Email Hosting Guide

What is email hosting?

In a nutshell, an email hosting provider is a company renting out space in one of its servers for users to store their emails. There is a large pool of email hosting services out there for businesses to pick and choose from. Professional email hosting providers usually vary in terms of what they offer, such as disk space, trial period, pricing, supporting authentication protocols, and so on.

Perhaps the only case where an everyday regular person pays for any email service is when you have a ton of vacation photos that force you to get a family email hosting plan. However, if you are a business that deals with sensitive data, and with today’s strict privacy laws such as GDPR most data are sensitive, you most probably do need a dedicated email server hosting. After all, no one wants to pay a hefty fine for a data breach or unintentional mishandling.

Another security aspect that some businesses are concerned with is the ability to use encrypted email hosting. Let’s take a look at the following scenario to better understand this.

Imagine you are an insurance company dealing with a large volume of reimbursement claims for medical treatment. Before any of those claims can be approved, a standard request is sent to a hospital asking for the medical records of the patient. This is done just to confirm that the cause for the hospital admission was not a pre-existing condition or substance use that falls outside the insurance policy coverage. This would mean that you need to be a HIPAA-compliant entity to be able to share or store this type of information via an encrypted email hosting solution.

Furthermore, one of the points in the “HIPAA act” requires entities to store and share medical data between servers that are located within the USA’s borders. If our example insurance company is located outside of the USA, it would need an offshore email hosting solution with servers that are physically located somewhere in the US. The same scenario can be applied to any other entity that for some reason needs to store particular data in a specific country.

Besides the security benefits of paid hosting service, there is a credibility aspect to it as well. Using an email hosting service, you can easily attach your domain name to the email address. This might look like a minor “aesthetics” detail but in reality it can play a major part in the subscription rates, and spam score.

Whether it’s a small business or a large corporation, chances are they need a professional email hosting service even if they are not aware of it and mistake web hosting to be the same thing. But to be fair, it can get complicated trying to understand the differences between all the types of hosting services, the benefits that come with them, and above all how things function. To make things clear and understand what is what, let’s take a closer look at the “nuts and bolts” behind email hosting infrastructure.

What is hosted email?

Before we dive into the details, it’s important to differentiate between a hosted email provider, webmail, and an email client, as these three are often looked at as one. As an example, let’s take Bluehost as an email hosting provider, discontinued Outlook Express as an email client, and Gmail as webmail.

Any given business can purchase a plan from Bluehost to store, receive and send emails from their servers. The very same business will need a tool to write, read and access those emails, that tool is called MUA (Mail User Agent). This can be done either via an email client (Outlook Express) or webmail (Gmail).

Using webmail, one would send, receive and read emails via a web-based application that is connected to a cloud email hosting solution and does not download the actual files to local computer storage. An email client, on the other hand, is a desktop application that downloads emails from the server to a computer and reads them from local storage.

Sorting through: Domain – Web Hosting – Email domain – Email hosting

Understanding the difference between an email hosting provider and an email client is only one part of the confusion that everyday users encounter. The second part is the distinction between web and domain hosting, an email domain, and email hosting.

Domain Hosting

Just like any house needs an address to be registered, so does a website, only it’s called a domain. The string of text that comes before the dash in the URL field of your web browser. That string of text is registered and stored with a third-party service called Domain Hosting that uses DNS (Domain Name System) records to connect the name of a website to an email address and other related services.

Web Hosting

A typical website usually consists of several files. These are all the text and media files, 

and code-related files such as HTML, CSS, JS, and so on. If one file is not linked to another properly then things go wrong and something will not appear on a website. But before that, these files need to be stored somewhere to function properly and appear on the internet. This is where web hosting comes into the picture, for example best drupal hosting. Essentially a service that lets a business or an individual buy actual disc space on a server and store those files. 

Email Domain

Simply put, anything that comes after the “@” symbol in an email address is what’s considered an email domain. If an email is for personal use, the email domain is most likely going to be from one of the industry leaders such as @gmail.com or @icloud.com. If an email address is intended for business use, it’s going to be the company’s website domain name that will appear after the “@” symbol.

When to use Email Hosting separately from Web Hosting?

