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What are the most common email domains?

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Email is the most important form of communication for businesses. It is versatile and quick, allowing anything from a quick chat to finalise a plan to a long-form explanation of a service with multiple attachments. But are the most common email domains, and what are the pros and cons to each one? 

Gmail.com (18%)

With over a billion users across the globe, Gmail has taken over the free email space since its launch in 2004. It has a streamlined interface without too much clutter, and lets you organise your emails into different folders which helps you to focus on your priorities. It works with a Google account, which has a fleet of features such as Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Calendar, making file sharing and time-management simple. 

Yahoo.com (17%)

Although it isn’t as much as a household name as Gmail, Yahoo offers a professional email service with some useful features unavailable with its competitor. Yahoo allows you to organise your emails into custom folders, and the free version has a terabyte of storage.

Hotmail.com (16%)

It may be one of the top three most popular email domains, but you can’t get one anymore! In fact, Hotmail used to be a part of Microsoft, which has had a couple of rebrands and is now Outlook. This means that if you created your account before 2012, then you will still have the @hotmail.com address, but if you want to create a new one, then you will get an address ending in @outlook.com. Just like Gmail, Outlook offers extra features such as a calendar and access to online Microsoft Office products. 

These are the top three email providers, as after this the percentage of users drops off sharply to under four per cent. Bear in mind that using an @gmail.com or @outlook.com email address is fine for personal use, but doesn’t look very professional if you want to use that for a business account.

If you’re looking for business emails, then it’s much better to have an email address that matches the name of your website domain, as this adds extra credibility to your company. Go Sitebuilder gives you a personalised website domain name as well as five unique business emails for you to use. Sign up for our 14-day free trial and see just how easy it is to get your business online. 

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What’s the difference between a domain name and an email address?

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If you’ve been looking at choosing a website builder, you’ll probably have noticed that many of them offer personalised domains and email addresses. But what is the difference between the two terms, and do you need them?

Domain name

A domain name forms part of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and is the address for a webpage. They often end in .com, but can end in any one of the 1500 valid domain extensions, such as .net, .org or .co. 

www.exampledomainname.com 

If a user types your domain name into an internet browser’s search bar, it will take them to your website. It is unique and only refers to your specific site. 

Email address

An email address has a domain name within it, but it is formatted differently. Instead of the www it has a username, and an @ sign instead of the full stop. 

username@exampledomainname.com 

Instead of typing this into a search bar, to contact you, a user will have to use an email server (such as gmail or outlook) and use this address to identify the recipient, just as you would write an address on a letter. 

The confusion

It can be easy to get confused when email accounts and domain names start to look similar. Site’s owners can create subdomains, which use a word instead of the www and are designed to organise and navigate through your site: 

store.exampledomainname.com

You can also place dots in the username of an email, so it would be possible to have an email address that looked like this: 

firstname.lastname@exampledomainname.com

The way to tell the difference is to look for the @ sign, which is the flag for an email address. You will never find a domain name with the @, and you will never find an email address without it. 

So, what does it mean when a website builder offers you a personalised domain as well as personalised emails? Let’s say you own a coffee shop called Caffeine Dreams. If it is available, you could have the domain name:

www.caffeinedreams.com

You would also have email addresses that use the same name:

hello@caffeinedreams.com
support@caffeinedreams.com
careers@caffeinedreams.com

These email addresses will be handled by an email server, not your domain itself, but it looks much more professional for a company to have personalised emails. It raises your credibility as well as making the email address easily recognisable and memorable. 

Go Sitebuilder offers personalised domains with up to five personalised emails, as well as a wide selection of designs to make creating your website hassle-free. Why not try out our 14-day trial today?