Email Inquiry / Shared Hosting Vs Google Apps

[yaseent]

Hi All,

this is an inquiry regarding the use go Google Apps instead of my shared hosting SMTP.

Sincerely sorry if this is posted in the wrong section, I could not see a dedicated section for emails.

I've been using the smtp of my shared hosting ever since I started using Zen-Cart.

In the beginning it worked well - and then clients started reporting that the emails were going to SPAM.

After doing some research on the forums here, a post was helpful in informing me that I should use SMTPAUTH instead of PHP mail.

Doing this solved the issue to much satisfaction.

I moved over to what I felt was a more reputable host shortly after making use of the SMTPAUTH, and the SMTPAUTH worked well even so.

Recently however, the same issue is happening.

Initially it was exclusive to Hotmail/Live customer users, then it spread to Yahoo, and then GMail. I asked my host to change the mailserver IP, which worked for a short time.

I think unfortunately, wherever you go, if you're in a shared hosting environment, you're going to have a few buggers who ruin the mail server IP for everyone.

I plan on moving now to an even more reputable host, but I have given up on using a shared IP for the mail server. I need a better solution. Not only is it embarrassing, but it will certainly lower sales and have a major impact on our web reputation. The other problem is that, although a seldom occurrence, maintenance or downtime causes tremendous embarrassment. When the mail server is having issues, my outgoing emails are usually affected (not incoming) - but this is terrible because in some instances, the emails do not get queued for when the outgoing server is back up and running - they disappear and are probably deleted by the host before restoration is completed.

I want to use Google Apps as my outgoing mail server. Not simply GMail, but Google Apps, the paid version - where GMail adopts my domain for use directly on a GMail account.

Has anyone ever done this before? How easy it is to set up? What SMTP is used on the Google Apps for business? The standard SMTP for free GMail accounts? How have your experiences been with regard to experience and easiness of setting up?

Thank you!

[balihr]

Has anyone ever done this before? How easy it is to set up? What SMTP is used on the Google Apps for business? The standard SMTP for free GMail accounts? How have your experiences been with regard to experience and easiness of setting up?

Thank you!

I'm using it on my site and I'm loving it. Setup takes 2 minutes if you type slow.

Basically, you need to set the following under admin->Configuration->Email Options:
Email Transport Method: smtpauth
Email Linefeeds: CRLF
SMTP Mailbox: your_email_address on Google Apps
SMTP Password: your regular mailbox password
SMTP Mail Host: smtp.gmail.com
SMTP Port: 465

And that's all there is to it. You'll love it, trust me. Your emails don't end up in spam because it's signed and recognized (both DKIM and SPF records), you look professional with Google Apps since you're using your domain and there are no downtimes. I've been using it for a year now and have only had around 3-4 minutes of downtime with the email service... I can live with that.

[yaseent]

I'm using it on my site and I'm loving it. Setup takes 2 minutes if you type slow.

And that's all there is to it. You'll love it, trust me. Your emails don't end up in spam because it's signed and recognized (both DKIM and SPF records), you look professional with Google Apps since you're using your domain and there are no downtimes. I've been using it for a year now and have only had around 3-4 minutes of downtime with the email service... I can live with that.

Dear balihr,

thank you so much for your reply, advice and assistance.

I did do some thread searching prior to my post - and found a lot of threads where people were facing complications - and couldn't get a clearer idea of whether it is a good solution.

But now that you've cleared that up for me, I'm a little more optimistic and will get to work ASAP - once again, thanks