Email servers and clients

Email servers and clients

Using email requires two things: an email server and an email client.

The email server is a piece of software that runs on the server (computer) and is constantly connected to the internet. It receives and processes any mail sent to it, and sends any mail you tell it to send.

The email client is the app you use to view your mail. This might be an app on your phone, something you view in a web browser, or a desktop application like Microsoft Outlook. The client checks the mail server for new messages, and stores them for viewing. It provides an interface for reading and writing messages. It sends outgoing messages to the server, which sends them to their intended recipients.

The server and the client are two different pieces of software, and they communicate using standardized protocols (POP and IMAP; see below). This means that the choice of server and choice of client are independent of each other.

People get confused about this all the time. One of the most often-heard reasons people have for not wanting to switch from their personal email addresses to organization-controlled email addresses is that they don’t want to have to change how they read and write email. They use Outlook, or Apple’s Email, and they think they will have to change. This is not the case.

Most email clients can connect to most email servers with no problem. Even better, most email clients can connect to multiple email servers and work with multiple email accounts at the same time. This means that someone who is using (for example) Outlook on their computer to check their personal email account can set it up to check their professional email as well.

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Email protocols: POP and IMAP

Email protocols: POP  and IMAP

The two dominant email protocols are POP andIMAP. (A protocol is a standardized way of moving information from one place to another.)

POP stands for “Post Office Protocol.” You will sometimes see it written as “POP3,” because the protocol is in its third iteration.

IMAP stands for “Internet Message Access Protocol.”

Both are ways of moving message information from servers to clients, but they are otherwise very different from each other.

POP is based on a “Post Office” model. The server delivers messages to you, but does not otherwise keep them or store status information about them. IMAP provides a high degree of syncing between the server and the client.

You really want to be using IMAP most of the time. With IMAP, the details of whether you have read a message, the content of drafts, and other information about your own interaction with mail is saved on the server. This means that your email experience is fully synced even if you use multiple devices, like your laptop and your phone, to read the same email.

When you are looking at web hosting plans, be sure to find one that supports IMAP in the email server.

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Email, Webmail, and Mail Servers

 Email, Webmail, and Mail Servers

More fundamental than running a website is the importance of reliable email service. You have a number of options in how you set up your own email service for your company. You’ll be better equipped to choose the right option for yourself if you understand a little bit about how it all works.

Email and domain names

As you almost certainly know, email addresses take the following form:

name@example.com

Everything before the @ sign is the local name, and everything after it is the domain name.

It is a very bad practice, and unfortunately much too common, for small organizations and sole practitioners to use a commercial email service with a domain name like @gmail.com or@aol.com. This is a bad practice because it looks unprofessional, amateurish.

It’s a very minor point, but it has a big impact on the way your clients and potential customers think about you.

In an organization, such as a small business or (more commonly) a small non-profit, the too-common practice of using personal email addresses can introduce legal and ethical problems as well, because of the inevitable mixing and confusion between personal and professional communication. Also, email addresses controlled by the organization can be turned off, blocked, forwarded to another address, or taken over by another user.

Email servers and clients

Using email requires two things: an email server and an email client.

The email server is a piece of software that runs on the server (computer) and is constantly connected to the internet. It receives and processes any mail sent to it, and sends any mail you tell it to send.

The email client is the app you use to view your mail. This might be an app on your phone, something you view in a web browser, or a desktop application like Microsoft Outlook. The client checks the mail server for new messages, and stores them for viewing. It provides an interface for reading and writing messages. It sends outgoing messages to the server, which sends them to their intended recipients.

The server and the client are two different pieces of software, and they communicate using standardized protocols (POP and IMAP; see below). This means that the choice of server and choice of client are independent of each other.

People get confused about this all the time. One of the most often-heard reasons people have for not wanting to switch from their personal email addresses to organization-controlled email addresses is that they don’t want to have to change how they read and write email. They use Outlook, or Apple’s Email, and they think they will have to change. This is not the case.

Most email clients can connect to most email servers with no problem. Even better, most email clients can connect to multiple email servers and work with multiple email accounts at the same time. This means that someone who is using (for example) Outlook on their computer to check their personal email account can set it up to check their professional email as well.

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Reading anything about SEO and web hosting

Reading anything about SEO and webhosting

(Except this, of course.)

SEO — Search Engine Optimization — is always a hot topic, and the people who are good at it are the ones you will find when you start searching for information about it on a search engine (funny how that works out). But a lot of the “SEO and Web hosting” content is barely accurate at best.

There are continuous claims that sharing an IP in a shared hosting plan is “bad for SEO.” (It mostly isn’t.) There are parallel claims that buying some hosting feature will improve SEO. (It mostly won’t.)

And even if there is a tiny improvement for some of these things (getting an HTTPS certificate is apparently beneficial), the difference will hardly matter unless you are in a highly competitive niche — and then you’d have to know about a thousand other things in addition to the rumor you heard about Google penalizing sites hosted in the Central Time Zone.

SEO basics are very simple: Create a lot of good content and encourage people to share and link to it. The most beneficial thing you can do from a hosting standpoint is to go for speed — both search engines and regular people prefer fast websites.

