Google offers a way to host your email on their servers for free.  This means you get to utilize all the great services that they offer in Gmail, but with your own custom domain (i.e. yourname@example.com).  Here are a few of the top reasons to get your own domain and have Google host your email:

• You have a small company and you want to look more professional.
• You’re applying to jobs and you realize that sexygrl21@gmail.com is not the best thing to have on your resume.
• You already have your email hosted by a service you pay for, but the interface is completely lacking and you’d rather use Gmail’s interface.
• Your email is hosted by another provider, but they don’t provide cloud syncing of contacts and calendar as well.
• You have a blog and a custom domain already and you want to start using that name as part of your email address.
• You can’t get a decent username @gmail.com so you just want to create your own domain and get the address you want.
• You just want to have your own custom domain because you think it’s cool.

If any of the above are true, you should consider using Gmail to host your email services and use the domain name of your choosing.

• Find an Available Domain Name – Pretty much every site you can register a domain name at will do a look up to see if it’s available and provide close alternatives if it’s not.   Network Solutions’ Whois is a great one to use to get more info on the current owner of an owned site.
• Get a Domain Name of Your Choosing – It’s really easy to get domains these days. GoDaddy is one of the easier ones to use that have a good amount of options and low price. It’s also the one with the automated setup procedures which make it a lot easier to set up services (see below). Other domain registrars include Network Solutions, 1&1, DreamHost, and Name.
• Sign Up For Google Apps – Google Apps is the overall name for all the services that Google provides for the public to use for their own purposes. In order to have Google use their Gmail platform for your personal domain, you need to go to the Sign Up Page for Google Apps and sign up. The directions are pretty easy to follow.
• Change MX Records to Use Gmail For Your Domain – If you used GoDaddy to register your domain, you can use their automated system to have the records changed automatically and then using your GoDaddy login information to login and follow the directions. Otherwise, go to Google’s help page and follow the directions.

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B_Jacobs

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