Thanks.
Best domain hosting (only need email forwarding)
- Thread starter nightwish
- Start date
Also went to Stablepoint. I have 7 domain names, along with their 'Starter Web Hosting' pack. Not had any issues so far, and the range of configuration options, for email in particular, are just in another class compared to 123-Reg.
Question for nightwish, embalse or anyone using Stablepoint for email forwarding.
I have a domain that was with Google Domains, which they were about to transfer elsewhere, so before they did, I transferred to my current domain host - which has turned out to be a bad choice. All I use the domain for is to forward from me@mydomain to [email protected] (plus three other similar ones). I don't have access to the forwarders and although the technical staff try hard to help, it took two weeks to iron out the forwarding and even now I'm still not receiving some emails. SPF records seem to have been the sticking point.
If I transfer my domain to Stablepoint, is it easy to set up the forwarders and the SPF records and anything else necessary. Are Stablepoint staff able to help?
Thank you
Mike
I have a domain that was with Google Domains, which they were about to transfer elsewhere, so before they did, I transferred to my current domain host - which has turned out to be a bad choice. All I use the domain for is to forward from me@mydomain to [email protected] (plus three other similar ones). I don't have access to the forwarders and although the technical staff try hard to help, it took two weeks to iron out the forwarding and even now I'm still not receiving some emails. SPF records seem to have been the sticking point.
If I transfer my domain to Stablepoint, is it easy to set up the forwarders and the SPF records and anything else necessary. Are Stablepoint staff able to help?
Thank you
Mike
Honestly, I don't know what SPF records are, but Stablepoint appears to offer access to all the config you could ever want. If you just want forwarding, that's easy. Never needed to contact Stablepoint staff, but my impressions overall are positive, so I'd expect the support, if you needed it, would be fine too.
Soldato
@MikePP - Another alternative is to throw the domain into Cloudflare (either transfer the domain, some TLD's aren't support so check first, or just use them for DNS/Nameservers) as it supports email forwarders (they call it email routing) and you can setup your SPF (DNS) records there as well.
For email related records, https://mxtoolbox.com is an extremely handy tool as it'll show what (email) records you've got attached to the domain and what you're missing (DMARC or DKIM for example) whilst being able to see what they all report to an external user/server etc.
For email related records, https://mxtoolbox.com is an extremely handy tool as it'll show what (email) records you've got attached to the domain and what you're missing (DMARC or DKIM for example) whilst being able to see what they all report to an external user/server etc.
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Support has always been fine for me but I tend to use Live Chat or email rather than telephone support.
Hi visibleman. Does that mean I can leave my domain where it is and in addition setup what would be duplicate forwarders in Cloudflare? Mine is a .co.uk domain.
I've had a quck go with mxtoolbox - I need to do some reading to understand what it is telling me. Thank you for the pointer.
Mike
I've had a quck go with mxtoolbox - I need to do some reading to understand what it is telling me. Thank you for the pointer.
Mike
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Soldato
Yup, create a (free) Cloudflare account, use their nameservers (iirc this is called a 'Full DNS' setup) and then you can use various Cloudflare services like their 'Email Routing' which allows you to setup email forwarders (including catch-all's).
I do exactly that with a few domains.
The addition of this if you were thinking of switching registrars is that you can transfer your domain(s) to Cloudflare, some TLD's are extremely cheap via them, and then you can use their services from there on. Only caveat is that you're locked to using their nameservers/DNS if using them as a registrar.
Hi again visibleman. I've been retired from IT for 17 years so I struggle to keep up and don't have colleagues to lean on any more, so apologies for my stupid questions ...
I assume that if someone sends me an email at me@mydomain, the mail server looks at the registry to get the IP address to send it to and that would mean the IP address added to the registry by my current registrars. How would Cloudflare override that so that the email would be sent to them and then forwarded using the email forwarders set up there?
The current problem with my emails seems to be due to spam filtering by the forwarders. I have no access to the forwarders, DNS or anything else, so I was completely unaware any filtering was taking place and have no idea what has been filtered. Absolutely ridiculous. I've asked if they can and will turn off filtering otherwise I'll be transferring the domain. I assume Cloudflare would allow me access to any filtering they have?
Thank you for your help.
Mike
I assume that if someone sends me an email at me@mydomain, the mail server looks at the registry to get the IP address to send it to and that would mean the IP address added to the registry by my current registrars. How would Cloudflare override that so that the email would be sent to them and then forwarded using the email forwarders set up there?
The current problem with my emails seems to be due to spam filtering by the forwarders. I have no access to the forwarders, DNS or anything else, so I was completely unaware any filtering was taking place and have no idea what has been filtered. Absolutely ridiculous. I've asked if they can and will turn off filtering otherwise I'll be transferring the domain. I assume Cloudflare would allow me access to any filtering they have?
Thank you for your help.
Mike
Soldato
During the setup wizard when adding a domain to your Cloudflare account, Cloudflare imports your current domain name DNS records and then gives you two (Cloudflare) nameserver ('NS') records to add, or rather to replace your existing 'NS' records with, to your domain name which you would do via your domain registrars portal/dashboard.
Once the nameserver/'NS' records have (globally) propagated, Cloudflare is then handling all of your DNS records for your domain.
And for email forwarding/routing, Cloudflare will add it's own/replace existing email DNS records - it sets up a MX record pointing to Cloudflare and SPF/DMARC/DKIM records if you've enabled them.
As an example of the workflow, say you have setup [email protected] to forward to [email protected] - the senders mail server(s) looks up the [email protected] MX record(s), sees that it's pointing to Cloudflare 'mail servers' and sends the email accordingly. Upon receiving the email, Cloudflare then does a (email) route lookup, sees the forward/routing for that email address and forwards that email on to Gmail/[email protected].
The same works for catch-all routing, albeit any mail coming into your domain, regardless of address, gets forwarded to Gmail/[email protected] etc.
Cloudflare doesn't offer any other email services, so sending mail from a domain is done by a third-party, or not at all.
For spam/filtering, i believe Cloudflare does do some minimal filtering although this isn't something i've delved into too much, so if that's important then it may be worth reading around to see if that is the case with Cloudflare. Cloudflare do offer a paid add-on service, 'Cloud Email Security', that gives you some additional email deliverability options but again, nothing i've looked in to.
The only issue i have seen (once) is Google themselves rate limit incoming mail from Cloudflare at which point this flags as an error to the sender. Not a lot you can do about this though unfortunately.
Alternatively there are dedicated providers like Forwardemail.net which may be a better bet (i haven't personally used them) or as someone mentioned previously, Porkbun also offers email forwarding and their filtering, if they do it at all, may be better/more suited.
If mail is important for those domains, then you could look at dedicated mailboxes for them using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace etc. Although this could end up expensive depending on your exact needs.
Soldato
Same here, I was moved to 123 from TSOhost where they hosted my website for 25 years, this year paying just £14.99+VAT for the year , 123 want £85+VAT. Before leaving TSO I told them I was ending my web hosting which expires DEC 10th so I moved all my photo's etc to a free Google website and changed my domain email to a Gmail one.
One week after being moved I discovered 123 had suddenly deleted my website so did not even honour my expiry date. I have managed to point my domain to my Google website but just today discovered I can't forward emails from anyone who still has my old co.uk mail address.
All my emails I had saved along with contacts emails have all gone as well! My Domain renewal with 123 will be £12.99/yr +VAT but I want to get away from them and just want free email forwarding for one address