Should your e‑mail Be on a separate server from your Website?

For most people, the answer to this question is no. Hosting accounts for websites includes e-mail hosting, which can easily handle the typical needs of most users. However, there are certain situations in which it makes sense to host your domain’s e-mail on a different server:


You prefer Q using a web mail service—If you already use an online service such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, you can also have your domain’s e-mail handled through its servers instead of your web hosting provider.

You have your own internal mail server—Hosting your own e-mail on a server in an office is becoming more common, and you can easily keep that server while setting up a website with a web hosting provider.


Your company is using special e-mail software—Tools such as Microsoft Exchange, which integrate e-mail, voice-mail, messaging, and other communications tools into a single package, require a special server for e-mail.

You need high security—If keeping e-mail secure is a top priority, you’ll probably need a specialized e-mail hosting service.

You need added reliability—Having your website and e-mail go down together might be too risky, so having e-mail on a separate server is a way to solve this.


What it takes to have your e‑mail on another server:


It’s beyond the scope of this book to go into the details of sett ing up the connection between a web server and a separate mail server, but the idea is that instructions on your web hosting provider’s server redirect all
incoming mail to a diff erent address. This is done through the domain name server (DNS) records. To set up those instructions, you’ll require the IP address (a numbered address such as 11.111.11.111) of the server
that will handle the mail.

If you give them this IP address, most web hosting providers will make the necessary changes for you, either for free or for a very small fee. Or if you know IT people or have friends who have done this kind of redirection before, you can give them access to your hosting control panel. It is possible to make the changes yourself through your hosting control panel, but I don’t recommend it.