I was just thinking....

Say if you have a site for your work and it has a domain but your contact email does not use your domain, what does that say to you about the site/service offered?

For example websites is joesportolio.com but the contact email is joe@google.com

If it was a different domain but not a free email service does that give another, different impression?

Does using google/hotmail make you look unprofessional?

Do different target audiences assume different things when viewing e-mal addresses?

Thoughts please.

For me, google(gmail) and yahoo look like personal addresses, not enterprises addresses.

So, yea, it does look unprofessional to me.

I think so too.

What about for personal sites, say a freelance graphic designer?

url: goodgraphics.com

email: george@gmail.com

I would suggest you to use george@goodgraphics.com then, if you can.
I've heard that you can use gmail as a mail server for your domain, but never looked into it.

If your hosting doesn't come with an email account, you could try to implement them that way.

Yes... I have excellent experiences online,

But, one of -few- negative experiences came from a site that used a "hotmail" account to contact me instead of their domain.

My suggestion is: Always try to use your domain... these days even a subdomain might sound suspicious.

In some domains I use Goggle Apps for the e-mail... but _always_ with using my domain -not google.com or hotmail-.

Just my opinion.-

I was looking at this the last time I was writing up my curriculum vitae/resume. First of all if you can, get a email address that isn't part of e-mail providers such as hotmail and gmail. The otehr thing to not is to get your first name or preferably your full name in the email adrress. These two things show professionalism and it makes you as an individual easier to identify.

Originally Posted by graham08

The other thing to not is to get your first name or preferably your full name in the email adrress. These two things show professionalism and it makes you as an individual easier to identify.

What should you put?

My domain for my name just has email forwarding.

Are there any workaround to make it look like any replies have come from the address the sender has sent to?

For example:
domain: me@myname.com forwards to me@gmail.com

When I reply can I make it look like it has come from me@myname.com even though it has come from the gmail account?

if you own a big company with a website.. then of course it leaves a bad impression on those who are familiar with your firm..

It is unprofessional although some companies use it.

This might be completely useless to many:

Now You can link an old @hotmail.com address to a @live.com , which -at least for me- sounds better. Just sign up for a live account, and then link both.

HTH