1. Explain what "Email Forward" is and how it works
2. Give a general education about using different email address on the internet.
3. Give some "email related" tips on fighting spam.
4. Explains the differences between "email forwarding" and "Real email boxes (POP3)"

IF you are NOT a current customer of Zee Web Net (ZWN) Web Hosting servers, then please read this!

Once or twice a week, someone who is NOT a ZWN Customer finds this web page via search engines and wants to sign up for this email forwarding service.  Please understand this email forwarding service is ONLY for ZWN customer. It is not because we don't love you. It is simply because we can only provide services for those who have their domain name on our server. If you are NOT a ZWN customer, your request for mail forwarding will be ignored.

What is "Virtual Domain Email Forwarding" and how does it work?

    ZWN offers our customers to be able to have as many “Domain  Email Address” as they want. When Email is sent to these “Domain email address”, the email is forwarded to your real mail box (POP3 mail box) you have set up with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or a POP3 mail box you have set up with us at ZWN.
     The Process to forward the email to your real mailbox normally takes less than a second of time delay.

    In the below information, replace the word "@mydomain.com" with your domain name. Email address examples below of yourname@yourISP.com represents your current (primary) email address you have with your ISP

ZWN offers two types of “mail forwarding”. 
    1) Catchall forwarding and 
    2) Specific Forwarding.

 Method #1. Catchall Forwarding.

This system forwards ANYTHING sent to any email address that ends with @mydomain.com to a real (POP3) mailbox you are already using to receive emails. Normally, this is your "primary mail box" set up with your ISP but you can pick any real mailbox that you own like Hotmail.com or Yahoo.com or where ever you have your email going to you now. OR, we can set you up your own POP3 mail box on our server to take care of this need.

 The Advantage with Catchall Forwarding

1. You can make up any address you want and you do not need to contact ZWN to make the address for you.
2. You can have as many email address as you want.
3. If someone types the first part of your address wrong (First part means the text BEFORE the @ sign) then you will still get the email because EVERY email that ends with “@mydomain.com” will be forward to your real mailbox.

Disadvantages with Catchall Forwarding.
                Spammers can and will send you tons of email.

Method #2.  Specific Forwarding. (Recommend method)

With this method, you let us know
1) what domain name email address you want to create and
2) Where (what email address) you want us to forward those email to.  

We will set up your first group of “Mail Forwarding Address” free. Just let us know what you would like for them to be. 

Mail Forwarding common Examples could be
sales@mydomain.com 
support@mydomain.com 
john@mydomain.com 

If your "Domain Mail forwarding service" was set up with the above address, then Email sent to any of those address would be forward to your  yourname@yourISP.com  mailbox.

You can mix and match the two different methods,  You can have some emails pointing to selected email address and have any email address not specified, go to a real email address of your choice.

Examples

sales@mydomain.com   is forward to  Bob@mydomain.com
support@mydomain.com  is forward to Roger@AOL.com
john@mydomain.com   is forward to jj@msn.com

All other email is forward to mystuff@mydomain.com

"Specific Forwarding" method is how your mail forwarding system will be set up if we don’t hear from you otherwise.

How to create and maintain your Domain Name Email Address.

All ZWN customers have the ability to control many functions of their domain on our ZWN Internet Server. This Utility is called "ZWN Control Panel", or "ZCP" for short. One of the functions of ZCP allows customers to setup, change and delete their own Domain Name Email address. Please refer to the document ZWN sent you about how to use the ZCP utility. This document has your UserID and Passwords and URL to allow you access to manage your ZWN Web Hosting Account.

Or, you can simply send us a email saying what you want to changes or add  to your “Mail Forwarding Service” and we will make the changes for you. For customers who occasionally request changes, this service is free. For customers who request changes often will be billed at our standard hourly rate.

Why should I have more than one email address???

There are various reasons for having more than one email address, some of the reasons are based on ego, some reasons are to help organize and identify incoming emails, and some reasons are to help fight spam.

Below is a list of example email address you could use. Only extremely obsessive personalities would want to use all of the examples below. The list is just to give you some Ideas.

• Personal email address.
  Used only for friends and family. This email address is never used on Internet web pages or registering on the Internet.
   
• Business email addresses.
  The professional email address used for business email. This email address is never used on Internet web pages or registering on the Internet.
   
• Stationery email address.
  Used on your business cards, stationery, printed documents. Because this address is on printed material, you do not want to ever change it and you do not want any spammers to ever find it, so you will NEVER used this address on the internet.
   