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Types Of Web Hosting

Types of Web Hosting Services

There are multiple types of website hosting solutions available to host your website project. Before going to purchase web hosting package, it is prominent to learn what kind of hosting your website require, the type of hosting your website or project require, your cost, and what type of features the hosting service provider offers you to store your website data on there server.

Hosting options available are:

• Shared Hosting
• Virtual private Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting
• Cloud Hosting
• Reseller Hosting

Shared Hosting:- means that the website shares the same web space with other websites, in shared hosting one processor is provided to other website along with your website space. All domains may share the same processor of services resources like the CPU and RAM.

It is cheap in cost. So, any time you see website hosting for minimum cost in a month or year, 85% out of 100%, it’s shared hosting.

The benefit to have shared web hosting is that it’s very low in cost. Nevertheless, when you share a website space or resources with other websites, your website speed might be low during other websites are taking for the server resources. 

Their might be more number of possibility to hack website data or content which is stored In shared hosting as compare to other hosting type because you have no surety that all the other websites content or data on the server are being upgraded time to time or not.

Virtual private Hosting:- A virtual private server hosting distributes a server space into virtual servers menace for different websites where each websites is like hosted on their own personal server, but they’re actually sharing a server space with a multiple users this is the type which exist between shared hosting and dedicated hosting is the virtual personal hosting. With this type of hosting, one user can share the server space with other users but you have your own virtual environment with access to the root of the web space. And the important thing is that the web server or VPS don’t affect your website speed.

Reseller Hosting:- This service is user for those users who want to start their own business or resell their own web hosting space. It's also a one of the good option for those who is maintaining large number of websites, as it makes it easier to manage multiple websites under one control panel.

Dedicated Hosting:- In this type of hosting you get the entire server space dedicated to your website only. A dedicated server provide the full control of the web server on which your website is allocated – You purchased an entire space. Your website is the only website which is stored on that allocated space. You do not have to share the server space with other users or with other website, other website can not access or store their data or files on your server space However,The difference along with prices is that dedicated hosting provides high amount of security and full root level access to server resources as compare to other types of hosting which is mentioned in the same sections.

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How Does Website-Hosting Works

Types of Web Hosting Services

There are multiple types of website hosting solutions available to host your website project. Before going to purchase web hosting package, it is prominent to learn what kind of hosting your website require, the type of hosting your website or project require, your cost, and what type of features the hosting service provider offers you to store your website data on there server.

Hosting options available are:

• Shared Hosting
• Virtual private Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting
• Cloud Hosting
• Reseller Hosting

Shared Hosting:- means that the website shares the same web space with other websites, in shared hosting one processor is provided to other website along with your website space. All domains may share the same processor of services resources like the CPU and RAM.

It is cheap in cost. So, any time you see website hosting for minimum cost in a month or year, 85% out of 100%, it’s shared hosting.

The benefit to have shared web hosting is that it’s very low in cost. Nevertheless, when you share a website space or resources with other websites, your website speed might be low during other websites are taking for the server resources. 

Their might be more number of possibility to hack website data or content which is stored In shared hosting as compare to other hosting type because you have no surety that all the other websites content or data on the server are being upgraded time to time or not.

Virtual private Hosting:- A virtual private server hosting distributes a server space into virtual servers menace for different websites where each websites is like hosted on their own personal server, but they’re actually sharing a server space with a multiple users this is the type which exist between shared hosting and dedicated hosting is the virtual personal hosting. With this type of hosting, one user can share the server space with other users but you have your own virtual environment with access to the root of the web space. And the important thing is that the web server or VPS don’t affect your website speed.

Reseller Hosting:- This service is user for those users who want to start their own business or resell their own web hosting space. It's also a one of the good option for those who is maintaining large number of websites, as it makes it easier to manage multiple websites under one control panel.

Dedicated Hosting:- In this type of hosting you get the entire server space dedicated to your website only. A dedicated server provide the full control of the web server on which your website is allocated – You purchased an entire space. Your website is the only website which is stored on that allocated space. You do not have to share the server space with other users or with other website, other website can not access or store their data or files on your server space However,The difference along with prices is that dedicated hosting provides high amount of security and full root level access to server resources as compare to other types of hosting which is mentioned in the same sections.

Web Hosting:- is a service or space on the cloud that allows you or any individuals to upload a website or files and folders page on to the Internet space. A hosting service is a business that provides the technologies and services required for the website to be displayed in the Internet online market. Websites are hosted, or stored, on special computers called servers.

When any online users want to view your any information which is related to your website content, all they need to do is type your website address into their browser. With the help of internet connection they will connect to your server and your website files and folders will be visible to them through the hosting server on your browser.

Before purchase any hosting space for your website you should have a domain name then only you are eligible to purchase web space or website hosting,
Most hosting companies require that you own your domain name in order to host with them. If you do not have a domain name, the hosting companies will help you purchase one.

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Important Tips You Should Know Before Purchase Web Hosting

Choose a Host Service Provider

So if you’re looking for a quick answer to the question: who is the best web Service Provider, then I’m afraid you’re gonna be disappointed. However, if you know litle bit good guidelines to help you navigate Choose a Host Service Provider, then keep on reading ahead.

