This is for all bloggers and webmasters…
Google Apps is a service from Google for using custom domain names with several Google products like Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs, Page Creator, and Sites.
If you have used these products, then just by registering a domain-name you can start a complete website. You can use Gmail for your mails. Also Google Docs for office documents like word files, presentation & spreadsheets.
If you are a big company or educational institute, you can use Google Talk for chatting. As an evil admin, you can configure chat to be only available between people under your domain only. 😉
If you just want some help to convenience yourself, check these official links.
Now moving on to the next point, which I am practically using! 🙂
Gmail in mail.yourdomain.com!
Many bloggers and webmaster already use or like to use email address ending in their domain ex: [email protected], [email protected].
When we set-up an email address like above, we normally get free & open-source email program like SquirrelMail. Those who don’t like it, just configure all mails to be forwarded to [email protected]. In either case there is something we don’t like.
But what if you get Gmail under your domain? Like mail.devilsworkshop.org! Yes, my email account [email protected] is hosted on Gmail.
How-To…
- You must have a Google Apps account. You can get one for free. Available sign-up options are here!
- Next you need a domain-name. You can register a new one, if you don’t have!
- After completing signing up procedure, go through Google Apps help pages to configure things.
More about configuration…
It can be simple like a click if you host your blog/website with webhost like Dreamhost. They offer full integration with Google Apps. With just a single click you can switch between Gmail and SquirrelMail.
If you just want to register a domain, register it via Google Apps or GoDaddy. In fact, Google Apps uses GoDaddy as their official registrar.
Rest, Google Apps like other Google services is well documented service. So I hope you will enjoy using it! 🙂
A word about security…
Although SquirrelMail is an open-source project, security-wise its much better than Gmail and other commercial free mail programs. As a matter of fact, you can check unfortunate incident happened with David Airey, where a XSS-bug in Gmail left his business sabotaged.
Despite knowing this, I am using Gmail with Google Apps for my mails, but its my duty to alert you! 🙂
Links: Google Apps | Compare Editions | FAQ | Dreamhost
34 Comments
Rahul, I too use the same google apps, but you might have noticed mails from such ids being delivered into spam folder of recipient. Do you have any solution? Someone told me that configuring on outlook will solve the problem… Even your mails used to stay in my spam folder until I add you onto my address book…
@Pavan
First sorry for late reply as I was offline on a long vacation.
Now I never encountered any such problem. In fact, I use my [email protected] email address for all commercial communication and I always get reply. That means I can safely assume my emails are not going into spam folders.
Still few things you can take care of…
Don’t use your domain ids for mass emails/forwards/etc
Check history of your domain name. If bad guys used your domain in past then it may create problems
Rest if you have any particular case to talk about, please let me know! 🙂
Hello Rahul,
Thanks for mentioning my GMail security hijack. I’m still a fan of GMail, oddly, but regularly check my filters and forwards for any malicious addresses.
All the very best.
@David
First sorry for late reply David as I was offline on a long vacation…
Now thanks for commenting.
I will also keep a watch on my gmail filters. Its really nice habit you have… 🙂
I personally take extra care while clicking on links I receive in mails. But your way is foolproof, though little tedious. 😉
I guess a filter monitor plugin/script for gmail can do better job!
The problem does not occur much with Gmail or with Google Apps, but the problem occurs when you mail to yahoo mails. For commercial communication you always address [email protected] like ids and I don’t think they filter off. But Yahoo! definitely does it. If you use any mail clients and set your message of high priority, it goes to inbox. Even I have observed your mails moving to my yahoo spam box… And of course, these days, the mails moving to my spam box are important than the spams occupying space of inbox…
If you know about domain keys / DKIM, please post…
@Pavan
I tested sending a mail from devilsworkshop.org to yahoo.com and it is delivered to inbox. 🙂
Maybe there is some problem with your shared hosts IP address. If a spammer is in your neighborhood then you may be getting penalized because of him.
About DKIM… I know about it little and all I can say that it is not our cup of tea. It is for large organization and I think you need to have (buy) digital signature in order to use it.
Also Google Apps uses DKIM so the problem must not be with Google Apps.
Also FYI, I know many small-to-mid size companies using Google App for all communications.
I don’t think Google will not make a mistake like this.
Still I will check in-depth if Google Apps mails delivered differently than normal Gmail mails.
@ Rahul,
I have subscribed for comments of this post on both google apps mail id and also yahoo’s, I will tell you the result soon….
Yeps, this delivered mail to inbox. But, I have seen your mails generating from rahul[at]devilsworkshop.org moves to spam, even my pavan[at]techpavan.com also shows the same behavior when mailed through gmail interface of google apps.
@Pavan
This SPAM problem is getting too complex and I failed to find a good answer as of now.
In June, I will have more time and at that time I will look into this more detail.
I still feel that problem is not at all with Google Apps but shared webhosting as thilak in past reported that pingback from my blog to his blog was marked spam by akismet.
