Understanding an email address

A successful delivery of an email requires having a valid email address for both the sender and receiver. Think of an email address as any other kind of address because an email address consists of a person and place. In an email address, the person part is the userid (or username) and the place is the domain name of the remote computer.

How does the computer distinguish between the two? An @ (pronounced as "at") is used to separate the two parts of an email address.

If you are sending email to someone on the same domain name, you only need to specify the userid because the message will be sent locally, by default. If you want to send an email to a recipient on another domain, you will need to make sure both parts of your email address are correct. If you are unsure about whether or not you need to use the domain name, use the domain name because this will ensure the email is sent to the right recipient.

Figure 1 shows a standard format of an email address.

Figure 1 standard format of an email address

Notice in figure 1 there is no www in front of a domain name because it is not required for sending an email. The email won’t go through if you add www. in front of an email address.