Create a personal email address

I am in need of a personal email address. What are the options available to me - I'm open for both free and paid subscriptions. Thanks.
Henry Lewis

For most people a personal email address from Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! is more than sufficient and it's 100% free. These three popular email services are very good and have millions of users. We'll go over their pros and cons later in this article.

But if you are looking for an email address with your name, you can get that too for a very small charge. It involves registering a domain name and setting up the email account. Confused? Don't worry, this article has been written primarily for you and will provide step by step details on how to go about getting a true personal email address - your own brand!

Format of an email address

Email addresses have two parts - the user ID (or username) and the domain name. These are 'joined' by the '@' sign. So there are two places in an email address where you can have your name -the user ID and the domain name.

For example, here is my personal email address (please don't spam). The domain name is my full name while the user ID is just my first name.

Free email address

You can get a free email address for personal and business use from hundreds of companies on the internet. Simply sign up for an account by filling up a simple online form... yes, it's that easy! No credit card required and no payment ever (at least that's what is touted).

The best email services in the world are Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL, though not in that particular order. You can take your pick from any of these... heck get an account on all! However, there is a limit to which you can personalize the email address from such services.

Thus, though you are able to choose your own user name, there is little or no choice in the domain name. For instance, Gmail always gives you gmail.com addresses. Yahoo offers a few more - yahoo.com, rocketmail.com, ymail.com or a country specific domain.

Also, since these email services have millions of subscribers, a user name of your name would probably not be available unless you have an uncommon name. It would already be in use by your namesake. You can check the availability of different combinations of your name (read the article on how to get a username of choice for tips) but as you would have guessed, personalization of the email address is limited on free services.

How to create a personal email addresses with your name in the domain?

To get a truly personal email address, you need to get a domain name of your name. This will cost you just a few dollars per year. You can register a domain name from Network Solutions for less than $15 annually.

Network Solutions was the first company to offer domain names. It's still probably the best domain name registrar in the world. Though there are other places where you can get a domain name for a slightly lower price (just a couple of dollars lesser), the security and features offered by Network Solutions are unmatched. Take my advice; don't put your most important online identity in the hands of some sleazy fly-by-night operator.

Anyway, registering a domain name through NetworkSolutions is a very simple affair. Type in your name in the text box, pick one or more TLDs (the Top Level Domains like .com, .net, .info etc.) and hit the Search button. Remember, a domain name can have only alphanumeric characters and dashes.

Found a domain with your name? Congratulations. Hurry and register it. NetworkSolutions also offers email packages that you can add to the domain name order and get a personal email address. Your domain name and email address will be active immediately upon registration... if not, it may take a few hours.

By the way, to protect your online identity, you may like to book similar domain names.