Follow-up: Why You Need a Second (and Better) E-mail Address

On February 06, 2009, I posted an article entitled, "Why You Need a Second (and Better) E-mail Address." I was pleasantly surprised by the number of comments posted at the end of the article at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/02/why-you-need-a-second-and-better-email-address-by-dick-eastman.html. Obviously, I struck a chord. Lots of people seem to have concerns about the future of their e-mail accounts – and with good reason. With the advent of fiber optic services and the added costs of implementing them, even some of the large Internet service providers are redefining their customer territories. Some major shifts in geographic coverage across the country could be around the corner, and we can only guess how prepared anyone's incoming and outgoing providers will be for transferring customers. How prepared a customer is for such a change is the subject of the article mentioned above and now, this one, too.

In the first article, I described several scenarios for making sure that your e-mail will still be available to you in the future. I deliberately left out my favorite option, however, with the belief that it would be too complicated for most non-technical readers. However,  the number of comments posted by people who have already used this more complicated option leads me to a different view. Therefore, I decided to write this article to describe what might be the best option of all. I will admit that this solution requires a bit of technical expertise, however.

In the earlier article, I suggested switching your e-mail account from any service offered by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to something that will probably last longer. ISPs get bought and sold almost weekly, often changing their names in the process and requiring their customers to change e-mail addresses, often with little advance notice. I described a recent scenario involving the sale of the Verizon business in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The customers in those three states were abruptly switched to new e-mail addresses ending in "@myfairpoint.net" addresses. Even worse, the new e-mail servers apparently were overloaded by the sudden growth in business and crashed frequently or had other problems. The online message boards are full of complaints from former Verizon customers.

The scenario I described involved Verizon and Fairpoint, but similar articles could be written about any number of other buyouts, bankruptcies, and mergers in the past few years. The fact is that thousands of e-mail addresses have been changed abruptly, leaving little time to notify friends and relatives of the changes. Even worse, if you have spent years posting messages online of "looking for the ancestors of..." and left your contact information attached to each message, how do you go back later and change all those listings when your e-mail address is suddenly changed without your permission? In fact, you also face a similar scenario when you move and find that your former cable modem or DSL provider does not offer services at the new location.

In the earlier article, I suggested switching to an ISP-independent e-mail provider, such as Google's Gmail or Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. Those services seem to be much more reliable with no forced e-mail address changes to date. Of course, there is no guarantee of stability in the future. While it hasn't happened yet, there is a theoretical possibility that Gmail or Yahoo Mail or Hotmail could be acquired or even declare bankruptcy. I believe such possibilities are slim, but they cannot be discounted entirely. Perhaps we all should use more permanent solutions.

Indeed, it is possible to obtain an e-mail address that won't change. Well, let's say there is a 99.999% chance that it won't change. All changes will be under your direct control; nothing changes unless you change it. I can settle for that.

The method of obtaining a permanent e-mail address is to get your own domain name. If your name is John Smith, why would you want an e-mail address that ends in "@verizon.net" or "@gmail.com" or "@yahoo.com" or "@hotmail.com" or "@aol.com?" Wouldn't you rather have an e-mail address that ends in "@johnsmith.com?" How about john@JohnSmith.com?

Obtaining your own domain name is surprisingly easy. All domain names are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Not surprisingly, someone has already claimed JohnSmith.com; but how about a combination of your first and last names? (I already registered DickEastman.com some years ago.) If that is already taken, how about inserting your middle initial, such as: JohnQSmith.com?

Even better for genealogists, how about a family-oriented domain name that you can share with family members, such as: EastmanFamily.com or EastmanRoots.com? You don't have to be limited to ".com" addresses, you can use JohnSmith.org or JohnSmith.net or JohnSmith.us or even the new .name domains, such as JohnSmith.name. With a bit of imagination, I suspect you can come up with all sorts of possibilities. Of course, Canadians can obtain JohnSmith.ca, anyone in the United Kingdom can obtain a domain ending in “.uk” and so on and so forth.

Several years ago I registered eogn.com (which stands for "Eastman's-Online-Genealogy-Newsletter-dot-com"). That is not my name, but I used the same process to register a domain name for this newsletter. Now I can have ANY e-mail address that I want that ends in "@eogn.com." Indeed, one of my alternate e-mail addresses that I use on occasion is dick.eastman@eogn.com.

Since I also registered DickEastman.com some time ago, I also have another e-mail address: dick.eastman@dickeastman.com. Once you own your own domain name, you can create thousands of e-mail addresses and share them with family members. For instance, if Homer Simpson owned SimpsonFamily.com, he could use Homer@SimpsonFamily.com and give the address of Marge@SimpsonFamily to his wife. Of course, America's favorite child would be Bart@SimpsonFamily.com. All of this is possible by registering one domain name and paying one modest fee.

