of it, you must change addresses.

I previously used a Yahoo! email address for years as one of my primary email addresses, then moved to other providers when I realized that there was better functionality offered by others. I also had an issue where the Yahoo! message search function did not properly find messages. Even though I diligently changed my Yahoo! email address with every correspondent I could think of -- I'm still getting messages and horrific numbers of spam into my practically abandoned Yahoo! account more 2 years later. I few of them are messages that I didn't want to miss.

[jeffpan]

For personal domain, is .Net or even .Org better than .Com?