E-mail redirects and domain redundancy

[Brian Turner]

Here's something of note for the future: one of my clients, against my recommendations, insisted on listing their ISP e-mail address on their business site, rather than an e-mail address set-up with the domain.

The problem is that over the past couple of weeks, the ISP mail servers have been clogged up with the MyDoom virus. I watched them not get e-mail for days - only to suddenly get a week' worth at once.

Theirs is a business where samples need to be e-mailed to customers, and customers e-mail important information. So you can imagine that things weren't running smoothly because of the delay in e-mail. It even got to the point where I ended up having to set up an emergency Hotmail account for them so that they could close a deal.

So a general recommendation here: always configure an e-mail account with your domain: if you're not going to use that e-mail straight away then set up a redirect to your preferred destination - such as ISP webspace.

However, because you're using a redirect then if you ever become aware of a problem with your ISP server - such as becoming clogged up with a future virus release - then you can immediately redirect your mail to another account, such as a free Hotmail or Yahoo account.

Of course, if you discover that something has wrong with the mail server for your domain, then you can look to FTP an updated contact page. But if the mailserver for that domain is having problems then you need to ensure that you have a second solution.

You should never underestimate the advantages of having more than one domain, hosted from different datacenters, to run your business from though - such as a .com and .co.uk pair of domanis for UK companies, for example. If you do this, do remember to inlude both e-mail addresses on your stationary.

Whereas you can use just one as your main base for business, you can use the other as an emergency contact site. Of course, both can have thier e-mails redirected as required.

Server crashes and datacenter blackouts do happen, and these can absolutely destroy internet businesses. However, with the above arrangements you can ensure that your business can still operate with an online presence, against most technical calamities.

[trevHCS]

Thats really good advice re. e-mail forwarding. We use it on all our web sites, but the number of times we see people putting xyz@aol.com or similar on their printed adverts even when its been explained 10 times....agghhhh.

Actually with the interesting AOL anti-spam problems of late this one has proven itself whereby people were getting e-mails only through our web sites because they had made the above mistake - makes the web sites look good however.

Its also quite handy if your server can offer spam blocking whereby you can switch from mail forwarding to downloading from the server (via the domain) without changing addresses - also proven recently useful.


As for co-hosting web sites, I'd guess it depends on how mission critical the web site is. Of course if you host in 2 data centres based in the UK for example then there are problems with one of the major US -> UK connections your web site could effectively disappear to the Americans.

I was thinking this would be a phaff if you had to upload every site to both servers, but I'd guess theres probably some automatic mirroring system available?

Trev

[Brian Turner]

Actually, I was thinking more of a main website, with the other domain merely being a contact page. I lost my sites to a major server crash in April last year, and suddenly found myself using my ISP webspace to set up emergency information page for the members of both forums that had suddenly gone offline.

[trevHCS]

Ah right I see - yeah that would be a good idea. As for servers, do you run the sites on shared hosting, managed dedicated server or just a dedicated you run yourself?

Of course it does rely on people knowing both domain names as they'll just get the IE default page (or Mozilla/Opera equiv.) if they hit the wrong one.

Trev

[Brian Turner]

I'd go for shared hosted - dedicated just couldn't justify itself for a single emergency page.

Different datacenter, though - that's important. I remember last year the problems Burst.net had. For proper redundancy host in completely different geographic locations.

And that's what I mean about usnig both domains on the stationary - main site, plus emergency contact site.

That reminds me - perhaps I should have the britecorp support forum as a separate domain?