Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

June 28, 2010

Simple Email Forwarding on a Dedicated Server

One aspect of business that exudes professionalism and reliability is your email address. Many business owners dislike the webmail provided by the dedicated server and instead use Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail as their primary email source. However, displaying those on a business card or website shows a lack of professionalism. This could result in customers looking for a more professional or credible source for their needs.

Luckily there’s a solution: email forwarding. Since most webmasters prefer answering emails in a comfortable environment, they have that option while maintaining an authoritative persona.

What is email forwarding?

Email forwarding is the process of resending an email message sent to one address on to another address or group of addresses. There are two types of email forwarding:

• Server-based forwarding
• Client-based forwarding

 Server-based forwarding sends the message to the target server which is the name to the right of the “@” symbol within an email address. Within client-based forwarding, there are two types: automated and manual forwarding.

Automated client-based forwarding utilizes a non-interactive piece of software to forward the message from one account to another. An example of this is a mail retrieval agent which resembles server-forwarding.

Manual client-based forwarding occurs when an end-user manually forwards a message using an email client. The original text and any attachments are also forwarded with the message. The subject line will usually read, “Fwd” to indicate forward and then the subject.

Forwarding email messages

Email forward is a fairly easy process only consisting of approximately two minutes to setup in your control panel. Two of the most popular hosting clients are Microsoft Outlook and Gmail because of their easy-to-use interfaces.

Email forwarding within Microsoft Outlook requires the login details, ports and server information to get started. Gmail is a simpler process that simply requires your username and password. Once completed, a test email will be sent to confirm the setup was successful.

Virtual Users

Virtual users are identified as end-users that never log on to a mail-server system and simply access their accounts via remote client. They have configured their mail-server client to automatically forward their messages so they never have to log in.

Email forwarding is an excellent tool for convenience allowing users to access their email in a comfortable setting improving productivity. With modern email clients recognizing the need for these features, they’ve made the configuration as easy as possible. As the popularity of email forwarding increases, this process will become easier with all email clients.

Tags: client based forwarding,  server based forwarding,  email forwarding,  webmail,  email address,  dedicated server