When clients move their website to our hosting environment, one of the first questions that comes up is email. What happens to their email accounts? Do we host those too?
The short answer is no. We do not host email on our web server, and we actively recommend that our clients use a dedicated email platform instead. This position surprises some people, especially those who have always had their email and website on the same hosting account. So let me explain why we take this stance and why it is actually in your best interest.
Your Web Server Is Not Built for Email
Web servers are optimized for serving web pages. The software stack, the configuration, the resources. All of it is designed around HTTP requests and delivering content to browsers. Email is an entirely different set of protocols, different software, different deliverability considerations, and different security requirements.
When you host email on a shared web server, you are running an email system on infrastructure that was not purpose-built for it. That creates real problems.
Deliverability suffers. Email deliverability is partly about reputation, specifically the reputation of the IP address the email is sent from. On a shared web server, you are sharing an IP address with other websites. If any of those sites get compromised and start sending spam, or if the server's IP gets listed on a spam blacklist for any reason, your outgoing email gets affected. You did not do anything wrong. You are just sharing the neighborhood.
Security risks compound. A compromised website on the same server can potentially affect email accounts on that server. A vulnerability in the webmail client can expose email credentials. The attack surface for a system that handles both web traffic and email is larger than one that handles only web traffic.
Resource contention is real. Email, especially on a busy domain, consumes server resources. Those resources compete with the resources needed to serve your website. On a shared or even a semi-managed server, a busy mailbox can affect web performance and vice versa.
What Happens When the Web Server Goes Down
If your email lives on the same server as your website and that server goes down, you lose both at the same time. You cannot get incoming email telling you the site is down because the email server is down too. You cannot send urgent client communications because you are on the same infrastructure that is having problems.
This is not a hypothetical. Servers go down. Planned maintenance windows happen. Unplanned outages happen. When email and web are on separate platforms, a web server issue does not affect email and vice versa. That separation is valuable, particularly for a business that depends on email for client communication.
Business email that actually works.
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 setup, DNS configuration, migration from server-based email, deliverability troubleshooting. Handled by the same team that manages your hosting.
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Exist for This Reason
Both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are purpose-built email platforms. They run on infrastructure specifically designed for email delivery, storage, and security. They have teams of engineers dedicated to deliverability, uptime, spam filtering, and compliance. They have mobile apps that work reliably, calendar and collaboration tools built in, and support organizations you can actually reach.
The deliverability on Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 is significantly better than on most web hosting email setups. Major inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook have high trust relationships with these platforms because they have strong spam filtering and authentication standards. Email sent from these platforms is more likely to reach inboxes and less likely to be flagged as spam.
The cost is reasonable. Google Workspace starts at a few dollars per user per month. Microsoft 365 Business Basic is in the same range. For most small businesses, the total cost for the team is less than a single hour of technical support time spent debugging a deliverability problem on a web server mail setup.
What the Transition Looks Like
If you are currently hosting email through your web hosting account and you are moving to a dedicated platform, there are a few things involved.
DNS records need to be updated. MX records point to wherever your email is hosted. Moving to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 means updating those records to point to the new platform. This is a straightforward DNS change, though timing matters. You want to make the switch cleanly to avoid missing email during the transition.
Email accounts need to be created on the new platform and configured on your devices. If you have existing email you want to migrate, that is a separate step that depends on how much history you want to preserve and what your current setup looks like.
We handle the DNS side of this for all of our hosting clients. We can also assist with account setup and basic configuration. The actual Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 administration and migration support is available as part of our specialized services for clients who need it.
The Short Version
Your web server is good at serving websites. It is not the right place for your business email. A dedicated email platform like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 gives you better deliverability, better security, better uptime independence, and better tools for a cost that is almost always worth it.
If you are currently on a hosting plan that bundles email and you are not sure what the implications are for your specific setup, that is a conversation worth having before it becomes a problem.