The best thing about registering your own domain name is that you own it. You can pay someone else to run the mail server for you (which is very cheap to do); but if that company goes out of business, you can easily switch the mail server to a different company and continue to send and receive e-mail without changing your e-mail address.

I suppose you could run your own mail server, but I believe that very few people do that. Most pay some company a few dollars a year to handle the mail for them.

All you need to do is to register your chosen domain name with any of the dozens of domain registrars available. Wikipedia maintains a list if the 15 biggest registrars at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Domain_Registrars. Go Daddy is listed as the biggest, so I will use that company as an example. However, similar processes and prices can be found at most of Go Daddy's competitors.

Go Daddy charges $9.99 a year to register and own a domain. Keep in mind that this is a YEARLY price; you do have to renew it every year. Many companies offer discounts if you purchase multi-year agreements. (I have paid for eogn.com for the next five years and thereby obtained a sizable discount.) In addition, Go Daddy will even provide a mail server and will maintain it for you. Go Daddy will give you up to 100 e-mail accounts on that mail server and will also provide a web server with up to 100 gigabytes of storage space, should you wish to create web pages. You are not required to use Go Daddy for the e-mail server; others will provide the service for you at somewhat similar fees.

Go Daddy's price for the cheapest such plan for a mail server/web server is $4.99 per month ($59.88 a year). However, if you pay three years' fees in advance, the price drops to $4.25 a month ($51.00 a year). That's not a bad price for 100 e-mail accounts plus 10 gigabytes of web server pages.

Those prices are annual; you pay every year for the service. Add the price for the mail server/web server and the domain registration together, and you are paying a total of $60.99 per year for e-mail and web services.

By the way, Go Daddy isn't the cheapest service available. However, since that company is the largest, I used Go Daddy as an example. Their prices seem typical.

The technical expertise required to register a domain and to configure e-mail accounts isn't great, but you probably need to be familiar with the terminology involved. You never touch the mail server and web server hardware, nor will you ever install any software on those servers. You will, however, have to perform some minimal configuration to create e-mail accounts. The process is simple if you know the buzzwords involved, but it can be confusing to anyone who has not configured such things before. If you're not comfortable with it, I'd suggest you ask for assistance from a knowledgeable friend or relative.

At these prices, the domain registrars are not in a position to provide much technical assistance. Providing technical support is expensive, and one phone call from a customer could easily cost more than the potential profit for a year or more. Therefore, most domain registrars do not offer live telephone assistance.

I have stressed the technical and business advantages of owning your own domain name for e-mail purposes, but there is one more advantage: the satisfaction of giving out your e-mail address to others when it is based upon your own name. Having an e-mail address of myname@mysurname.com is much more gratifying than having a nondescript, generic e-mail address, such as Diane236734@aol.com!

Besides, your friends and relatives can probably remember your e-mail address more easily if it is based on your name.

Since you'll be paying for both a mail server and a web server, this may be the opportunity for you to try some of the ideas I've posed in past articles for use with that web server!

Comments

[Israel Pickholtz]

"Besides, your friends and relatives can probably remember your e-mail address more easily if it is based on your name."

In my case, my domain name is "pikholz" which is how it was spelled in Galicia 150 years ago, though my own family has spelled it "Pickholtz" since soon after arriving in the US a hundred years ago. As a result, many new friends cannot spell my personal surname, because they think it's like the domain name. LOL!

[Adam Brown]

I experienced a domain name change for my email with an ISP when changing from dial-up to ADSL. Some time later I wanted to change ISP and would have another email address change, so I started looking at options to allow me to change ISP without changing email address. I looked at using one of the free accounts, and asked myself, why are they free? how long will they be free? and what happens if they go bust?

This led me to registering my own domain, best decision I ever made.

It costs me AU$60 annually which includes email and a good sized web site. I am in Australia and we have a domain specifically for individuals to use yourname.id.au where "yourname" should be anything somehow related to your name.

One word of advice when looking for a web hosting company, check them out and make sure they are a well set-up business with quality equipment such as servers, power supply etc. I have heard of some web hosting being operated out of a spare room at home which generally provides a very poor quality of service. They look great on their web site and in the advertising, but that is as far as it goes. Word of mouth is a good indicator of a quality service.

[jim]

Another fairly stable place to have your email address is the university or college you attended. Most will provide a free address for alumni and then it can be configured to forward all mail to eogn.com or anywhere else.

