Email Hosting

What Is Email Hosting?

Email hosting can refer to any service that provides email capability to account holders. Email hosting is available in a variety of ways  For example, educational organizations offer email hosting to their students, faculty, and staff. Employers provide email (for work purposes) to employees. ISPs (Internet Service Providers), such as Comcast, often offer email hosting to their customers. Also, the best web hosting services usually include email hosting in their web hosting packages.

But when people use the term "email hosting," they are often referring not to any of those examples, but to a separate service. In this sense, email hosting doesn't come with web hosting or a relationship with an organization or ISP services. Instead, it's a standalone service for people who want email without a website, or for organizations who want to outsource only their email and be relieved of the need to run an email server in-house. Email hosting from one provider can also be combined with webhosting from a different provider.

Free Email Hosting

Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, MSN Windows Live Hotmail, and others offer free web-based email hosting, Webmail is a useful way to be able to access your mail wherever you go. Free web hosting accounts for business mail, it can have the drawback of possibly appearing unprofessional, as opposed to having an email account with the company name in it.

In addition, such hosts generally accept limited liability and offer service as-is, some may have requirements about frequency of sign-on to keep your account open, In addition, a Yahoo! Mail account, for example, may be terminated for seven identified reasons, as well as other causes that are not stated, and in the case of a termination, Yahoo! will not be liable for consequences.

What Features May Be Offered With Paid Email Hosting?

Paid email hosting is inexpensive, if not free, and avoids many of the issues of free email hosting. When seeking paid email hosting, you may be able to find a range of specific email features, plus a variety of add-ons, depending on the web hosting company that you choose. Here are the key things to look for:

• Number of mailboxes - this may range from 1 to hundreds

• Disk Storage Space - This may be overall or on a per mailbox basis. It may be small enough to be measured in megabytes, or measured in gigabytes, or unlimited.

• Webmail - Capability to access email remotely from an online portal.

• Protocol - You may have a choice between POP3 and IMAP.

• Syncing - You may be able to sync your email between web and desktop and/or between your account and your mobile device.

• Anti-Spam, Anti-Fraud, Anti-Virus - Protection is likely to be supplied.

• Addressbook, Spellchecker, Autoresponder, Forwarding, These fairly standard features may be included to help you organize your contacts, make sure your emails don't have typos, and to take care of mail when you're out of town.

• Support - Check to see what support is offered for the service.

• Exchange - Under various names, this offers you connection to Microsoft Exchange hosting. It may come with the account or be an upgraded service. They often include Microsoft Outlook or Entourage access and Active Sync.

• To-do list and calendar may be available, either through Exchange or separately.

• May have an uptime guarantee.

• May offer texting capability.

• May have a per/day or per/day and per/mailbox limit on emails

• May provide for sharing of mail folders, contacts, calendar, etc.

• May provide collaboration capability.

• May offer a trial period.

Sources

explore.live.com
google.com
info.yahoo.com
godaddy.com
rackspace.com
emailhosting.com gate.com