web domain names

[hedgerow pete]

I googled my name yesterday whilst hard at not work. I found out that www.peterweston.co.uk is avalible. well according to the pop up it is !

when you buy these names do they come freehold or lease. I was wondering if you can register your own name without the middle man?

 

[DulwichGnome]

Hi Pete, yes you can 'buy' that domain without a middle man and it is in effect a lease as you need to renew at regular intervals. You can also get the .com, .me, .lotsofthings!! if you want, in fact the companies do a good trade in people buying 'domains' so others can not use them.

Mike.

 

[Brosville]

The deal as I understand it is that you can't buy the "freehold" at all, but you can buy a lease on it, usually by paying an annual fee - the people in charge are Nominet (who are really nice to deal with), but prohibitively expensive for simple registrations and renewals - the cheapest I've found is http://www.123-reg.co.uk/ - for a "co.uk" name, it's a few pounds a year - and you get a control panel that allows you to "point" your web address to any server on the 'net.

If you want a really good deal on server space, I've used this company for the last few years - very reasonable, and nice to deal with -http://www.knethosting.co.uk/

 

[JamezF]

There isn't really any such thing as a "freehold". What you're effectively paying for is the service of having the necessary records inserted at the right place into the global domain name system such that people who want to look up the data (including the IP address(es)) associated with that name can find them. There is a tendency to view domain names as physical property, but they possibly have more in common with trademarks. In (perhaps overly) simple terms, there's a registry of domain names and what you're paying for is to have your domain name inserted into that registry for some fixed period of time.

Nominet (and for clarity, the company I own is a Nominet Registrar) manage the .uk part of the registry, but don't deal with registrations directly if they can avoid it -- they prefer to have registrars handle taking the money and so on -- thus they set a prohibitively high charge if you wish to do it directly. A similar model applies for .com, .org and .net domains.

James

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

As others have said, its a lease although you can register up to 10 years at a time for .coms

Looking after 200+ domain names I can recommend LCN www.lcn.com as registrars. Good value (similar to 123-reg I think), and decent telephone support.

AVOID UK2 AT ALL COSTS - devils spawn.

 

[Brosville]

I'd always recommend using a different company to buy (lease) the domain name from, rather than using the server company, apart from the cheapness of such companies as "123", there are potential problems if you do an "all in one deal" -I found out the hard way!
In simple terms, I had about 4 domain names and server space all from one company, and I had signed up in the first year they were trading - at first they were great, and I was on first-name terms with the bloke running it - sadly, as it grew larger, the service became atrocious and frankly obstructive- following a spate of "site down, we've all bogged off for the weekend - tough" outbreaks (which meant they had broken any agreement they had with me), I chose to move my sites elsewhere - he then demanded vast sums to release my domain names to another company, and I had to "go over his head" to Nominet to get them back......... Nowadays I use "123", so should I have the same problem again with a server company, I can go online and point the domain names wherever I like.......

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

I'd always recommend using a different company to buy (lease) the domain name from, rather than using the server company, apart from the cheapness of such companies as "123", there are potential problems if you do an "all in one deal" -I found out the hard way!
In simple terms, I had about 4 domain names and server space all from one company, and I had signed up in the first year they were trading - at first they were great, and I was on first-name terms with the bloke running it - sadly, as it grew larger, the service became atrocious and frankly obstructive- following a spate of "site down, we've all bogged off for the weekend - tough" outbreaks (which meant they had broken any agreement they had with me), I chose to move my sites elsewhere - he then demanded vast sums to release my domain names to another company, and I had to "go over his head" to Nominet to get them back......... Nowadays I use "123", so should I have the same problem again with a server company, I can go online and point the domain names wherever I like.......

Crucial thing is that you are the listed owner and email contact for the domain, rather than your developer who, as Bros says, is not necessarily going to be helpful when you are trying to get away from them. 123 and LCN both good and independent. LCN dont even charge for moving away (dont know about 123)

 

[region2]

A useful tool is http://who.is - ideal for checking if a domain is available and/or who owns it...

I use 123.reg and penguin for mine - I have my own domain for emails - much more professional than [email protected]

R2

 

[alanf]

I googled my name yesterday whilst hard at not work. I found out that www.peterweston.co.uk is avalible. well according to the pop up it is !

when you buy these names do they come freehold or lease. I was wondering if you can register your own name without the middle man?

A .co.uk name costs a couple of quid a year (min 2 years) from a registrar to point at your server. A .com and others cost more.