[Larry Day]

I have had my own domain name with 200 mail boxes hosted by Google (Gmail) for a couple of years. Gmail obtained my domain name for me and set everything up and all this for the yearly fee of $10. It even supports pointing my other email accounts, regardless of ISP, to one mail box so that I only have to configure my email reader for one mail box. When I send, reply or forward email I have the option of using my domain address or the any of my other addresses as the "sent from" address. It has worked perfectly.

[Margie]

Do the cost of the mail/web server include the internet connection? Or is it just space out there that I'd still need to hire some sort of ISP to access. Seems awfully cheap compared to the $40 a month I pay to Earthlink for a basic account.

[Dick Eastman]

The prices listed in the article are for a domain name and a mail server ONLY. In fact, you can find even cheaper prices (with less service) if you shop around.

HOWEVER, those prices do not include Internet access. The assumption is that you already have Internet access provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP), your school, your employer, etc.

- Dick Eastman

[Bill in Texas]

One thing about the geographic-specific domain names such as .us, .ca, etc. You do not have to be in that country to register a domain name for that country. As an example, we host a genealogy website for the OnLine Parish Clerks for Lancashire County (England) named "lan-opc.org.uk" (a British domain name). However, the domain name owner (not us) is in Texas we host the site which is located physically here in Texas. Because this site is dedicated to the preservation of British records, it was felt that the British domain name was appropriate.

[Tom]

I've always been curious about the technical reason for an e-mail provider's not providing a forwarding address. Isn't there some way a person can have terminated email still be re-directed to a site of his or her choosing? I know there's probably no way--I just want to know why that is.

[MIchael Jefferies]

I used to use an email address based on my domain name but was so plagued with spam that I gave up using it. I have two non-isp email adddresses; one with Googlemail and one with Fastmail and both using my name. Both almost completely eliminate spam and both reasonably logical for users. I think this is best.

[Carol]

I can appreciate the subject matter here but I must log a complaint,as a sidebar, about the use of "Go Daddy" as an example. I realize that it was just the author's example, but I have to mention that they produced and sponsored what I thought was a rather disgusting and offensive ad for the Super Bowl [the Beaver ad] that I decided right then when I viewed it that I would never spend a dime at "Go Daddy".
I mention this in case someone else might feel the same way about offensive advertizing to get the public's attention and money.

[Margaret]

Dick,

Not having a separate server, I have a couple of question for you:

With your five-year contract, did you get a guarantee of the return of funds if the provider goes out of business during that time?

Would the provider be required to notify you of impending cessation of services or would you suddenly be cut off and have to scramble for a new mail server? I gather that your internet provider e-mail service would allow you to be "live" to search out new providers for your domain name.

[Dick Eastman]

---> With your five-year contract, did you get a guarantee of the return of funds if the provider goes out of business during that time?

No. That's the beauty of owning your own domain name. If the provider goes out of business, I can switch to a different provider within 2 or 3 days and remain in business at the same e-mail address. I am no longer dependent on an Internet service provider. I can switch providers whenever I wish.

[Keith Hunter]

Margie,
You will still need an ISP for internet access. However, most host email providers offer web access to their email systems so you can access your email from just about anywhere.

[Nick Stoddard]

This is great advice. I pay only 10 dollars a year for the domain name FamilyLegacy.org. It enables me to post all of my family history under my own website name, and also to have a consistent email address. I also use a service provided for free by Google called Google Apps. This allows you to create web pages and blogs for your domain name. Most importantly, though, it gives you 50 email accounts for your domain for free! There's a lot you can do with a low-cost domain name.

[Clay]

I have had my own domain for many years (a .org address). It costs $20 per year for both domain registration and unlimited email addresses. I also have email accounts for special purposes on some of the free services.

In addition to admittedly limited Spam filtering by the provider, my domain addresses draw less Spam then most of my free service accounts. I believe the '.org' suffix is less likely to be spammed than addresses with a '.com' suffix. I also provide different unique addresses when buying something online or otherwise giving out an address. For instance, tax software registration will be given an address of tax@nnnnn.org and a school alumni group will be given an address of school_initials@nnnnn.org. Then should I begin receiving junk mail with one of the addresses, I (1) know who to complain to and (2) can set a filter to automatically route associated mail to the delete bin.

To answer a previous poster, I also get a discount for multiple year registration. If the provider goes out of business, 'unspent' fees would most likely be lost. This is a risk one takes for getting a multiyear discount and for the convenience of not having to renew every year. This is much like a magazine subscription. The magazine could also go out of business without being able to refund unused subscription fees. However, as Dick pointed out, I could move my domain to another provider within a couple days.

[Mary Holland]

Clay -

You don't mention where you got your domain name. Would you be willing to help us out with a referral to that company?
Thanks
Mary