Web Site Domain Names

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Dear All

I may regret asking this question as I feel that there may be too many answers to the question but I can't think of any where better to throw it, so here goes.

Partner and I have have almost finished setting up my new website but obvisously I am going to need a WWW.

Can any suggest what I do next? Found some through an internet search however, they all seem a bit cheap . I always thought that this was going to be something quite expensive?

Any help gratefully received.

Uncle

[Eric the well read]

Hi,
It's not the name that's expensive - It's the hosting
You could always look up on the far right of your monitor below the banner or use something like google sites and change the name when you get one
(which is what I'm in the process of)-see below

Regards
Eric

[Steve Stocker]

Dear Uncle,
Assuming you have done a 'who-is' search and found a preferred name that is free to register then the world is your oyster.
I would go for a two-year registration period if possible and try to make sure that your registrar offers automatic renewal facilities. This helps to avoid domain name poaching by other parties when it expires.
If you are not sure which registrar to use there are plenty of forums out there having a whinge about the bad ones.
I always found 123-reg OK as they have a good control panel so that you can alter DNS entries etc. Not everybody likes them but I have had no problems so far.
Another pitfall is the renewal fees - they are often much higher than the initial registration fees.
The whole DNS thing is due for a big shake-up soon but even so it's a good idea to get at least the .co.uk, .com and maybe .org version of your domain to avoid problems with poachers.
Finally, I try to keep my domains registered by my ISP host to avoid multiple bills etc.

[Skevmeister]

1 and 1 do automatic renewal and they are relatively cheap as well and a decent control panel I have used then for 4 years and no problems


Alixx

[Kate Tiler]

If you are looking for hosting you could try wiser hosting - they are based in the UK and have always been very helpful to me when I phone up in a confused state!

http://www.wiserhosting.com/

starts at £25 a year, and you can easily transfer a site there from 123reg

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Thank you everyone for your help and advice. It wasn't quite the mine field I had anticipated

I have a host, it was just the domain name I needed. Skev seems to have found one I understand in 1&1 so will probably go through them. Hopefully this means I should be up and running in just a few days now

Many thanks again

UB

[Fox]

I use UK Reg for domain registration who I've found very easy to deal with.

If anyone is looking for the whole hosting package, (inc domain registration if you want it) then I can seriously recommend Net Oxide.

They currently host my websites. They host Campfire, which is the evil twin brother of this website.

They offer unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage; £2 a month for standard users, £5 a month for business users.

A really nice easy to use control panel too.