If you run your own business it looks good as an email contact, you can redirect anything arriving to wherever you like. The big online accounts like gmail, yahoo and hotmail are fine for friends and family but I'd always avoid using the ISP directly such as btinternet or sky for email because it changes if you change provider. Similarly, a personal or business contact page in your Orange web space is going to disappear if you move. What you can do is take the minimum registration for your name and forward everything to a btinternet account. When you change to talktalk, just redirect it there. Other levels of service are available if you want more.

 

[ShaneR]

Cannot say much more than already mentioned, other than another vote for 123 reg, I have used 123 reg for many years without a single hitch quick, cheap and effective.

 

[tonybloke]

another vote for 123 reg

 

[JamezF]

A .co.uk name costs a couple of quid a year (min 2 years) from a registrar to point at your server.

The cost to the registrar (for most .uk domains) is £5+VAT for two years. There's no bulk discount. On top of that the registar obviously has to pay all their overheads. If you're looking at someone selling at a loss or with a very small margin it's worth taking a moment out to assure yourself they're not likely to disappear leaving you without a functioning domain name. Some suppliers cross-subsidise from other parts of their business or have very poor support or sell in massive volume or stick you with a large admin fee if you ever want to transfer the domain elsewhere (or all four) and have a viable business model. Others are a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm not suggesting people shouldn't use cheap suppliers. Just do your research first.

James

 

[fatshark]

As an alternative to 123 you could look at 1 + 1 (www.1and1.co.uk) who provide the full range of services from simple domain registration (2.50/annum + VAT for .co.uk) to full hosting. For ~75p month they can provide email accounts for your domain with limitless email aliases. I've found this a very useful way to cut down on spam ... I never give out my main email address but, if asked (for example when registering for an online shopping site) I use [email protected] or [email protected] or whatever. Email from this source always is associated with a unique email address. It all ends up in a single inbox, but I can easily create rules to redirect spam to the junk folder if needed.

Take care when you choose your domain name ...

 

[hedgerow pete]

many thanks people, i was wondering what and how it all happend, but since most of it means pressing more than three keys in an hour i think i am better if asking a friend to sort it out,


the love the web name link joke page, please say thats a joke and not for real,???

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Wow Pete you have progressed on fast from buying a website of your name to the TOP beekeeping site!

www.britishbeekeepersassociation.com

 

[fatshark]

love the web name link joke page, please say thats a joke and not for real,???

Sadly not ... A quick check shows that many of them are real, though a couple redirect to "your our 1000th visitor today and have won a prize" (sic) type sites.

A domain name is not just for Christmas ... choose wisely!

 

[the naked beekeeper]

point the domain names wherever I like.......

What does this mean?

I am looking to buy a doman name from knethost, but set my site up on a free-web builder. (They offer to let you buy the domain, but it's cheaper to get it from knethost). Is this a wise move?

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Not used knehost but they claim full DNS control - and this is how you direct requests to things like www.nakedbeek.com, so you should be OK I think

 

[alanf]

What does this mean?

I am looking to buy a doman name from knethost, but set my site up on a free-web builder. (They offer to let you buy the domain, but it's cheaper to get it from knethost). Is this a wise move?

You generally have more control if you treat the domain registration and hosting separately. I don't know that company, maybe somebody else will have used them.

Domain registration is about putting your chosen name into the naming system. When somebody types abcxyzcorporation.co.uk into a browser it finds the web pages you have written. Basically it's an entry in a directory system called the Domain Naming System (DNS). You pay an annual fee (or every two years) to be registered, and as some have pointed out, if the cost is discounted you need to be aware of how they are subsidising it from elsewhere such as charging exit fees.

Hosting is about finding some disk space where you can put your web pages. If you are starting and want to try out with a free hosting site that's fine, but don't expect to run a business from it. There are free hosts who have been around a while. They generally use the free service as an attraction to their paid services, but there will be restrictions in terms of the size of storage, the speed it is accessed at and the total amount of access if you expect many people to see it.

There will also be limitations as to what you can run on a free host if you are thinking of database backed sites or using a content system like Wordpress or Joomla or a forum something like this one. The service might be down periodically, even for days and there's nothing you can do. The advantage of separate domain registration is that you can change the hosting whenever you need to.

 

[AnotherNewBee]

I usually use 123reg to secure the domain name, but host my sites on http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/.

I've found them superb for available features/services, storage space, bandwidth, uptime and response to problems. I've had responses in minutes and don't, ever, remember feeling concerned that something is 'taking too long' (in fact, I've felt the opposite when I've reported a problem as I was heading to bed, only to find a response before I got there!). In addition they have a useful and active forum system. They will also help with programming problems even though these are not, necessarily, anything to do with them. All in all, a highly recommended company. I have no active sites at the moment but will use them again, soon, without hesitation.