A port is just a port, and just because there is a standard one that is used by something, it doesn’t mean you always have to use the default port for doing that something. Enter sending out an e-mail message via SMTP when using a GoDaddy e-mail account.

Although GoDaddy restricts incoming e-mail to ports 110 and 995 (SSL), outgoing SMTP ports (usually via its smtpout.secureserver.net server) are a little more open. This tutorial will teach you how to find out which ports are available for you to use in your e-mail sending application.

First, login to GoDaddy’s site (http://www.godaddy.com) and click on the “Email” button on the main green menu bar. If you have any active e-mail accounts, they will be listed, and to the right of each entry you will find a green launch button. Clicking on this will open the Control Center.

Once in the Control Center, you’ll see your e-mail addresses listed under the Email Plans folder. The addresses are laid out in a table, with the columns, Address, Size, Relays, Attributes, and Actions.

In the Actions column you will see a Tools icon. Click on it to launch the Info Center.

The Email Info Center is a one-page view of your e-mail address account settings. Under the fieldset entitled “Email Server Settings”, you will spot a label “Outgoing server (SMTP):”, giving you the server details to use, as well as a list of available and open ports. Score!

So if you want to move away from the standard port 25 and perhaps now send out on port 80 via your PHPMailer-using PHP script, your code would look like this:

$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsSMTP(); // set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = "smtpout.secureserver.net"; // specify main and backup server
$mail->Port = 80; // new port
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // turn on SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = "username@mydomain.com"; // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "mypassword"; // SMTP password

Nifty.