Define Proper Requirements

Whether you’re in the process of choosing a Host Service Provider for an existing website or choosing one for a new project, it’s important that you are perticular on what your Proper Requirements are. Knowing what you required and want is a nice way to ensure you find what you’re waiting for. To support define your website plateform Requirements, few questions you can ask before take any action:

• Which platform are you using? Is your website developed in Opencart, WordPress, Joomla, Dolphin or another platform.
• Where are the majority of your visitors or target audience based? Do you require hosting servers in a various/particular location or would geographically distributed hosting be more appropriate?
• What additional services do you need? For example email services, managed hosting and backups.
• How important is uptime to you? Does your site generate income and how would 98% uptime impact you, compared to 99.99%?
• What support channels are required? Is 24/7 phone and live chat required or will out of hours email support suffice.

Define Why You need to migrate

If you are in the process of purchasing a website hosting, it’s worth spending a bit of time thinking about why you want to move from particular hosting service providers. What is it about your current hosting that has you shopping around and looking for an option? Figuring that out will help to establish what to look for or avoid in your next host.

Learn what Questions you require to ask

When doing your research and learn into possible hosting company, the previous tips should help you formulate some questions to ask when seeking advice. It’s a good idea to be specific to ensure the recommendations you ask for are relevant to your needs.

If you were in the market for a new laptop, you wouldn’t simply ask what is the best laptop? Well, you might, but then you put yourself at risk of ending up in the middle of an Apple/Windows flame war and nobody want’s that. The same applies to hosting. Instead of asking which is the best web host? try asking which is the best web host for a WordPress site that gets 1000 visitors a day from around the world and contains lots of video content?

The more specific you can be, the more relevant the recommendations are likely to be.

Check Reviews about hosting service provider

Many web host reviews or recommendations come from satisfied users. While this is can be a good thing, they often have nothing to compare the service they are using to. A slew of customers choose a host and then stick with them until the ship starts sinking. Shopping around and trying out different hosts is time consuming and can be a real pain in the you know what (ass), making it understandable that people stick with their host and are happy to recommend them to others. This however doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best service for you and that even they couldn’t be better served elsewhere.When looking for hosting reviews, look for reports that compare services using relevant tests with data to back up their results and findings. A good example is this recent comparisonof the performance of seven top hosting companies. While comparing just one criterion, such as performance shouldn’t be the only measure used to select a host, a relevant, factual and data driven comparison can be invaluable in helping to make a decision.

• What are their page load times like?
• Is using their site frustrating, with delays in images and video being displayed?
• Have you noticed much downtime?
• Have they ever been hacked?

If someone is happy to talk about how great their host is in exchange for an affiliate payment, then they should be willing to answer questions about why they endorse that host.

Read That Bandwidth and Disk space Terms.

Bandwidth and disk space are terms often ignored by people shopping for a shared web hosting. You should ask yourself, "What if my website becomes really popular overnight, and draws in thousands or millions of visitors? Will I pay hefty charge for the huge data transfer?"

Of course, most websites won’t go past their bandwidth quota by high traffic alone, but if you provide some files for downloads in your website, it can potentially happen.

Cross check Testimonials present on website

Most web hosts like to list testimonials from customers and publish lists of sites they are proud to host. In the same way as you can with endorsements and recommendations from users, you can try contacting these listed clients and ask them of their experiences with the host.

In lots of cases those endorsements are either outdated or a result of customer love felt early on and may not be consistent after the client has been hosting there for a year or more.

Few more Things we need to check

With all the above taken into account, such as being specific about your requirements and needs, there are still some general things to look for when evaluating potential candidates to be your next web host. The following list of areas to evaluate and compare should help ensure you get a well-rounded overview of your potential new web host:

• Type of hosting offered: shared, VPS, dedicated, fully managed, is there room to expand to the next level once your resources are capped on the current level?
• Support: what are the available support channels – email, forums, live chat, telephone, 24/7 or office hours?
• Features: what features are on offer, does the host use cPanel for one click installations of selected software, how much storage and bandwidth is available, how many domains can be hosted on one account?
• Server locations: is the location of the data centers important to you? If it is, normally a quick google search or email to the provider can tell you the physical location of things.
• Areas of specialization: do they focus on specific platforms like WordPress and do you require this level of service? Or do you simply want to learn how to use linux which is tough on a managed host?
• Price: last but not least, how much do they charge and how does it compare to the other hosts on your shortlist?
• General feedback online: while feedback from users with similar requirements to yours can is definitely ideal, lots of general negative feedback from users can be just as illuminating. Even indifference usually tells a good story. You can look for comments on blogs and forum posts criticizing the general features such as support and downtime but mileage may vary. Social signals like a www.somthingdifferent.com that lasts over a day can be really telling.

Choosing a web host can obviously be as complex or as simple as you want to make it, but the general rule of thumb is to do your homework and make decisions before it’s an emergency. If you start seeing trends toward mediocrity with your current host, make a Plan B that you can put into action if the need arises.

For more information visit www.somthingdifferent.com

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