What stays exactly the same
Moving your mailboxes to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 does not move your website. Your site, its files, its address, and its hosting all stay right where they are. Plenty of our clients run their website with us while their email lives at Google or Microsoft; the two services share your domain name but are otherwise independent, like a shop and a post office box that both use the same street address.
What changes: the arrows that route your mail
Your domain has a set of public signposts called DNS records. One of them, the MX record, is the arrow that tells the rest of the internet where mail for your domain should be delivered. Today that arrow may point at our servers; after the move it points at Google's or Microsoft's. A couple of related records change too: the list of servers allowed to send as your domain has to include the new provider, and the new provider issues its own message signature that gets published alongside. For domains whose DNS we manage, we make these changes for you as part of the move. If your DNS or the Google/Microsoft side is handled by someone else, we coordinate with them so nothing gets missed.
The one gotcha almost everyone hits
Here is the part that catches people out. Your website also sends email, including contact form notifications and receipts, and it does so by logging in to a mailbox at your domain, the same way your phone does. When that mailbox moves to Google or Microsoft, the website is still trying to log in to the old mail server with the old settings. The result: your personal email works beautifully at its new home, but a week later you notice the contact form has gone silent. Nothing is broken on the website; its outgoing mail simply needs to be re-pointed at the new provider, with a login that the new provider accepts.
That re-pointing is a quick job for us, but we can only do it if we know the move is happening.
What to do when you switch
- Tell us before the move, or as soon as it is underway. Timing matters, because mail can be lost if the arrows change before the new mailboxes exist.
- Let us know who is handling the Google or Microsoft side, so we can coordinate the record changes.
- After the switch, send a test through your contact form to confirm everything still arrives.
Planning a move to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, or already mid-move? Open a support ticket and we will make sure your website's email comes along safely.
