Email Settings
By default we will set-up your website to send emails out via the web-server itself, usually using the email address; website@[yourdomain]. As these are out-going emails you can specify what email address you want them to come from and what descriptive name is used. We will also set-up an email mailbox on the web server to receive replies to this email address and auto-forward them to a remote email address that you specify. Additionally, you have the option to specify a remote smtp server so that emails are routed/relayed through your own email systems rather than being sent from the web server. Your network and smtp server will need to be configured to allow this. This is the preferred set-up method as it allows you to manage your own email accounts and can help prevent the emails sent by the website being flagged as "spam."
If you don't use your own email server for the outgoing website emails, you may find that some of those emails are blocked or not received. This will often be caused by a process called "Reverse DNS Look-up". In short, when the web server sends an email to a recipient, the recipient's email server will see the IP address of the web server. It might then compare this IP address to that set in the MX Record for your domain. If you are using an email server for all your email accounts, this MX Record will be set to the IP address of that email server and will thus be different to the IP address of the web server that is sending the email. As they don't match, the receiving email server may deem the email to be spam and as a result, block it. To avoid this, the best method is to configure the website to relay out-going emails through your email server - that way the recipient receives the email from your email server. A less ideal alternatively is to use a different domain name for your emails and your website. We recommend that your IT support staff are involved in this decision to ensure the best possible set-up for your individual requirements and infrastructure.
You can find out what IP address is associated with your web-server and your mail-server respectively by opening a Windows command prompt and typing the following commands:
nslookup yourdomain.com
nslookup –type=mx yourdomain.com