Google's Gmail More Professional than Yahoo, Hotmail?

Google's Gmail E-mail domain rules the professional world, a recent study claims. In the age of the Internet, it's important to know how you look to the great World Wide Web, and for starters, an appropriate e-mail account is crucial.

This year, Hunch.com surveyed 700,000 users and asked them to answer certain questions. The questions were intended to predict demographics, personality and other characteristics based on E-mail accounts. The accounts were broken into four domains: Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL, and Hotmail/MSN.

This is what Hunch says E-mail says about its user:

Gmail users:
Gmail users are likely to be relatively thin young men between the ages of 18 to 34. They hold one, if not two college degrees, and are career oriented. Gmail users tend to be cultured, as in well-traveled, live in metropolitan cities and are plugged into the tech world - they read blogs, have an iPhone and laptop, and listen to MP3s. Gmail male users tend to be politically liberal, live the single life and have yet to father a child.

Hotmail/MSN users:
Hotmail users tend to be single women of the same age as Gmail users, 18 - 34, or younger. Unlike Gmail users, Hotmail/MSN users live in the suburbs, and possibly still with their parents. The group was called more introverted and the report suggests they like to read contemporary fiction, eat sweets, and can have pessimistic viewpoints.

Yahoo! users:
These E-mail account users are more likely to be overweight females from 18 to 49. They hold a high school diploma, have more than two kids, and enjoy lounging (relaxing, lazing about). They wear pajamas more often than Hotmail and Gmail users. This group tends to read more magazines, and spends more time on the computer (though on what sites was not mentioned in the study). They listen to CDs more often than MP3s, and lean more towards extroverted behavior.

AOL users:
These users tend to be overweight women with children, like the Yahoo! users, but tend to be between the ages of 35 - 60. They, too, are extroverted, and have been in a relationship for over ten years. They have not traveled as much as Gmail users.

Kelly Ford, vice president of marketing for Hunch, told Tech News Daily, Although these correlations don't apply to every individual case, the data shows that there are general attributes and demographic measures which are more strongly associated with some E-mail domains than others.

What this means

Gmail is the preferred professional E-mail account, and employers feel Gmail is more serious than other E-mail accounts, suggests Hunch.com.

No one will take you seriously if you're using an archaic domain, Ford stated. AOL probably has the worst reputation among e-mail users for spam, and people can also be suspicious of foreign e-mail addresses coming from Hotmail too, so it's advised to just stick with Gmail.

What's equally important is the email name. First and last names are preferable, but not everyone can have a unique Gmail account. But Ford suggests if you can't use your name, make the E-mail address professional. For example, stay away from names like 'FuzzyBear,' 'BananaHana,' and 'IHeartJBieb.'

Just like you would carefully pick out clothes to wear to an interview, you want to choose your E-mail domain with the same precision and think about the impression you want to make, stated Ford.