This is one of the reasons why I don’t use GMAIL – Google Accidentally Bans Hundreds of Users from Gmail. Barry Schwartz reports on a Google Groups thread where many users have complained that their Gmail accounts were all of a sudden disabled. The problem began late on December 5th. The following day, Gmail Guide replied saying that this was an error on Google’s side and they are fixing it.

This is not the first time I have heard of problems with GMail. Reminds me of the days when many people (not me) used AOL and would have problems not getting mail or losing mail altogether. Now I have been tempted to get a GMail account in order to utilize the storage space – currently 2.5 Gigabytes if I understand correctly. However, I would never use it for business for the following reasons.

1. Google glitches just like the one mentioned above whether that involve not being able to access email or even worse, having email/data lost.

2. Not very professional. let’s face facts – YourName@gmail.com is not very professional looking. It also does nothing to promote your own domain such as Yourname@YourDomain.com does.

3. Using GMail for business allows Google to gather even more information on you than they already have. How do you think they deliver relevant ads? They scan your emails, that’s how! Big Brother is watching.

I know some like the convenience of having web access to email. However, one does not need a third party email service provider to gain web access to email. For example, our hosting provider allows web based access to email through a Horde application.

Another reason why people might like GMail and other third party providers is that they can establish “throw-away” addresses. You can do the same thing with your own domain. We have dozens of addresses that we use for all sorts of various services such as Digg, YouTube, Best of the Web Directory and the list goes on. It is as easy as creating a forwarding address which then forwards to your real address.

While I may experience an occasional mail server crash (1 in the last 5 years), I will never have to worry about GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail of any other third party email service provider spoiling my day because I am simply not going to use them.

David Wallace

David Wallace

David Wallace, co-founder and CEO of SearchRank, is a recognized expert in the industry of search and social media marketing. Since 1997, David has been involved in developing successful search engine and social media marketing campaigns for large and small businesses.

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