Why www.acme.com and j.doe@yahoo.com?
 

Hello

This is not a Linux-specific question but I didn't know where else to ask and figured there should be people here who probably know.

I notice that a lot of small businesses have their own domain name, but don't take advantage of this to have their own e-mail addresses instead of eg. j.doe@yahoo.com or j.doe@gmail.com.

This is very strange, since they already go through the harder tasks of registering a domain name and hosting their web site somewhere. Why doesn't their hoster configure their e-mail server and MX record in the DNS?

Thank you.

I guess they tend to have email before they get their own company website, and then don't want to / think to / know they can change it to match their domain. Also they're more often buying a cheap hosting package which doesn't shout about doing somethign like that, and they're not expecting it to exist from their lack of technical knowledge.

Depending on the hosting they may not get email hosting thrown in. So they'll have a website with a hosting company and email with another company.
It does seem a bit silly though -- even the cheapo hosting I use has email included (which is actually why I got a domain in the first place).

But you don't need email included, you just need to be able to set an MX record. I throw my personal email on my own domain at gmail.

I suppose, like me, they didn't know that. I've not really played with gmail as I don't need it.

Well it's not about gmail, there are loads of providers that do this. owning a domain name only needs to end at the DNS records, there's no need at all to tie it to one location. It probably sounds like magic though if you don't even know what DNS is...

I meant more that they didn't realise they could use their existing gmail or other free service for email as it's usually something you pay for or get included in hosting.

I think actually Google Apps For Business, which used to be Google For Your Domain, might only be paid since earlier this year. I've been using it for years though, so and grandfathered into it now.

I didn't know Gmail could be set as MX.

If I wanted to stop paying for web hosting, I could host a small site at home on an embedded Linux appliance that I can leave on 24/7.

Then, I could pay for DNS hosting somewhere simply to point the www to that appliance, and MX to Gmail?

yes, that's exactly what I do.

I didn't realize you could do that with regular gmail, good to know.

But then, this means that Gmail gets to read every incoming e-mail, while I'd rather keep my e-mails private.

*yawn*

Either they don't know their domain and web hosting can include email unless they're sold that, or they do know but have already built up the business using their existing email address and don't want to change.