What is a personal email address and how to create one

Having your own email domain makes you come across as pro­fes­sion­al. The domain belongs to you, is ad-free and is more secure than a free email address. Reg­is­ter­ing is simple. All you need to do is choose a domain provider, make sure the domain is available and then complete the domain pur­chas­ing process.

What is a personal email address?

A personal email address is an email address where the email domain (the part that comes after “@”) is chosen by the user. This part of the email address com­mu­ni­cates where the address is located in the domain name system (DNS) and is referred to as the global part. The global part consists of a host name and the top-level domain (TLD). The part of the address before the @ sign is referred to as the local part and cor­re­sponds to the username of the email account.

Despite being one of the most valuable pieces of online contact in­for­ma­tion, many users don’t create a custom email address and miss an op­por­tu­ni­ty to elevate their pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion. Instead, free email providers enjoy great pop­u­lar­i­ty, even though such email addresses contain the name of the mail provider and as a result, aren’t highly regarded in a pro­fes­sion­al sense:

• firstname.lastname@email-provider.com

With a free email account, you only have the option of choosing the local part of your email address. A personal email domain, on the other hand, gives you the op­por­tu­ni­ty to create an entirely unique address, for example:

• firstname@lastname.com
• firstname.lastname@company.com

How can you benefit from having a personal email address?

Having a personal email domain rather than an address from a free email service provider can offer many ad­van­tages. Personal email domains are:

Pro­fes­sion­al

A polished image is key in having a suc­cess­ful career, and that applies to your online presence as well. Free email addresses with provider domains often convey an amateur image. Suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es and en­tre­pre­neurs generally use email domains. By cus­tomiz­ing your email, you can ensure that your contact details are co­or­di­nat­ed, creating a sleek and pro­fes­sion­al image that generates trust with customers. The most effective domains are either company-oriented or personal, for example:

• employeename@company.com
• info@company.com
• department@company.com
• jobs@company.com

Concise

Free email companies provide email addresses with their domain to their customers, making it difficult to register a name that is unique and concise. Names are usually snapped up very quickly, so users are often forced to come up with long com­bi­na­tions of numbers and letters:

• john.r.smith1957@free-email-service-provider.com

Long email addresses carry the risk of being mis­spelled or mis­re­mem­bered, whereas custom email addresses can be shorter, making them concise and more memorable.

Permanent

With your own email domain, you are in­de­pen­dent from free email providers, meaning that you can easily move a domain to a different provider if need be. In the United States, domain names count as in­tel­lec­tu­al property, meaning they’re legally protected. The same cannot be said for free email domain users, who are forced to change their email if the provider changes.

Ad-free

Free email accounts often rely on ad­ver­tis­ing. Not only do the providers use their pool of customers to promote ad­ver­tise­ments, these accounts are also easy targets for spam. A personal email domain, on the other hand, is based on a payment model, meaning that there are no ad­ver­tise­ments and a smaller risk of spam.

Safer

Cy­ber­crim­i­nals also need a high hit rate if their malware (such as viruses or Trojans) is to have a big effect. Free email providers are a common target for hacking and phishing, but this risk decreases sig­nif­i­cant­ly with a personal email domain.

Typo-proof

Correctly con­fig­ured email addresses with their own email domains can be far more reliable than free email addresses. Using a catch-all function, it’s possible to redirect incoming messages to a domain on a main inbox, even if the local part before the @ symbol is spelled in­cor­rect­ly. This is essential in order to avoid losing important messages.

What you should know about having your own email domain

When reg­is­ter­ing an email domain, you can choose any top-level domain and an available domain name. It’s worth noting that domain names under a TLD can only be assigned once. The choice of available ex­ten­sions depends on the provider you choose. If the name you want is already taken under a par­tic­u­lar TLD, you can opt to use a different extension. New domain endings (nTLD) offer users the op­por­tu­ni­ty to create an “ex­pres­sive” domain name or one with a regional reference:

• booking@your.hotel
• info@company.newyork

Be aware that the re­spec­tive TLD authority defines the rules by which domain names are formed. All top-level domains can be formed with letters a-z, numbers 0-9, and hyphens. There’s no dif­fer­ence between capital and lower-case. Some TLDs also allow special char­ac­ters to be in the domain, such as letters with accents. Even though it’s possible to create IDN domains, using special char­ac­ters in email domains isn’t generally rec­om­mend­ed, as these domains can lead to problems with mail servers and email programs.

It’s best to choose a domain name that is simple and memorable.

How to create your own email domain

Domain as­sign­ment is organized centrally. Each top-level domain is managed by a network in­for­ma­tion center (NIC), also known as a domain name registry. Nic.com is an example of a network in­for­ma­tion center and acts as a mediator between customers and ad­min­is­tra­tive agencies. Private companies such as webhosts or other internet service providers enable domain reg­is­tra­tion to happen sep­a­rate­ly or combine it with other services such as email hosting. For customers, the ordering process is carried out in three steps:

Step 1: Choose your provider

NICs cooperate with various domain reg­is­trars. A domain can generally be reg­is­tered through a registrar. Important selection criteria for email hosting with a personal domain include:

• Number of inboxes available
• Inbox storage size
• Avail­abil­i­ty of relevant trans­mis­sion methods such as POP3 and IMAP

The costs of a domain are pretty similar amongst the majority of providers. A decisive factor is the features and options that are included in the price you are paying. Often, you can benefit from bundle offers, such as email accounts that come with a domain or web hosting plans that include a domain and an email account.

Step 2: Check email domain

Once you’ve found a suitable email hosting provider, you should check the avail­abil­i­ty of the domain you would like. Ac­cred­it­ed reg­is­trars have free domain search boxes at the ready.

Once you enter a domain into the search field, the provider will search through the ap­pro­pri­ate registry for your desired domain. This only takes a few seconds. Keep in mind that an email domain must always consist of a top-level domain and a sub-domain name (second-level domain).

or

If the com­bi­na­tion is already taken, the request will be rejected, and you’ll receive a statement from the registrar saying that the desired domain isn’t available:

If the domain you want is already taken, you have two options:

• Change the domain name or try vari­a­tions in the spelling or word order
• Check the avail­abil­i­ty of the second-level domain (in this example, “example-company”) in com­bi­na­tion with different top-level domains.

The following image shows al­ter­na­tive ex­ten­sions such as .info and .directory:

Step 3: Register your personal email address

If you have found a domain that is available, you can begin the pur­chas­ing process. It’s a good idea for companies and online projects to register the second-level domain they want with different ex­ten­sions in order to increase the vis­i­bil­i­ty of the network and protect the company name from ty­posquat­ting.

A domain reg­is­tra­tion can be done com­plete­ly online. You simply have to fill out the reg­is­tra­tion form, including your name, address and email address. Don’t forget your bank details so you can complete the checkout process.

If you have more than one domain, you can choose which domain should be used for your new email address.

How to create your personal email address

Depending on which email host you use, you have the option to create a certain number of email addresses under your email domain. You can then customize different settings such as for­ward­ing, “out of office” messages, en­cryp­tion options and filters.

Email hosts usually offer a central control panel for all email accounts that belong to the domain so that you can manage your inboxes more easily. If you are using IONOS, you can access the control panel under login.ionos.com. Sign in with your customer number and password and then go to the section labeled Email. Here, you can add a new email address to your domain.

In order to add a new inbox to your email domain, you have to define a new local part (the part before the @ sign) and combine it with the global part (domain name plus TLD). If you own more than one domain, you can choose which of the email domains should be used for the email address. You’ll also need to choose a password for the new email account.