Most hosting services offer plans that include everything from domain registration to web and email hosting. At first glance, this might look like a convenient choice, store everything in one place and pay one company to do that. But there are a number of reasons why hosting a website and email separately can benefit a business.

The great part about email only hosting is that it doesn’t have to be as performance-oriented as the one for websites. Look at it this way, if a website’s load speed is slow, it will have an impact on conversion rates as people simply don’t have patience and will leave. If it’s an eCommerce business, then it can get even worse. Not only will people abandon shopping sessions due to the slow performance of an online store but they will have a negative lasting impression and will not return. Now, what’s the worst thing that can happen if the performance of your email hosting is slow? No one will notice an email arriving 20 seconds later or email forwarding being laggy.

Another issue that can arise from combined hosting is that if a website goes down so will its email. This might not seem like a crucial issue but again let’s take the online store example. After spending half an hour browsing and selecting the perfect t-shirt, entering all of the addresses and credit card details, the user hits that big highlighted “Confirm Order” button and the website goes down. Now there is confusion on the user’s part, who is typing up an angry email to the Customer Service team asking what happened. A few days go by and he calls in to find out the status of the order and why there is no reply, only to find out the email never arrived. There are a handful of chain reaction scenarios such as this one that can damage a business’s revenue and most importantly their reputation.

Under the hood: How email infrastructure works and where is email hosting in it?

The regular process of sending and receiving emails that we as users see on the surface is a few clicks of a button, but there is a lot more behind the scenes. Email infrastructure is a perfect synergy between hardware and software with different stages of outbound and inbound processes, with each one being responsible for performing various record checks, authentication protocols, and verifications.
 

• Any email sent out is essentially a text file and its attachment if there is one, created by the sender using a Mail User Agent. Once the “send” button is clicked, the file is uploaded to an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server. 
• The uploading is done by MSA (Mail Sending Agent), a software that communicates with MTA (Mail Transfer Agent). MTA is responsible for the SMTP relay process that leads to the actual email delivery. 
• Once the SMPT relay is complete, the email files are “picked up” by MDA (Mail Delivery Agent), a software on the recipient’s server that finally delivers the email to the mailbox.

How does email hosting function?

Besides the entire SMTP email hosting process that includes files going from point A to point B and authentication in between as described above, there is actual file storage involved.

Depending on the needs, there are different types of storage capacity that hosting companies provide. For example, email hosting for small business will offer less disk space on the server and will include an X number of mailboxes at a fixed price. In addition to the storage capacity, there are different protocols that hosting solutions use to handle emails. The two main protocols are POP3 and IMAP.

How does the email hosting setup process work?

Once a domain name is selected and registered, the email hosting provider and the relevant plan that meets users’ needs are chosen.

The next step is to add your domain name and verify the ownership in your MUA. Today webmail control panels across different solutions are similar and tend to be self-explanatory when it comes to figuring out what information goes where.

From the user’s perspective, the actual verification process is a simple act of copying and pasting information. From the “Admin Console” of an MUA, relevant DNS records need to be copied over to a “DNS Manager” page of the hosting provider.

After the verification process is done a user account or multiple accounts can be added to the webmail and emails can be sent. But to allow the server to receive emails, one extra step needs to be done. From a “DNS Manager” page, MX (Mail Exchanger) records need to be copied into the “Admin Console” of an MUA so that the two are configured.

Now that everything is set up, emails can be sent and received, but you definitely don’t want to receive all of the emails. Phishing scams go as far back as the creation of emails themselves and no one likes their address ending up on a bulk email sending list of a `scammer. But for every problem, there is a solution.

In our case, the solution would be adding SPF and DKIM records to the “Domain Managers” page of a hosting provider. These records, along with DMARC, and the more recent BIMI, act as the backbone of the email authentication process for the receiving servers making everyone using emails a lot safer.

Should I host my own email server (hosted vs on-premise)?

There is no typical image of an email hosting client, so the approach of how one goes about storing emails largely depends on their needs. However, there are two primary methods that providers offer their services in, and that is hosted and on-premise email hosting.

On-premise –  with this method a company that needs hosting is responsible for the purchase of the physical servers, network infrastructure, database software, any other related hardware, and everything that facilitates the work of the servers. On top of that, any updates, and bug fixes are the responsibility of the company. The only thing that a hosting service provider in this case would do is sell the software that is installed on the servers.

