Email Setup Choices

Email is a service that fits "somewhere between" access and hosting and can be provided by either your ISP or hosting company, or a combination of both. The simplest way of describing the choices is 1) pop box, or 2) alias or forward.

A pop box is an actual email address. Your ISP typically provides you with a pop box at their domain, i.e. person@madriver.com or person@comcast.net. You can have a pop box using your website domain from your ISP or your web hosting company (if offered).

MadRiverWeb offers domain pop boxes, i.e. person@yourdomain.com. We use the mail servers of MadRiverAccess and require you to abide by the terms and conditions that pertain to email stated on their website as well as what we have restated in our spam policy.

We can also offer you alias email from your domain, which is essentially a forward to your ISP email address.

Whether using a domain pop box or alias, you can get all of your mail in one location—your email program can check multiple boxes at once including your domain pop box, or your alias(es) will be forwarded to the email address you already use.

With a pop box from MadRiverWeb, you will have the added benefit of being able to check your email while away from your office or computer—known as web-based email or webmail. This is also generally available from your ISP. If we have provided you a pop box, go to the URL http://mail.yourdomain.com:8383, substituting your domain name, to access the webmail console.

With a pop box from MadRiverWeb, you can use your laptop's email program while traveling to receive and send email through our servers. This can be much more convenient than using webmail. Green Mountain Access (and perhaps other ISPs) does not allow sending through their servers from outside their network. Each company uses different methods to verify you are who you are. We authenticate for this reason. If you experience difficulty sending email from your laptop while traveling, please check with the local network you are accessing prior to placing a support call with us. There may be a firewall issue. Double-check that you are able to view websites.

In deciding whether you want a pop box or an alias from MadRiverWeb, consider your travel needs. If you will want to use a laptop elsewhere, best to have a pop box. If not, save yourself the trouble of setting up a second account.

Having said that, you will likely want to send personal and business mail under separate "names." See below for the benefits of sending as your business name.

  • With an alias, we suggest duplicating and altering your personal email account so you are sending from you@yourdomain.com, both in the visible name and the from address. Leave the incoming settings the same.
  • With a pop box, create a second account using the information to the right.

With most pop boxes, you have access to great features such as vacation messages, forwarding, auto responders... These can be set by accessing your web-based email console.

Regardless of whether you have an alias or a pop box with your domain, there are some settings in your email program that you should change or verify. Depending on the program, "Edit Preferences", "Tools Accounts" and "Tools Options" are the areas of interest. In Outlook, Tools Accounts allows you to set up an additional pop box and each of your mail accounts will be checked. In one of the other areas, you will find where you can set your "from" address and your "reply to address." Even if you use your ISPs email, and have an alias from your domain, you can set up the "from" and "reply to" using your domain email if they don't require authentication.

Another added benefit from MadRiverWeb is virus scanning and spam filtering of all of your domain email. (I have received only six viruses by email in the five years that this has been in place, and my Norton program caught them.) We encourage you to continue to subscribe to virus protection services to protect yourself from viruses transmitted through your ISP's email, CD or floppy files given to you, through web-downloads, and as a back-up to our scanning. Redundancy is a good practice in the event either system has a problem.

As a business, it is far better to use your domain name in your email address, whether it is set-up as an alias or a pop box. The numerous advantages are as follows:

  • You are continually reinforcing your company name and domain name and marketing your firm rather than your ISP.
  • If you decide to change internet services someday, the change in your email will be transparent. Your network of prospects, clients and business associates will already have your domain email. If your domain email is an alias, it will be re-programmed to point to a new email account that you establish, or if you have a domain email pop box, the new website hosting company will establish the mail account(s) for you. (Be sure to check that the hosting service you wish to use offers mail.) This is similar to the situation where your mailing address does not change if you move your place of business and you have a PO box. If your "network" has been using an email address provided by your ISP, encourage them to begin using your domain email address. Additionally, if your "reply to" address does not reflect your domain name, your network will continually be presented with your ISPs address. Change it to your domain email so that when they "reply" they will start seeing your domain email. Ask them to change this in their address book. Allow 6 to 12 months before changing or discontinuing services from an ISP email address.
  • Some places where you list your website do not allow a link to your website, or do not allow you to visibly display your URL. An alias/domain email address accomplishes the not-so-subtle task of making your domain known so they can type it in themselves.
  • Domain email allows you to do targetted marketing and promotions. You can display a specific email address such as magspecial@yourdomain.com to offer a special price, for example, only honoring it when people write to you using that address. This allows you to measure the effectiveness of specific marketing efforts. Contact us in advance with the email address(es) you wish to use.
  • When hosting with large organizations or server farms, I have seen alias email "break" in a few instances when server programming is temporarily disabled or changed, causing you to lose or temporarily lose emails. If you use your alias on a regular basis, you would notice a disruption in email service quickly. In most cases, the lost emails are "hung" on the server and can be retrieved. For this reason, we suggest you establish a REGULAR schedule of testing all distinct email aliases or pop boxes. This applies to forms, too—test the forms on your website once per month. And rest assured, MadRiverWeb is a small organization dedicated to exceptional customer service, and we are not making mapping changes such as those that can cause these problems—once your account is established, the programming is unlikely to be touched again without your knowledge.

