Domain names

Domain names

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I am looking to register a few domain names and in addition would like reliable hosting and e-mail services.

Do you buy a domain name for a year and then renew or can you buy a name outright?

Many Thanks

Andy
Andrew Pratt

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By AnonymousUser
07th Jan 2003 07:31

Subscription free domains
Could anyone advise me if there are subscription free domains?

Also, can someone tell me the best free email service provider with the highest storage space. I used hellokitty.com as it gives me 10 MB free storage space/free subscription.

Thank You.

Ke La Kar
[email protected]

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By AnonymousUser
30th Dec 2002 14:37

Do some research
Look at http://uk.tophosts.com who do a monthly listing of the top 25 hosts based on user feedback, and have a lot of information that you will find helpful.

We use fast hosts (http://www.fasthosts.co.uk) and have a reseller account so we can offer you a variety of options, using either Windows or Linux servers.

One word of warning: register your domains with the organisation that will host them: it will save time and possibly money. If not, you may encounter problems and delays when you want to switch the nameservers to the hosting company.

You can buy a domain name for one, two, three years etc., but not, I think, outright (I have a vague memory of a scam along these lines, a while back). However, a good hosting company will renew the registration for you automatically.

Contact me if you are interested in our reseller services: [email protected]. Typically we would charge around £100 + VAT per annum, which is more than you would pay for a basic fast hosts account (about £60), but for that we would do a lot of hand-holding, and give you far more help with FTP, forms processing, JavaScripting, cgi, php, asp etc (depending on your requirements) than you would get from any first-hand hosting company.

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By AnonymousUser
31st Dec 2002 04:50

Nameservers and the evils of web diversion
Please also see my earlier answer below.

Chris's answer misses the point, I think, and seems to me rather misleading in certain respects.

If you register a name with, say, domainsnet, uk2, (etc., etc.), they will, by default, point the site at their own nameservers.

If you then want your site to be hosted by say, fasthosts (or whoever), you will have to ask the original registrar to change the nameservers.

In theory (for a .co.uk) this should take about 24 hours, or less. The UK body, Nominet, are much slower than the US equivalents for .com. .net and so on.

In practice, however, changing nameservers can cause considerable delay in getting a site up and running--depending on the original registrar and, it seems, the individual you deal with--and may involve extra costs.

I speak from long experience of many more than 2 services.

Web diversion is something entirely different, typically involving framing your entire site within a 0 x 0 frameset hosted by the registrar. This is very undesirable, not least because you will have great difficulty getting the site listed on most search engines.

Free hosting generally places severe limitations on what you can do with the site (for instance few will allow any kind of server-side content such as cgi programs). There are some exceptions, mainly aimed at developers, but these are (inevitably) hugely oversubscribed and you are unlikely to get adequate performance for any purpose other than low-volume testing. You get what you pay for, in this as in everything else.

As I mentioned in my answer below, http://UK.tophosts.com are the equivalent of accountingweb for webhosting, and should be the first port of call for anyone interested in this topic.

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By AnonymousUser
30th Dec 2002 23:13

2 years registration then renew
I have personal experience of 2 domain registrars - uk2.net and oneandone.co.uk.

The first option gives you various options for e-mail addresses and web hosting at varying costs whereas the second gives 100 e-mail addresses as standard with web diversion to a host of your choice.

I see no benefit in hosting with the same company you register the domain name with as there are various free hosts out there which give reasonable service - a search on google.co.uk for web hosting will five some pointers.

Hope this helps

Chris

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By asdesign
30th Dec 2002 13:06

good value reliable hosting
We would recommend Force9 portal.f9.net.uk for the last few years they have been a good affordable host.

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By neileg
30th Dec 2002 10:28

Iomart
I have had experience of a few and have ended up at Iomart. They look after the name, the hosting and e-mail. I signed up for a three year package and have been happy, once some early wrinkles were sorted out.

You don't buy the domain name, you get it for free, but you have to pay the annual fees to keep it registered.

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By rmason
30th Dec 2002 12:12

Nominet
Central registry of .uk domain names. I believe registration is initially for two years.

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By Steve Jennings
26th May 2010 16:13

Domain Names and Email

For registering domain names go to http://www.domainmonster.com/ by far the best registra in the UK, for email take a look at http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/ they do a range of email options from a good webmail service to a full Microsoft Exchange push service for your Blackberry/iPhone etc

-- A Professional SEO Consultant currently studying for ACCA, and setting up a Bookkeeping Resource site for small business owners.

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