In an age where everything can feel like it\u2019s moving at the speed of light, it\u2019s almost funny how we\u2019ve never quite gotten past the need for email. What other technology has remained relatively unchanged but critical to business and communication over the course of twenty-plus years? While industry leaders and opinion columnists have been publishing pieces pondering \u201cthe death of email\u201d for years now, it doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s going any where any time soon. That means your email solution is still something you need to take seriously when establishing your online business.<\/p>\n
You might be wondering what, exactly, you need to decide on when setting up your email account(s). After all, you\u2019ve had a personal email forever and signing up for a free one is one of the simpler things a person has to do. The only real question is do you use Yahoo, Gmail, or another of the popular heavy hitters? Well, maybe not so fast. Have you considered hosting your own email server system?<\/p>\n
When buying Managed VPS hosting<\/a><\/strong>, you know you’re safe with KnownHost<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s the million dollar question, isn\u2019t it? Why give up the convenience of having some big company manage your emails with all the bells and whistles to host your own email on a VPS you\u2019re paying for every month? It turns out there are quite a few reasons why you would want to do this. The first one is you could use the same VPS that you\u2019re using to host your site. This is a matter of preference. Some find it convenient, others thing you should keep your mail and domain separate<\/a>. If you have the know how and a penchant for privacy, you may want to keep your email on a VPS (either its own or with your domain). Here are some of the reasons why.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This is probably the biggest reason why you\u2019d either want to install your own mail environment or use the one provided to you by your host on your VPS. Whether or not you consider yourself something of a \u201ccontrol freak,\u201d there are real benefits to hosting your own email when it comes to privacy. For one thing, you don\u2019t know the extent to which your \u201cfree\u201d email host is using your information to generate ad revenue or however else it is that they make money. Take for example Google and their tendency to have a changing privacy policy over time<\/a>. Circumventing software privacy settings to gather user data can certainly feel crummy as a user. Now imagine what kind of data collection happens via Gmail.<\/p>\n An email account set up through your hosting company isn\u2019t subject to these kinds of privacy intrusions. By all means, check with your host to see if they ever use your email for analytics purposes, but chances are they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n There is another reason you may want to keep your email with a hosting company that\u2019s closely related to privacy and has been in the news quite a bit over the past several years.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve used Yahoo as your email provider for any length of time over the past decade or so, you\u2019re probably all too aware of their massive security breach in 2012 “http:\/\/webhosting.devshed.com\/c\/a\/Web-Hosting-Security\/Yahoo-Security-Breach-Highlights-Poor-Practices\/” (This link is offline) that we\u2019re still discovering more about four years removed. Not to mention it appears they haven\u2019t really gotten things together<\/a>. Do you want your business emails exposed to these kinds of massive attacks?<\/p>\n The question is what is at the root of these security issues? Is a VPS objectively safer? That\u2019s hard to say. Anyone with enough skill can break into a server and it\u2019s not like a big company like Yahoo is lacking in security personnel or budget. The answer comes down to who makes a more attractive target. A company like Yahoo is much more of a worthwhile target because of the size of the company, its worth, and the amount of users that can be compromised. Millions of customers having their information exposed to the highest bidder is a major crime with a lot of value for someone willing to commit it. Someone getting into your email account on your hosting company\u2019s VPS? Not so much.<\/p>\n Your hosting company also has their own security protocols that while maybe not on the same scale as a major company like Yahoo, does the job through constant observation. After all, they have many websites being hosted on their hardware that they are responsible for.<\/p>\n The \u201cbells and whistles\u201d offered by many of the big email providers were mentioned earlier when the question was posed as to why you\u2019d want to give these things up for an email account provided by your hosting company. Features are nice. The more the better, right? It depends, really. When you use a big name for your email management, you\u2019re at the mercy of their update cycle. Web-based services tend to be on more frequent and dramatic update cycles compared to their smaller counterparts. This means features you\u2019ve come to rely on can be removed without much notice. Also, features can be added in that you\u2019re not a fan of. Factor in the possibility of needing to retrain your staff on email functionality (if that\u2019s the scenario you work in) for best practices and you can see how frustrating this can be. Your email set-up on your VPS likely won\u2019t change much, if at all, depending on the configuration. If you\u2019ve installed your own mail environment, nothing much changes without your say so. If you\u2019re using the email services provided by your host, functionality probably won\u2019t change with any regularity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s where we get into a few \u201cwhat if?\u201d scenarios. Downtime can be a huge burden when it actually hits. KnownHost provides industry leading uptime of 99.996%. Do the big companies go offline? No, not often. But when they do it\u2019s a huge disruption. Whether it\u2019s a malicious attack or some sort of malfunction, being at the mercy of a major provider going through prolonged downtime can be crippling for your business. With a hosting company, you know a local team is working quickly to resolve any issues. You can also actually get in touch with a human being fairly quickly thanks to the 24\/7 support you won\u2019t find with a giant like Google.<\/p>\n There are also always outside chances of the big companies dropping certain services. One never knows when a company may deem its email functionality is no longer profitable or there is litigation that causes the email service to be shut down. Companies like Google and Yahoo, again, are prime targets for\u00a0 things like DDOS attacks to make political statements or cause financial disarray.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n At KnownHost<\/a><\/strong>, we know our customers want reliable performance, speed, and access to our support team whenever they need it. Whether you\u2019re looking to host a personal site and accompanying email or a whole ecommerce organization with a fleet of email addresses, we can help. Our VPS packages are designed for every kind of use case. And if you need even more? There\u2019s always a dedicated server option. If you\u2019re looking to get sites or email accounts established, contact our team today<\/a><\/strong> and we\u2019ll answer any questions that you may have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an age where everything can feel like it\u2019s moving at the speed of light, it\u2019s almost funny how we\u2019ve never quite gotten past the need for email. What other technology has remained relatively unchanged but critical to business and communication over the course of twenty-plus years? While industry leaders and opinion columnists have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[1432,653,1476],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basics","tag-comparison","tag-email-hosting","tag-performance"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Would I Want to Self Host?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Privacy<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Security<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Functionality<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Downtime<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n