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The e-mail service is still one of the most important resources when thinking about the presence of brands / companies on the Web and for this reason, managing and making adequate use of the available resources is essential.
Among all that is associated with this fundamental service, the e-mail or standard address – also known as “catch-all” e-mail – is a valuable resource that, if well used, further enhances the e-mail service.
Today we will learn what it is, advantages and disadvantages, as well as how to use it in the most efficient way.
What is a default or catch-all email address?
Standard address, standard e-mail or more popularly known as “catch-all” e-mail, is a feature of the main e-mail services, whose function is to accept all e-mail messages that are sent to a domain, even when the email account does not exist.
Suppose there are only three e-mail accounts under your domain: support@mydomain.com.br, business@mydomain.com.br and contato@mydomain.com.br.
However, someone who wants to make contact with the Sales area got confused and when filling in the recipient field, used sales@mydomain.com.br and not commercial@meudominio.com.br.
If the “catch-all” email is not enabled, the message will simply be returned to the sender and the error message will appear “no such user here” or something similar, such as “unknown user” or “no such user exists”.
Worse when it is a message in English and for the majority who do not know anything about the language, it does not clarify the reason for the return, causing in some cases the sender to simply give up making contact.
The result is a lost sale!
On the other hand, and as expected at this point, having the resource active and configured, at least one of the three existing accounts will receive this hypothetical message and all other email addresses that are entered, except for the correct and existing ones. . In these cases, the respective accounts will receive them.
Why have a catch-all email (advantages)?
For many people, the example we gave earlier to explain how the standard / “catch-all” email works, already constitutes a good enough advantage to justify its use. But there are other advantages.
- Commercial contacts – not losing commercial contacts, should be seen as any contact that has the good functioning of the business as an unfolding and that may include possibilities for partnerships and expanding the network of suppliers, for example;
- Readjustment of addresses – based on the hypothetical situation mentioned (sales vs commercial), if we identify that it occurs frequently, readjust the address for the user sales instead of commercialmay be interesting;
- Other possible contacts – starting from the only three addresses, if we identify that it is frequent to receive messages forwarded to financial@meudominio.com.br, it may be an indicator that creating and providing a contact for this purpose is important;
- Typing errors – Typing errors are common, especially with words that are unusual or spelled differently than usual, such as in proper names, foreign names and even certain words. For example, people are led to type charge instead of charge@meudominio.com.br, which will naturally result in the message being returned.
Why not have a catch-all email (disadvantages)?
Not everything is flowers, after all it is difficult to imagine something that is just advantages or brings only benefits.
There may be some downsides to enabling your account’s default / catch-all email:
- Spam – SPAM spreading services don’t just rely on existing, correct and active email addresses. Some shoot junk mail to addresses they know exists, and some use standard / “catch-all” email, or because it’s common to have accounts like contato@dominio.com.br and even to test the existence of certain addresses. If they do not receive an error message indicating that the account does not exist, it is possibly an active account;
- Disk space consumption – especially if there is no one who regularly does the maintenance, discarding SPAM and junk mail, irrelevant messages and everything that doesn’t need to be maintained, over time it can eat up valuable disk space from the plan accommodation;
- Increased processing on the account – in particular when there is a script designed to filter messages and the volume of incoming messages is very large, the amount of processes and processing of the plan tends to increase;
email filters
If you believe that the advantages of enabling “catch-all” email outweigh the disadvantages, it is important to point out that its efficiency can be improved, and therefore bring even more benefits, if combined with email filters.
We created a very detailed article about what an email filter is, how and why to use it in your account, which is why we will not explain its principles here.
It is possible to create global filters (which filter messages from all accounts) or just for the default / catch-all account.
Whatever the case, by doing so, incoming messages will automatically be subject to the benefits that filters provide.
Thus, you can choose the different fields that a message contains (sender, recipient, subject, reply to, message body, header) and from them, create a set of rules that help to have more control, organize, automate actions and even minimize the disadvantages, such as reducing the receipt of SPAM.
If, for example, there is a set of domains that are proven to spread SPAM / junk mail, you can create a list with them and discard the messages.
Even the main antispam tools, such as SpamAssassin, are actually a set of filters and rules that seek to identify patterns common to most SPAM messages.
How to use catch-all email?
On most hosting services, the standard email / “catch-all” feature is disabled by default and must be enabled in the control panel.
There are variations in the procedures and options available depending on the control panel and, therefore, we are going to restrict ourselves to cPanel – used by HostMídia and the main companies in the sector – and its most common configurations, so that if you use a different service, it is you need to contact your company’s technical support for assistance.
In cPanel, the feature is grouped together with other email tools, under the name “default address”. By clicking on it, there are the following possibilities:
- Depending on your hosting plan, you may have multiple subdomains and addon domains, so the first step is to define which will be the one for which the feature is being enabled. Note that if there is more than one, the procedure must be performed for each one if desired;
- The option “Discard email while server processes it at SMTP time “ is enabled by default, which means that all messages to non-existing users are returned with a standard error message – “no such user here”. If you wish, such a message can be changed by another that you deem best, without necessarily enabling the “catch-all”;
- By checking the next checkbox (Forward to e-mail address), it automatically unchecks the previous one and allows you to fill in the text field just below, with the e-mail address that will receive messages from “catch-all”. It is convenient to create an account for this purpose, both to avoid confusion with correctly addressed e-mails, and so that a set of rules and filters can be created with their own purpose;
- Advanced options:
- Instead of specifying a specific account for the “catch all”, it is possible to designate the system account or standard account and which uses the same cPanel user. It is an account that is created automatically and that is used, for example, for submitting the form on the website. We do not recommend using it, as in addition to serving other purposes, its access is usually through the control panel, making its administration difficult;
- You can also direct catch-all messages to a script in the account. Such a situation can be desirable and useful, if you are able to include a script written in PERL or PHP language to carry out any treatment or even more sophisticated filtering in the messages;
- The third option is simply to discard the message. Unlike the standard option, which actually returns the message to the sender, informing that the user does not exist, in this option the message goes to the account’s trash.
- Any changes made will only take effect after clicking on the “CHANGE” button at the bottom of the screen.
Conclusion
Default address or “catch-all” email is an email tool that, if properly used and configured, can be very useful and efficient.
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