All email addresses have the following format: username@domain, eg: me@databias.co.za. Using a popular analogy, imagine the domain is the PO Box and the username is the intended recipient. Having these as standard enables the mail servers (post offices) and clients (postmen) to collect and deliver the electronic mail successfully.
An end user’s mail client will deliver outbound messages to their local mail server using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or a similar set of rules.
The local mail server then performs a Domain Name Server (DNS) lookup to find the Mail Exchanger (MX) records for the recipient’s domain name. These MX devices are the designated mail servers for all email addresses within that domain.
The local server then attempts an SMTP connection to each of the MX servers in order of priority, until a connection is successful. It forwards the message to the remote server and ends the connection.
The remote mail server then either repeats this process, forwarding the message closer to the intended recipient, or may deliver the message directly to the recipient.
Typically, incoming emails go through a spam filtering service, and all clean emails are sent to the mail server. Email routing goes a step beyond spam filtering and lets you copy or redirect emails based on customized rules. The routing rules can be based on the sender, recipient, or other parameters. With email routing, an email can be sent to the original recipient and carbon copied to additional recipient(s), or it can be redirected to a completely different destination, or simply branded before delivery.
Used correctly, email routing gives your business a competitive edge by improving efficiency, organization and enhancing the end user experience with branding. Databias redirects email through our branding servers in order to add signatures and banners to our customers email.
The following mail clients are routable:
Gsuite and Gmail
Office 365 and Outlook