Do I need separate email hosting if I have web hosting?

Not always. For a few staff sending ordinary mail, the email in your web hosting plan usually works. Separate email hosting makes sense when orders and invoices arrive by email, mailboxes are large, or a hacked website could drag your mail down with it. Your domain's MX record decides where mail goes, so you can split them at any time.

How can email and website be on different services?

Every domain has DNS records that act like a signpost. The website record points visitors to your web hosting. The MX record tells other mail servers where to deliver mail for @yourcompany.com.my. Google's own setup guide for Google Workspace explains it this way: the sending server looks up your MX record to decide where to deliver.

Because the two records are separate, your website can stay with one provider while mail goes to another. Customers see no change in your address.

When is mail on the web hosting plan enough?

• You have one to five mailboxes with light daily use.
• Mailboxes are small and staff clear old attachments.
• Your website is simple, kept updated, and rarely changes.
• A short mail delay during a website problem would not cost you sales.

When does separate email hosting make sense?

Your website is a bigger target. An outdated WordPress plugin is a common way into a website. If the site and mail share one account, a hacked site can be used to send spam from your domain. Gmail and Outlook then start treating your normal mail as suspicious, and staff mail lands in spam too.

You need stronger spam filtering. Fake invoices and password phishing are the emails that cost businesses money. A dedicated mail service usually filters harder before mail reaches the inbox.

Your mail must pass Gmail's sender rules. Gmail asks every sender to have SPF or DKIM set up for the domain, valid DNS for the sending server, and spam complaints kept under 0.3%. Senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail also need DMARC. A mail service that sets these up and watches them saves you guessing.

Mailboxes are big. Staff who keep years of attachments can fill a web hosting plan's storage, and a full account can stop the website as well as the mail.

What are the risks of splitting them?

The main risk is during the move. If the MX record changes before the new mailboxes are ready, mail can bounce. Old mail also needs copying across. Plan the move for a quiet day and check the SPF record lists the new mail service, or your mail may start going to spam.

What to do

1. Count your mailboxes and note how much space each one uses.
2. Ask yourself: if the website went down for a day, would losing email for that day hurt? If yes, consider splitting.
3. Check who controls your domain's DNS. You will need it to change the MX and SPF records.
4. Ask the new provider to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC and to copy old mail before the switch.
5. After the move, send a test email to a Gmail and an Outlook address and confirm it reaches the inbox.

How SyncTech can help

Our email hosting with spam filtering runs separately from your website, with SPF and DKIM set up for you. If you are moving from another provider, our email migration service copies your old mail across before the switch. For more on picking a provider, see our earlier guide Email hosting Malaysia: how to choose a provider.

Source and credit

We are sharing guidance from Google. This guide is written by Synctech in our own words.

• Set up MX records for Google Workspace, Google Workspace Admin Help, Google, retrieved 4 November 2026: https://support.google.com/a/answer/140034?hl=en
• Email sender guidelines, Gmail Help, Google, retrieved 4 November 2026: https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126?hl=en Retrieved 4 November 2026. Gmail, Google, Outlook and WordPress are trademarks of their owners. Synctech is not connected with them. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. If anything here is wrong, email support@synctech.com.my and we will correct it.