Additionally, a company that decides to go the on-premises hosting way, must have a competent IT team that will be responsible for maintaining the servers and solving any emergencies. Going this route might seem like a hassle, and it is, but for some businesses, there is simply no other choice. This is primarily for companies that want to have physical access to their servers because of security concerns. Such businesses usually need archiving emails and tend to produce and store a large amount of sensitive data. This can be anything from credit card numbers to any other financial information that needs to be protected from data breaches.

Hosted – similar to the on-premises method, here a company buys the relevant software that will run on the server but doesn’t need to purchase any of the actual hardware. In this case, a hosting provider essentially rents out their servers on an individual basis. This is the primary hassle-free hosting method that most businesses go for.

Now that we’ve clarified the difference between the hosting methods, let’s take a look at the main types of hosting solutions for businesses and which one fits who best. 

Enterprise email hosting – a large organization, that is an enterprise business and needs its email infrastructure and ability to have thousands of user accounts would opt for this type of hosting. It can also be an educational institution like a university, for example. Hundreds of administrative staff, professors, and thousands of students would need a university email account to submit academic files and login into a custom LMS (Learning management system). Talking about LMS, you can check out LMS hosting and avoid server managing hassles in a few clicks.

Corporate email hosting – this is a specialized hosting service for a variety of middle to large businesses. Typically the packages offered for corporate hosting would include custom disk space, spam filtering, virus protection, multiple accounts, on-demand technical support, and in some cases, email marketing services. Additionally, some providers offer the development of custom features. For example, this can be a forwarding email hosting feature that automatically sends a copy of important transactional emails to a separate backup server.

Security and privacy concerns when choosing email hosting

Not everyone is an email hosting specialist, and it’s impossible to know all of the aspects of SMTP server security. But it is possible to get a good picture of just how secure an email provider is by asking a few of these “simple” questions when making your pick.

• How seriously does the provider take SMTP Security?
• What authentication protocols does the provider implement?
• Which cryptography technique is used in email transfer?
• What end-to-end encryption methods does the provider use?
• Does the provider offer a dedicated private email hosting server?
• What antispam, anti-malware, and antivirus measures does the provider offer?

Thanks for going with us through this guide about benefits of email hosting. The material was initially published in the Mailtrap blog by Denys Kontorskyy.

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Buddha Community

Simple Login Page in HTML and CSS | Source Code

Hello guys, Today in this post we’ll learn How to Create a Simple Login Page with a fantastic design. To create it we are going to use pure CSS and HTML. Hope you enjoy this post.

A login page is one of the most important component of a website or app that allows authorized users to access an entire site or a part of a website. You would have already seen them when visiting a website. Let's head to create it.

Whether it’s a signup or login page, it should be catchy, user-friendly and easy to use. These types of Forms lead to increased sales, lead generation, and customer growth.

Demo

Click to watch demo!

Simple Login Page HTML CSS (source code)

<!DOCTYPE html>
  <html lang="en" >
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/normalize/5.0.0/normalize.min.css">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="styledfer.css">
  </head>

  <body>
   <div id="login-form-wrap">
    <h2>Login</h2>
    <form id="login-form">
      <p>
      <input type="email" id="email" name="email" placeholder="Email " required><i class="validation"><span></span><span></span></i>
      </p>
      <p>
      <input type="password" id="password" name="password" placeholder="Password" required><i class="validation"><span></span><span></span></i>
      </p>
      <p>
      <input type="submit" id="login" value="Login">
      </p>

      </form>
    <div id="create-account-wrap">
      <p>Don't have an accout? <a href="#">Create One</a><p>
    </div>
   </div>
    
  <script src='https://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.2.4.min.js'></script>
  <script src='https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery-validate/1.15.0/jquery.validate.min.js'></script>
  </body>
</html>

