Reply to: domain name registration

[OrangeHopper]

All done now - .com, .co.uk, .net and .eu.

Used 123-reg.

Many thanks for your advise.

[DeadKenny]

used uk2 but they charge £19 for moving a domain aw3ay

and that's the thing. You own the domain and according to the rules you should have full say what happens to it and no one should charge any fee for transferring away. As I say, if you are administrative contact then if you put in a transfer request with another registrar the email goes to you, and you authorise it.

Transfer 'in' fees are another matter though, but often there are offers on for a free transfer.

Actually looking at Nominet's site they seem to have a £10 fee to move 'agent' (registrar I assume) in situations where the agent is unwilling to transfer it, so if they are charging a high fee this may be an option.

I wouldn't bother with .ltd.uk or .org.uk etc nobody really cares about them.

There are stricter rules on them anyway. Ltd requires you to be a Ltd company, and org.uk requires you to be an organisation (non-profit ?).

.co.uk though supposedly set up for companies has no real limit on who can register, though they will associate them with a company if you like.

[Ardesco]

It looks like I will be going with 123reg.

I was going to get .com and .co.uk. Do I really need to secure any others and which ones would other advise?

I certainly wouldn't be interested in a domain name that didn't have .com and .co.uk avaliable so should I really be worried about .eu or .biz?

I would say .eu would probably be worthwhile as it could well take of in the next couple of years, also gives you a shorter URL to type in. Most people grab .org and .net as well and depending on what you do .tv can always be useful.

I wouldn't bother with .ltd.uk or .org.uk etc nobody really cares about them.

[OrangeHopper]

It looks like I will be going with 123reg.

I was going to get .com and .co.uk. Do I really need to secure any others and which ones would other advise?

I certainly wouldn't be interested in a domain name that didn't have .com and .co.uk avaliable so should I really be worried about .eu or .biz?

[TheFaQQer]

123-reg current promotion

123-reg have got a promotion on at the moment for domain registration. Check out this thread on the MoneySavingExpert.com forums.

Faqqer

[vetran]

123reg all the way

used uk2 but they charge £19 for moving a domain aw3ay

[TheFaQQer]

I use 123reg for my registration. I used to use uk2.net which seem to be a little cheaper, but the options for redirection from 123 was much better than the last time I registered with uk2. I'm currently waiting for one of my old domains to expire with uk2 so I can re-register it through 123reg, as the email redirection is so much better.

For my .com registration, I use my hosting service PowWeb.com who offer a free .com registration if you register for one year or more. I've got three .com's through them with no problems (so far...)

HTH,

Faqqer

[Ardesco]

I use 123reg as well, it must be said that they have a very good admin panel that enables you to set up sub-domains quickly and easily which a surprising amount of people don't have.

If you decide you want hosting i'll quite happily pimp my wares to you

[OrangeHopper]

Many thanks Dead, that was very useful.

I will be looking at hosting at a later date but for now it is simply domain registration and what to look out for.

[DeadKenny]

www.123reg.co.uk gets my vote.

The main pitfall to watch out for with any registrar is ransoming domains. i.e. if you register a domain, can you do what you want with it and transfer it out without being charged massive fees.

The key to this is being the administrative contact. I've learnt to my cost that if the registrar is the contact then all transfer requests to another registrar are passed to that contact and they'll refuse it unless you pay them a big fee. I wanted to transfer out because the bad registrar I had hiked up the renewal fees (a .co.uk would suddenly become £40 for renewal!), but I had to pay a £40 fee to get out and had to fax them the authority to transfer which they would ignore.

Places like 123reg are cheap, let you be the admin contact if you want and have zero transfer out fees. The online controls are great as you can configure pretty much what you like about the domain. UK based. I can't comment on hosting though as I don't use the ones they sell, I just host on my own server.

[G8_Summit]

I used Netfirms - $4.95 for 12 months. Cheap as chips. They were also doing a fantasic offer of 12 months hosting package for $9.99 but that has now ended. Its now $99.99 !!!

[Paddy]

Any other suggestions or advice?

Yes. If you want to register Bla.co.uk also register bla.com bla.eu bla.biz bla.tv at the same time. If you don’t; by next morning you will find they have been registered to someone else.

[OrangeHopper]

Any other suggestions or advice?

[MrsGoof]

mouth and now been scrubbed with carbolic and bleeached.

[OrangeHopper]

MrsGoof, I think your accouncement is a little premature.

Also, anything I produce could never be talked about in the same breath as a SKA.