This page updated 01/30/2008.

 

Spam Info  •  Email Fraud Article


Email Settings

Email Set-up The following are fairly comprehensive instructions for Mad River Web customers using our mail servers or those of Green Mountain Access or VTWeb.

If you will be using a pop box provided by MadRiverWeb or one of our affiliates, please specify a user and password for each mailbox needed. You may also have a reasonable number of "aliases." Please specify to which other account(s) to point the aliases.

Your Email Program Depending which email program you use, the common places to make changes to settings are in the menu items Tools Accounts, Tools Options and Edit Preferences. We recommend that you "add" an account or profile to represent the email address we provide, and follow the instructions based on the type of address.

General (POP and Aliases) Start by viewing the properties of your existing email account provided by your ISP and write down the incoming and outgoing settings exactly. Most ISPs require that you send mail through their outgoing mail server (generally called smtp) in an attempt to reduce spam and viruses. You should also be able to send mail using your domain name through their server. If you can duplicate this account and give the new account a new name, do so. If not, "add" an account. Then use the Wizard that your email program provides. Give the account a name such as MadRiverWeb Email.

Use the following incoming settings (or we may have provided special settings for your domain).
MadRiverWeb Mail
POP (incoming): mail.yourdomain.com
username/login: user@yourdomain.com (the full string)
password: (the one you provided)
VTWeb Mail
POP (incoming): hermes.vtweb.com
username/login: (the one provided)
password: (the one provided)
GMA (see their website)

Insert the outgoing settings provided by your ISP. Do not check "logon using secure password authentication" unless your ISP requires this. For Green Mountain Access customers, the outgoing mail server is smtp.gmavt.net.

If you have reason to use our mail server to send (applies to pop boxes, not aliases) rather than your ISP's mail server, use these settings:
SMTP (outgoing): mail.yourdomain.com
Select "servers" tab, and near the bottom, check "my server requires authentication," but leave the settings alone, at "use same settings as my incoming mail server."

When done using the wizard, edit the account to add the settings the wizard did not. On the "general" tab, add your "reply-to" address and organization if desired. You will also likely need to uncheck "requires authentication."
From: user@yourdomain.com
Reply-to: user@yourdomain.com

Specific for Aliases If you set up an account to send as your domain email through your ISP, but it is only an alias, the last step is to un-check "check this account when sending and receiving mail" because it is not an actual pop box.

Please NOTE: In your email program, please do not change your settings to leave mail on the server unless you discuss the need for this with us. Also, please do not set your program to check mail automatically any more frequently than ten (10) minutes. We consider anything less than this an unnecessary use of our resources. If you are expecting a message you can always manually click your send and receive button.

MadRiverWeb will establish an alias called "webmaster@yourdomain.com" that will be forwarded to us.

MadRiverWeb WebMail Go to the URL http://mail.yourdomain.com:8383 (replacing the words "your domain" with your actual domain name). Login using user and password.
VTWeb WebMail Go to the URL http://hermes.vtweb.com:20000. Login using user and password.
Other ISPs provide webmail also. Please check with your provider for the address. GMA's is near the top left of their website.

For your convenience while traveling, so that you don't have to remember this URL, we can place a hidden link to this address in one of two places on your website: 1) beside the copyright symbol, or 2) at the very bottom center of the home page. There is no indication of this link to the public, although they could see it accidentally. Hover your mouse until you find it; the cursor will change to the "finger." If you don't find the hidden link, ask us (or your website developer) to put it on your website.