CSS CODE

body {
  background-color: #020202;
  font-size: 1.6rem;
  font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;
  color: #2b3e51;
}
h2 {
  font-weight: 300;
  text-align: center;
}
p {
  position: relative;
}
a,
a:link,
a:visited,
a:active {
  color: #ff9100;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease;
  transition: all 0.2s ease;
}
a:focus, a:hover,
a:link:focus,
a:link:hover,
a:visited:focus,
a:visited:hover,
a:active:focus,
a:active:hover {
  color: #ff9f22;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease;
  transition: all 0.2s ease;
}
#login-form-wrap {
  background-color: #fff;
  width: 16em;
  margin: 30px auto;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 20px 0 0 0;
  border-radius: 4px;
  box-shadow: 0px 30px 50px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
}
#login-form {
  padding: 0 60px;
}
input {
  display: block;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  width: 100%;
  outline: none;
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  border-radius: 4px;
}
#email,
#password {
  width: 100%;
  padding: 0 0 0 10px;
  margin: 0;
  color: #8a8b8e;
  border: 1px solid #c2c0ca;
  font-style: normal;
  font-size: 16px;
  -webkit-appearance: none;
     -moz-appearance: none;
          appearance: none;
  position: relative;
  display: inline-block;
  background: none;
}
#email:focus,
#password:focus {
  border-color: #3ca9e2;
}
#email:focus:invalid,
#password:focus:invalid {
  color: #cc1e2b;
  border-color: #cc1e2b;
}
#email:valid ~ .validation,
#password:valid ~ .validation 
{
  display: block;
  border-color: #0C0;
}
#email:valid ~ .validation span,
#password:valid ~ .validation span{
  background: #0C0;
  position: absolute;
  border-radius: 6px;
}
#email:valid ~ .validation span:first-child,
#password:valid ~ .validation span:first-child{
  top: 30px;
  left: 14px;
  width: 20px;
  height: 3px;
  -webkit-transform: rotate(-45deg);
          transform: rotate(-45deg);
}
#email:valid ~ .validation span:last-child
#password:valid ~ .validation span:last-child
{
  top: 35px;
  left: 8px;
  width: 11px;
  height: 3px;
  -webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
          transform: rotate(45deg);
}
.validation {
  display: none;
  position: absolute;
  content: " ";
  height: 60px;
  width: 30px;
  right: 15px;
  top: 0px;
}
input[type="submit"] {
  border: none;
  display: block;
  background-color: #ff9100;
  color: #fff;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  cursor: pointer;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease;
  transition: all 0.2s ease;
  font-size: 18px;
  position: relative;
  display: inline-block;
  cursor: pointer;
  text-align: center;
}
input[type="submit"]:hover {
  background-color: #ff9b17;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease;
  transition: all 0.2s ease;
}

#create-account-wrap {
  background-color: #eeedf1;
  color: #8a8b8e;
  font-size: 14px;
  width: 100%;
  padding: 10px 0;
  border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px;
}

Congratulations! You have now successfully created our Simple Login Page in HTML and CSS.

My Website: codewithayan, see this to checkout all of my amazing Tutorials.

Next Level Ops Podcast: Working with Self-hosting Email with Christian Mollekopf

What should you consider when choosing an email hosting provider? What are some of the options users have when searching for good email providers, especially if you also want to look at enterprise options? Is it good enough to opt for what your web host offers or to use a service like GSuite? What are some of the things you should think about when going the self-hosting route? In this episode, Joe and Christian discuss how to address options and issues surrounding email hosting.

“I think usually it [email] is something that you are going to use for quite a long time. It’s like a very central part of your infrastructure typically. So, I think it’s definitely worth considering a couple of options,” says Christian. When choosing the right hosting provider, it’s worth considering things like what are the features you require, whether it’s simply email or also calendars and tasks, whether you need shared folders and calendars, and which type of client do you want. Another factor to consider is vendor lock in – just in case you want to transfer to another hosting provider and how easy will it be for you to migrate your data to another system.

If vendor lock in is an issue of concern for you, then the question arises whether you can self-host your email. What happens when you do that? Some common issues to watch out for are to make sure that other servers can distinguish between genuine email coming from your server and spam coming from other servers, pretending to come from your server, to ensure that your server doesn’t send spam, and reputation management of your domain. To read some of the best practices of self-hosting email, go here.