@ Rahul
I too will be having much time starting from last part of June… But, I have got a solution for mailing without letting it to move to spam, I am going to post on it in the next week. But, that process is not as comfortable as gmail approach, anyway its a good solution.
Hello!
I too am having the same problem:
1. When I log into mail.mydomainxyz.com via google apps and send an email it does not get flagged as spam in yahoo
2. When I send a mail from my webserver via smtp.gmail.com it gets flagged as spam in yahoo…
I’ve tried spf records, looking at mail headers…but cant seem to figure out anything…
@Sidharth
There are programs which uses insecure login to smtp.gmail.com to send mails. I guess problem comes because applications do not use SSL/TLS based authentication.
Please let me know which script you are using to connect to smtp.gmail.com on your webserver.
@ Sidharth
It is not the same case every time. May be it also depends on the software which you use for that purpose.
well mate any idea for mail.domain style without access to DNS ??
I guess its impossible to configure subdomain without access to DNS… 🙁
I was encountering this issue for some time and did some learning. Public domains like yahoo or msn, may or may not flag them and it totally depends on how your domain rating along with the ISP/IP.
If you are using email client like Outlook then it is totally depends on the way the client was configured, for example you can choose the junk e-mail protection on outlook/Actions/Junk Email Options/Options, if you set it as High or safe then most of the mails will end up in junk.
I am still working on ways to see if we can overrule these and make sure the mail goes to inbox.
If any of you came across a solution or a suggestion kindly update us.
Cheers
Mohan
@Mohan
Thanks for your input buddy! 🙂
There are so many things to test out there, even after trying this for more than a year I am not sure what can we do to prevent our custom domain mails from being marked as spam.
Personally, any “important” mail sent by me never missed receipts inbox. Otherwise I would have got complains for sure.
One more thing, I recently moved to dedicated IP for this domain, so hope things will be better in-general anti-spamming is concerned!
Lets share whatever info we find regarding this with each other. 🙂
@ Rahul,
I don’t think this is only related with dedicated servers. Recently I got a mail from technorati, and it went to spam folder, surely they won’t have other spam sites on their servers. Similar is the case with many other popular networks. I think this is more dependent on number of mails you send. If you are a bulk mailer, I guess your mails usually move to spam folders, even here we have exceptions like paypal whose mails NEVER go to spam. They will have domain keys as discussed above. But still one thing of interest, I don’t think twitter is having domain keys, but still never I got their mails to spam.
@Pavan
IP, domain-keys can not help if a site is actually spamming. Spammers can afford dedicated servers and other certifications.
Dedicated IP help you sure at some places. Akismet is one example. Again if you start spamming using dedicated IP, akismet won’t spare you for long.
Coming back to spam-protection at email services, they are using their own techniques whose internal details are known to only them.
I didnt took much interest in it. But after reading this article I am thinking of moving to google applications.
@Aditya
Its really nice option and I am using it on almost every domain 🙂
@Subhash
I guess your IP is blacklisted. 🙁
Mails sending from my website are going into Gmail Spam box. Even my website is under construction. I checked with all the emails expect Gmail all are going into Inbox.
All the configuration was set perfectly with the help of my webhosting provider.
i am also using google apps they are awsome tools for private domain,to have email account ,gtlak great stuff.
Our websites sending emails are NOT going to spam boxes.
When we send from our id[at]blumenthalassociates.com directly from gmail, it usually gets dropped into the user’s spam box. I have searched for my domain on every single block list and find everything is good…except that most of the time when I originate an email to a non-Google mailbox, it goes to spam.
Any ideas.
Perfect, i was looking for this for a while, and all the posts i saw where related to email forwarding, and that was really not what i was looking for.
I’m not really fond of outlook to anything more than work emails, and always loved gmail’s portability.
Hello you all, hope everything is fine.
Im called primo and interested in commercial mails used from gmail. I’d like to share opinions with you about this, so you need to know anything Im ready to give Im what I have.
on another hand, I’d like to know if there is a way to make a domain in my serveur (that I create and buy) go to gmail inbox, bcoz most of the domains of my IPs go to spam.
any word is welcome.
very nice.
thank you for your guide.
🙂
It is very difficult to sign into gmail account because it does not showes the sign in column(to enter the e mail id)It must be like yahoo ,when ever you will click the yahoo mail ,it will show the column to enter the e mail id.
Hello everyone,
If I use google APS / gmail for my company’s email, will I still be able to have the domain work as a website hosted somewhere else?
Scenario: godaddy as registrar, gmail for email and volusion.com for the website?
Thank you in advance, much appreciated!
hey thanx buddy
how to register domain name in with gmail account
Hey I need you to help me out. I have my domain name as well as emails right now. I have taken a hosting from somewhere right now. Is there any way that I can use hosting of gmail (or something) for FREE? Is there any way to upload the website on web space for free and get FREE email accounts also?
Please help me to know this so that i dont need to purchase hosting for this time (As my hosting is about to complete for 1 year and now i need to renew it)
Thank you in advance