Google Mail for Your Domain

Do you currently use your hosting company’s email system for your domain email?  I used to do that, too.  I was usually very frustrated by the lack of features for sorting, creating filters, and sometimes getting bombarded with spam.  I have always enjoyed the features of my Gmail account, that I used for personal email, and wished I had all of those features for my domain email addresses.

At first I attempted just having all of the email forwarded to a standard Gmail address, which worked fine, until I pointed about 3 different domains to it.  Then I started getting lost in keeping my niches separate, and replies were going out with a different email address.  
 
When I started looking further, I found that it is very easy to setup your domain’s email on Google’s Apps for Domains.  Giving you all of the features of Gmail, but for your niche domain names.  Once I setup my domains on Gmail, I was able to create email addresses in my domains easily, filter emails, and use all of the great features of Gmail.  To personalize my emails I’ve even used Gmail’s feature of attaching my contact picture, and using the signatures.  One other feature I really enjoy is the vacation responder.  I usually don’t use it for vacation, but for sending a simple reply back letting the client know I’ve received their email and will be looking at it shortly. 
 
I was able to handle all of my email tasks much faster, and easier, plus I could find what I wanted using Gmail’s search. If you want to simplify your domain email usage, and have all the great features of Gmail, you can setup your domain by following these instructions:
  1. Go to http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html and click Get Started.
  2. Choose Administrator, Enter your domain name, and click Get Started.
    google-mail-for-your-domain-1
  3. On the second page, put your informations on all required fields and click “Continue“.
  4. On the last page, setup an administration account by putting a new username and password. Then, press “I accept. Continue with Setup” button on the bottom page.
    google-mail-for-your-domain-2
  5. On the next page, choose one of the option that you have an access to. In this tutorial, I will use the CNAME record verification. Click “Continue” to proceed.
    google-mail-for-your-domain-3
  6. Open your hosting control panel or domain management account (The place where you can add a custom CNAME record. If you are not sure with it, you can contact your hosting provider to do it for you)
  7. Add the provided unique string and point it to google.com. See the image for the example.
    google-mail-for-your-domain-4
  8. Go back to Google Apps setup page. and click “I’ve completed the steps above“.
  9. On the next page, you can follow the setup guide. To proceed with setting up your mail, click “Skip Guide“.
  10. On the next page, click “Active E-mail“.
    google-mail-for-your-domain-5
  11. Open back your hosting control panel or domain management account and remove the existing MX records of your domain. (Note that removing these MX records will make your email service down on your hosting side, you probably need to consult this with your hosting provider first).
  12. Add these MX records for your domain. (If you are not sure with it, you can contact your hosting provider to do it for you)
    google-mail-for-your-domain-6
  13. Once you are finish, click the “I have completed these steps”.
  14. It may take up to 1-48 hours for the MX records change to take effect and on that time, you should be able to receive emails. To test your new Google Mail, you can visit http://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com
  15. To create a new email account, go back to your Google Apps dashboard page, and click “Create new Users” (If you accidentally close your control panel before, you can logon to your Google Apps Dashboard page, logon to your account using your administrative account, click “Manage Domains” on the top right of the screen)
  16. You could also set your mail.domain.com to be used as email access, pop3 and smtp by setting up a CNAME record to be pointed to ghs.google.com
You will spend a little more time setting up your email on Gmail, compared to the very fast setup in CPanel, but you will save more time over the coming months by being able to manage your email quicker and easier with the Gmail interface, and features.  I highly recommend using Gmail’s service for all of your domain accounts.