Key Takeaways

• What should someone consider when choosing an email hosting provider? Your email is probably going to be a central part of the infrastructure and you’ll use it for a long time to start out by keeping this in mind. The second thing is to consider the features you need, such as a calendar, for example. Do consider your email’s interoperability and vendor lock-in. You should be able to migrate away if you want to.
• What are the benefits of self-hosting over using a service like Gmail? One word: Control. You maintain control over your solution. If you self-host, you have more control over your email.
• As a hosting provider, what are some of the pitfalls of hosting email? The biggest pitfall is reputation management. Other services that receive email have to fight a lot of spam. Track the reputation of domains and IP addresses.
• What features in Plesk help with email hosting? SPF, DMARK, DKIM are built-in. Other UIs for important measures like rate and message size limits and the Plesk Email Security extension with anti-spam. Find out more about the features here.

…Alright Pleskians, it’s time to hit the play button if you want to hear the rest. If you’re interested in hearing more from Next Level Ops, check out the rest of our podcasts. We’ll be back soon with our last installment.

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Best Practices for Running Your Own Email Server

Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab lets you become your own mail service provider in a few easy steps. It’s like creating a personal Gmail service, one that you control from top to bottom. Running the mail server allows you to store your own email, access the mail server’s logs, and access the raw email files in a user’s mailbox.

However, one key concern when running your own mail server is email deliverability. Without being able to effectively reach your customer base, you cannot do business. So, how do you ensure your emails do not end up as spam?

It’s important to follow common rules and best practices when operating a mail server to guarantee your emails always reach their destination. In this quick guide, we’ll walk you through a few things to consider, to make sure that your emails always end up where you intend.

Reputation Management

Much of email delivery depends on your reputation, which is attached to your IPs and domains.

Please note that there might be different types of setups where you can either influence these things or not:

• If you’re **running your own server **(or VPS – virtual private server) or a bunch of servers with Plesk for shared hosting with WHMCS, you have full influence and control about the following settings.
• If you’re an **end customer or reseller **of a service provider or hoster using Plesk, unfortunately only your hosting provider can do these modifications for you. In case you want to regain control of your environments, it’s time to move your shared hosting account to your own VPS!
• If you run Plesk on one of the hyperscale cloud providers such as DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS/Lightsail, Azure, or Google, your default email / SMTP (Port 25 or not) might be blocked on the infrastructure level. If that’s the case, you might need to contact their support to unblock it. In addition, also check that you’re receiving a reverse DNS entry for your IP that is required for operating an email server properly.

The two key-factors that we can influence are:

**1. Ensure other servers can distinguish **between genuine email coming from your server and spam coming from other servers, pretending to come from your server. If you don’t, a spammer can burn your hard-earned reputation while delivering their spam.

You can ensure this by enabling DKIM/DMARC and SPF protection in Plesk under “Server-Wide Mail Settings”.

#plesk news and announcements #email #email server #kolab #plesk email security #plesk premium email #self-hosted email #spam

Linux Reseller Hosting

Cloudminister provides services that help clients in improvising their website performance. The company is best known for offering the best Linux Reseller Hosting Plans at an affordable price. The Linux Reseller Hosting Plans, the company offers is the dream of every client which can only be fulfilled by contacting Cloudminister. Various plans are offered which are distributed according to the requirement and the client. The solutions the company provides is unimaginable because it includes Free Full Weekly Backup, SSD Storage, Firewall Security, Free Fully Managed Support, Free Migration, and the list goes on.

Our solutions are featured with

• FREE Full Daily Backup
• FREE Let’s Encrypt SSL
• SSD Storage
• FREE Softaculous Auto Installer
• FREE Migration
• FREE Fully Managed Support
• 99.99% Uptime Guarantee
• Firewall Security

#best linux reseller hosting #linux reseller hosting plan #reseller hosting in india #cheap linux reseller hosting #best reseller hosting india #cloud reseller hosting india

Best Email marketing strategy for Business to Reach Customer

A company can plan when to send time-based promotions or non-promotional emails using an email marketing strategy. With an email marketing strategy in place, marketers can plan out their email advertising process ahead of time.Top Email Marketing Platform

#creative email marketing services #email marketing #best email marketing services #top email marketing platform #email database & marketing services #email marketing service provider in pune