Internet domain names 

Your website needs an address.  That is a domain name which will look something like example.com

Domain names are a limited resource, there are over 100 million .com addresses in use, finding one for your business can be difficult.
UK domain names are more readily available (over 10 million in use) than .com and perfect for UK businesses but also widely recognised globally.

The most valuable names are short, relevant, single dictionary words and nouns.  Don’t even waste your time looking for one of those.  Some were bought speculatively intended for resale and some have changed hands for over US$10 million.  On the other hand an unregistered UK name costs less than £20 a year.

“Domain names don’t matter, everyone uses search and clicks links to find web sites” This line is usually spouted by people wanting to sell you an obscure domain name.  It’s a tempting line when you have the choice of  paying £thousands for the perfect name or £20 for a garbage one.  Even if your need is for a name for your hobbyist web site or maybe a local club, something meaningful and relevant is best.  In that case there’s no need to  compromise by using an unusual TLD, instead look for a two or even three word .co.uk name.  For example a local group of railway historians might sensibly choose SheffieldRailwayHistorySociety.co.uk
Give us a call for more in-depth help finding a suitable domain name.

We can help you select a name and obtain it for you for the same or lower cost than most alternatives while providing a fuller service.

What do we provide?

• Help finding a name
• Registering it in your name
• We include domain name protection such that we deal with technical queries (and some scams and spam) associated with the name
• Handle the configuration issues to route traffic to your web site and email to your (existing or new) mailbox
• We ensure the annual renewal fee is paid in good time
• We do not try to sell you unnecessary add-on services
• We do not suggest names which risk future legal problems or massive cost increases
• We do not mislead you with a low cost first year fee then charge excessively for future renewals
• We keep billing simple, if you have multiple services or domain names under our management  we’ll just invoice for all once a year irrespective of actual renewal dates, less paperwork for you and for us.
•  Several years ago lost patience with what claimed to be the UKs biggest domain name registrar (that’s 123reg, now a subsidiary of a US company, GoDaddy).  Poor support, ever increasing costs, billing system errors.
  We now use several domain name registrars.  That means that if one is proving troublesome we shouldn’t have a problem with all our domains at once.  If we did need to move provider it’s easier than when we decided we must move several hundred away from 123reg. The IT press continues to report problems at 123reg, for example in November & December 2020 extensive DNS problems, web and email not working, long support-call queues.

If you choose to buy a name (or any internet service) elsewhere don’t let your judgement be swayed by special offers, read the small print carefully.  Remember the only thing in life that’s free is the cheese in a mousetrap.

Most domain names (used for web and email addresses) look like example.co.uk or example.com The .com and .uk part of the name is called a TLD (top level domain name) there are hundreds of other TLDs but those two (and a handful of other country-name TLDs like .de for Germany) account for the vast majority of names.

Users are familiar with .co.uk and .com and will rightly be wary of less familiar variants.  In addition the cost of .co.uk and .com is low and is subject to constraints to prevent the price changing significantly. Some variants are offered for a low introductory price but renewals are much higher, indeed some cost £thousands per year and others have been withdrawn because they didn’t generate enough income.  If you had a successful site using a now withdrawn name, what will your clients think when the site disappears?  Another example: when UK left the EU the right of British organisations to continue to use their existing .eu names was withdrawn. Most had already moved away but on 1 Jan 2021 there were still 80,000, some of which were business critical and would stop working.

If your surname was (weirdly!) “Tesco” obviously someone else is already using tesco.co.uk so you may think “no problem just get a variant using a different TLD”: at time of writing tesco.name (.name is a TLD and is not expensive, initially at least) but you’d better be ready to hear from lawyers representing a better known tesco.

If you are addressing a global target audience there is a slight preference for .com and if you can secure an appropriate one, good but in that case buy the corresponding .co.uk name too.   If your audience is primarily in the uk is they will be more comfortable with a .co.uk name
UK names are globally recognised to the extent that some Chinese companies use them to give the impression that they are based in UK.

You may be aware that it’s now possible to buy uk names without the .co element (example.uk rather than example.co.uk). The problem with that is that if someone else owns the corresponding .co.uk name they may decide that you are devaluing their name and could take legal action against you. As names don’t cost a lot, it’s safest to buy both .co.uk and .uk variants if you can to save any future confusion or disputes.