• Your Web Site email address.
  These are email addresses that are used on your web site. Helpful to let you know when someone is sending you mail who found you by visiting one of your web sites. Never uses these same email addresses on your stationary or any printed document because these address will change because every spammer in the world will find and use this email address. You will probably change this email address once a year.
   
• Junk Mail Address.
  This is the address you use on Internet when you are visiting other people’s / Business’s web pages or registering on the Internet. You will probably change this email address every two or three years.

Do you really need all of the above example email address? Heck No!! It is just to give you some ideas.

Spammers get your email address in many assorted ways. Having different email address for different purposes can help you hide from spammers. One of the ways spammers find you is when you register or “sign-up” for things on the Internet. Anytime you find yourself on a web page that is asking you to enter your email address, there is a good chance you are adding your name to a junk-mail-list. Unless you feel very comfortable with the company you are getting ready to give your email address to, you should use your “junk mail” email address when entering your name into web pages registration or sign-up web page forms.

A more widespread way for spammers to acquire your email address is from your web pages. Never use your personal email address on any web pages. If you own a web site, used your Domain Name email address on your web pages, NOT your personal email address.

Have you ever sign someone’s guest book on a web site? A guest book is simply a web page out there on the Internet. If you used your Main Email address when signing someone’s guest book, that email address will end up on every spammer’s mailing list sooner or later.

If you can see your email address on a web page, then spammers can find your email address. (Well, that is not totally true. There are ways of putting your email address on your web page using special JAVA code or ASCII Code to hide your email address from spammers, but that is a long story and we won’t get into that now). FYI - To create your own ASCII code email address for your web pages so that spammers can't find them, go to http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

There are a lot of other ways spammers can find your email address, but the above two are the most common methods.

If you own a business, you may want create a “stationary email address” and use it for your business cards and other printed material. Printed material is too expensive to have to get reprinted just because you can’t stand the 20 Spams you get every day to that email address, so don’t use your “Stationary email address” on the internet.

In addition to help fighting spam, I also like to use different email address on my web page to let me know that the email came from someone who was visiting one of my web pages. Example. I like using info1@mydomain.com (replace mydomain.com with the real domain name) on my web page in places like, “click here to send us email” or “for additional information send us email at info1@mydomain.com”. Because I only way I use this email address is on my web page, I know that email sent to that email address is from someone who found my email address on one of my web sites.

Changed your return email address.

After you have set up your domain name email address you may want to change your Return address in your email software to show your New domain Email address instead of your Old ISP "primary" Address.

Why do you want to change my email return address? Well, for a couple of reasons...

1. Currently your "email return address" is probably your ISP email address. Every time you change ISP's you have to notify everyone of your NEW Address.
   With "“Virtual Domain Email Forwarding”, all you have to do is go into your ZWN Control Panel Utility and make your changes. Or, notify ZWN where you want your "Domain Email" forwarded to and we will take care of it for you.  None of the people who send you email to your "Domain Email Address" even know there has been a change and they do not have to go into their address book and change your email address every time you change ISP (Internet Service Provider).
    
2. The most important reason is that your domain email address looks cooler than your ISP's email address. If your name is Bob Smithenhimer, and your at MSN.com, then your email address is something like bob3387@msn.com, but if your domain name is @smithenhimer.com - then your email address could be bob@smithenhimer.com. Much Cooler!
   
   The email address "sales@lindasbakery.com" looks more professional than "lindasbakery@yahoo.com".

If you know how to change your "return email address" setting in your email software, go for it! If you do not know how, then use your "Help" function in your email software to find out how OR send our support team an email letting us know what email software you are using and we will send you instructions.

After you have made these changes to your email software, send yourself an email to test it. Send a email to yourname@mydomain.com (but use YOUR domain email address instead of yourname@mydomain.com !!!) and see how it works.  

The next thing to do is...

Start letting everyone who is sending email to your old ISP email address know about your new address. It takes a LONG time to get everyone to change. When you change ISP's, everyone still sending email to your old ISP address will get the email they sent bounced back to them. So start the change now. Some people have to be reminded 3 or 4 times before they take the time to go into their address book and change your email address. 

POP3 Mail Boxes  (Real Mail boxes)

We have been talking about “Virtual Domain Email Forwarding” in this document. ZWN can set up REAL MAIL BOXES (POP3) for you if you desire them.

Are you tired of your email coming into your PC with all of the email for the rest of your family or employees. Do you want your email going to one mail box and your wife's (other staff members, family members) email going to have their OWN POP3 mail box, let us know, we can set up real mail boxes for you, all of your family can have their OWN POP3 mail box and collect their OWN Email and not get it mixed up with your Mail.