Changing email host

My email inbox has become inundated with spam. It's constant; probably several hundred per day. I'd like to switch email hosts and see if that resolves it, but I also have my website hosted with the same company. Is there an easy way to sign up for a new email plan somewhere else and have it host only the email? I have no idea how to do this.

I'm currently with a company called ICDSoft. I was thinking of switching the email to 1&1, as I've heard decent things. I'm open to other recs as well.

Split your hosting and your e-mail accounts at the DNS level. So, for example, get a 1&1 account with a dedicated IP address. Go to your domain registrar and change your DNS's A Record to that IP address. Then have Gmail handle your mail by changing the MX record in the DNS (Gmail has a FAQ on how to do this).

What Dave said.

There's no real connection between different services, so for a domain you can actually have the registration (who owns it), DNS (tells computers where to go for things), mail and websites (and anything else) separate.

You may not save any money, but you don't have to spend a lot for any of that stuff.

I'd use Google Apps (Gmail) for mail. I'd also recommend just using the web interface, mail clients are generally nothing but hassle down the road. Migration is generally not too complicated, but you will need to do some planning.

Can I assume that once I migrate servers it will take a few days before I am receiving email on a regular basis?

jonsel said:
Can I assume that once I migrate servers it will take a few days before I am receiving email on a regular basis?

It mostly depends on what you have your time to live (TTL) on your MX records set to. That value tells servers how long it should 'not bother checking'. I think a common default is 4 hours, but I'd probably set it to 1 hour or 30 minutes so that you can deal with emergencies a little more quickly. Theoretically you shouldn't get any mail at your old mail server after your TTL expires. In reality, you'll notice a few emails coming in from what has to be poorly configured email servers coming in, so it's good to check the old server for about a week. After a week, forget it. If people don't want to have a working email server then they don't deserve to talk to you!

Who do you recommend to help me do this? I'd rather pay someone to get this right the first time than me lose several days messing around with it.

jonsel said:
Who do you recommend to help me do this? I'd rather pay someone to get this right the first time than me lose several days messing around with it.

This is where I'm not terribly useful! While I deal with this sort of stuff at work (admittedly not daily, as we don't change mail providers very often) I'm not in the business these days of consulting in my off hours. (Time not at work is precious!)

We did use a company called Cloud Sherpas to assist in our migration, and their rates were quite reasonable (I think the project was ~$3000 for 100 users, although that involved me managing the migration of the data). I don't know if their charges will scale down to the level that you're at (which I'm assuming is small), but it can't hurt to give them a call. They're also resellers for Google Apps, so they can consult on what licensing is best to purchase for your situation.

Any small business IT consultant should be able to handle assisting you. I can't give you any good referrals for the area, but perhaps someone else can. (We do keep some consultants under contract, but they're based out of Long Island so it's not a good fit for someone in Essex County)

Who do you guys like for web hosting? I need to renew my Bluehost account, and I'm wondering if $10.99/month x 24 months is a lot for my one domain and one dinky web site.