TL;DR: Don’t rely on free or hosting-bundled email or ‘webmail’ services for your business emails. They are often unreliable and can be seen as unprofessional. Dedicated mail server solutions like Google Workspace ensure your email is secure, always delivered, and reflects positively on your business. A dedicated email service is a vital early investment for your business and brand.
For any business, a professional email address, like info@yourcompanyname.ie, isn’t just a convenience; it’s a cornerstone of your professional identity. It’s often the first point of contact for clients and a clear signal that you take your business seriously. However, in an effort to cut costs, many new businesses make a crucial mistake: relying on free or bundled email or ‘webmail’ services that come with their web hosting or domain registration.
At FlyingFish.ie, we believe in providing dedicated, robust solutions for both your website and your communications, which is why our Web Hosting plans do not include email services. This decision is rooted in ensuring your business email is always reliable, secure, and truly professional.
The Problem with Bundled Email
You’ll often find web hosting providers offering ‘free’ email accounts alongside their hosting or domain registration packages. While seemingly attractive, these services frequently fall short for business use. They are prone to being slow, often lack essential security, and are more susceptible to spam issues. Critical client enquiries can end up in junk folders, or your own outgoing messages could be flagged as spam by major providers. This is not an uncommon problem: studies show a significant percentage of legitimate emails fail to reach people’s inboxes, impacting crucial business communications.
Beyond just basic delivery issues, bundled email services typically offer limited features and poor scalability. As your business grows, you’ll quickly encounter restrictions on storage, the number of mailboxes, and a lack of advanced tools like integrated calendars, shared contacts, or sophisticated anti-phishing protection. Furthermore, support for these ‘free’ add-ons can be subpar, as the web host’s primary focus lies elsewhere. The risk to your reputation, business operations and bottom line simply isn’t worth taking.
Understanding the Difference: Web Servers vs. Mail Servers
We’ve seen this problem firsthand as a web design and website care agency. Many clients, looking to save money, ask us to set up their email on their web server. But the reality is, web servers and mail servers are fundamentally different tools, designed for different jobs.
A web server is built and optimised to host websites. It stores and serves web pages quickly and efficiently to visitors. It’s about delivering your website’s content without delay.
A mail server, conversely, is a sophisticated system specifically engineered for one purpose: handling high volumes of email with perfect reliability and security. A dedicated mail server manages everything from spam filtering and virus scanning to ensuring messages are delivered promptly and securely, providing delivery confirmations and handling bounces.
Attempting to force a web server to perform a mail server’s duties often leads to significant issues: slow message delivery, unreliable forwarding, and messages being blocked by major providers. When your website and email share the same server, a problem with one can impact the other, leading to complete communication blackouts. This is why we strongly advocate for separation.
The Hidden Pitfalls of Email Forwarding
Another common misconception, often intertwined with bundled email, is relying on email forwarding. This setup typically involves having emails come into an inbox on your website server and then getting forwarded onto a free personal email service like Gmail.com. While it might seem convenient, this approach has significant drawbacks. Emails can be very slow to arrive, sometimes experiencing delays of minutes or even hours. Worse still, they can easily get lost in spam filters on the way and never arrive at all. This is because free email providers are constantly battling spam, and forwarded emails, especially from web servers not primarily designed for email, can often be flagged as suspicious, leading to missed opportunities and frustrated clients.
Our Recommended Solution: Dedicated Email via Google Workspace
To ensure your business communications are secure, reliable, and professional, we wholeheartedly recommend and use Google Workspace. It’s a dedicated, professional mail server solution that addresses all the common pitfalls of bundled or free email services. Google Workspace’s dedicated infrastructure guarantees high deliverability and boasts a 99.9% uptime SLA, meaning virtually no downtime for your email.
Google Workspace provides a professional, branded email address for your business, giving you peace of mind that your communications are getting through. For a modest monthly fee, currently around €8.10 in Ireland or £7.00 in the UK per user on the flexible plan, you gain access to an integrated suite of tools beyond just email:
- Google Drive: Secure cloud storage for all your files.
- Docs, Sheets, and Slides: A comprehensive suite of collaboration tools for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
- Calendar & Meet: Integrated scheduling and video conferencing for seamless team and client interactions.
- Appointment Slots: A professional booking page that integrates directly with your website.
- Gemini AI: An integrated AI assistant designed to boost productivity and save time.
While other powerful options exist, such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace’s user-friendly, cloud-first approach is ideal for most small to medium-sized businesses. It’s an investment that significantly enhances your credibility, security, and overall productivity.
The Verdict: Investing in Professional Email
A professional email setup is as fundamental to your brand as your website itself. It’s an investment that pays dividends in reliability, security, and client trust. By separating email from web hosting, we ensure both services operate at their peak, giving your business the robust online presence it deserves.
If you found this article useful and you’re interested in exploring Google Workspace, you can find out more here: https://referworkspace.app.goo.gl/ncCQ. Please note, we may earn a small commission if you sign up through our link, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we use and believe in.
