Your email and your website: why they're kept separate

Short answer: your website and your email both use your domain name, but they're two separate services. I build and look after websites; I don't set up, host or support email. Your email stays with whoever runs it now, and if you don't have proper business email yet, I recommend Microsoft 365. Your website's contact form sends enquiries on its own, so changing one never breaks the other.

Same name, different services

When someone visits yourbusiness.com.au or emails [email protected], your domain's address book (its DNS records) sends each one to a different place: visitors to the website, email to your email provider. The domain, Cloudflare and website guide shows how that works.

Why I don't do email

Email is the service a business can least afford to lose, and looking after it properly means mailboxes, passwords, phones, laptops, spam filters, account security and someone to call when a message goes missing. That's IT support, and it's a different job from building websites. You're better served by a provider whose job it is.

It's also safer for you. Because your website never logs in to your email, there's no email password sitting in your website's code, and a problem with the website can't reach your inbox.

No proper business email yet? Microsoft 365

If you're using a free Gmail or Outlook.com address, or the email that came with your old web hosting, I recommend moving to Microsoft 365:

• Business Basic is enough for email: Outlook on the web and phone, your own domain, calendars, and Teams.
• Business Standard adds the desktop Word, Excel and Outlook apps, if you want them.
• Buy it in your business's name, directly from Microsoft or through an IT provider, so you hold the main admin login. Prices are per person per month; check Microsoft's current Australian prices, as they went up on 1 July 2026.

Already happy with Google Workspace? Keep it. Nothing about a Shipshape website needs you to change.

Email that came with your web hosting

This is the one to check before a website move. Many older websites came with hosting that also runs the business's email, often under a control panel called cPanel. If that's you, cancelling the old hosting would cancel your email too.

So the order matters:

1. Move your email first, to Microsoft 365 (or Google Workspace), with your IT provider or using Microsoft's own move tools. Your old messages come across.
2. Check it's working for a week or two: sending, receiving and phones.
3. Then move the website, and only cancel the old hosting once both are settled.

I'll spot this when I look at your setup, before you commit to anything, and I'll tell you if your email needs to move first.

How your contact form sends enquiries

The contact form on a Shipshape website uses its own sending service, separate from your mailboxes. When a customer fills it in:

• the enquiry arrives in your inbox like any other email
• hitting Reply goes straight to the customer
• nothing is stored on the website.

Because the form doesn't depend on your email system, you can change email providers without touching the website. The only thing to tell me is if the address enquiries should go to changes.

What I'll ask you about email

• Who provides your email: Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, your web host, or someone else.
• Who set it up, if it was an IT provider, so the email settings can be confirmed with them when your domain moves.
• Which address enquiries should go to.

Your email settings are copied exactly when your domain moves to Cloudflare, and then left alone. If something about your email looks wrong, I'll tell you, and fixing it is a job for your email provider.

Sources

• Microsoft: Compare Microsoft 365 business plans (Australia) (opens in a new tab)
• Microsoft Learn: Ways to migrate email to Microsoft 365 (opens in a new tab)