Get Free yourname@yourdomain.com Email Addresses Just like Gmail

Yesterday Zohair Chohan (a ProPakistani writer) asked me to create him a ProPakistani.PK email address. He was little hesitant as he thought it could cost us disk space of bandwidth. However, it’s not the case – and the reason is Google Application.

Today, I am sharing the idea of Google Application which is apparently unknown to many web masters in Pakistan. With Google Applications you can have email addresses like your_name@yourdomain.com with all Gmail features, including tons of web space, that’s almost 8 GB and is increasing every second. Moreover, you can add filters, forwarders and much more. Google applications will also allow you have calender, documents and other similar services for your domain. If configured correctly, you will be able to access your email with subdomain such as mail.yourdomain.com

Google application is feasible for many businesses, particularly the educational institutes. There are 2 variations of pricing; one is standard edition that comes free with a limitation of 50 email addresses per domain – while premier edition costs 50$/user/year with 25GB inbox space. Educational institutes and non-profits can use premiere versions for free after proving their identity. We know that some of educational institutes in Pakistan are already using Google Applications, but rest are struggling managing their email servers, which they can get rid of.

If you are still not convinced, here are features that will for sure attract you:

Standard Edition: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html
Business Edition: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/details.html
For Educational Institutes: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html
Non-Profits: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/nonprofit/index.html
Government: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/government/index.html

How to Create Google Email for your Domain

It is advised to ask your IT team/webmaster to manage the process, as it involves some technologies.

Google Applications require you a registered domain name, and have access to change the DNS settings for that domain name.

From above given links, you may find your best suit of Google Application, in most cases you should be opting for Standard Edition.

There is a Get Started button on right top – click on it to start proceedings…

Now you come to a page where you have to write your organization’s domain name in the input box, and click the “get started button”.

On the next page, you will have to fill in some information about you as the “Account Administrator” and “Organization Information”. Fill in the fields such as name and a current working email address the click “continue”.

After entering all information for your domain and administrator, you get to a page where you have to create an email account the administrator account of the domain name. Fill in your name an appropriate name and password. Click the “I accept …” button.

Now you have to verify that you own the domain name. Click on the text link: “Verify domain ownership” on the Google Apps “Dash Board”. You would then have to upload a html file with a specific code, or change a field in the DNS record. Do that and click the “verify” link to have Google verify that you own the domain name.

Activate email service of Google Apps Now you need to activate the email in Google Apps, from the main dash board page when you have logged in into Google Apps, click the link that says “Activate email”.

Google has detailed instructions how to do this for a number of domain name providers and hosting companies.

Basically what needs to be done is to change the “MX” records of the domain name. The “MX” records tells which servers email to the domain name is to be delivered. In this case all the email for the domain name will be sent to Google’s servers and those will route the email into Google Apps and into your email accounts.

How to Change MX Records for your Domain Name (in your Domain Hosting Panel)

• Sign in to your domain hosting company’s website using the username and password associated with your domain.
• Navigate to an MX record maintenance page. MX records are special DNS (Domain Name Service) records, and are often located under sections titled “DNS Management,” “Mail Server Configuration,” or “Name Server Management.” You may need to turn on advanced settings to allow editing of these MX records.
• Delete any existing MX records before entering new MX records.
• For each MX record, enter information according to the entries in the following table.
• You may not be allowed to enter the priority values exactly as they appear in the table below; in that case, simply ensure that the server addresses are prioritized in the same order as they appear in the table. (i.e. The priority ranking [1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5] should work just as well as [1, 5, 5, 10, 10, 10, 10] so long as you keep the addresses in the right order.)If you’re asked to specify the type of each record you’re adding, enter “MX”.
• MX records often require the specific format of DNS records, including a trailing dot (“.”) at the end of any full-qualified domain names (e.g. “server.example.com.”)
• Set any TTL values to the maximum allowed.
• MX Server address Priority
• ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. 10
• ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. 20
  ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. 20
  ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. 30
  ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. 30
  ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. 30
  ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. 30
• Change the SPF record to fight SPAM (optional) You may define the SPF record to authorize only certain IP addresses to send email for your domain. This will prevent spammers from sending unauthorized email under a forged address from your domain.

Then click the “I have completed these steps button” on the bottom of the email setup page in Google Apps. This may be the trickiest thing if you are not used to of playing around with domain name records. Maybe you can ask your domain hosting company if you have troubles figuring this out.

You may find more help on how to change MX records here

• https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=143444#configure
• https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=33352

Now would probably be a good time to try to send an email to email address that is registered with Google Apps for the domain name and see if it works.

Manage the Google Apps account: Now you should be set up to receive to receive email for your domain name in Google Apps.

There are a number of things you can manage from your Google Apps dash board.

• You can create a page that will have a email login form on your and customize it with your logo and so.
• What is also useful is to set up a catch all email that gets all the email that is sent to the domain name that does not map to a specific email address. You do this by clicking from the main dash board page in Google Apps : Service Settings : Catch-all address.
• What is also useful is to set up email forwarding of any given account. That way you can forward emails to many accounts into one email account. It can be any Gmail address or to a different email address that is not managed by Gmail or Google Apps. This is done by logging in to the Gmail account through the start page, and changing it in the Gmail account settings under “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”
• Also you can do is that configure your Outlook with this new email address of Google Applications, this way you will retain your old emails too.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and it worked great for you.