About to purchase domains, anything I need to know?

Method · 18 Jun 2012 at 20:10

Bit of a broad question I know. I'm about to purchase 2 domains, 1 x .co.uk and 1 x .com. It's to expand my photography base. I will be putting a Wordpress based blog onto it. Would be around £30 for the two domains over 2 years each.

Where do I start? I've read a few g00gle results mentioning this WHOIS database etc.

For the .com, once I select my term and go to pay it askes about DNS Management, Email Forwarding & ID Protection for what looks like £6.

Can anyone shed any light on this stuff?

Much appreciated.

robbalmbra · 19 Jun 2012 at 13:10

look into nameservers once you have bought the domains for linking the domains to the web hosting provider.

GaryH-21 · 19 Jun 2012 at 13:50

Who are you chosing to host the website?

If you can get a cPanel package, that will come with the DNS management and mail mangement, so all you need to do is buy the domain (without the addons) and point the nameservers (through the company you bought the domain with control panel) to point to the nameservers your cpanel tells you to use...

e.g: ns1.yourdomain.com, ns2.yourdomain.com

Russinating · 19 Jun 2012 at 15:40

£30 for a .com/.co.uk domain for 2 years? Err, what? A .co.uk should cost no more than £7 inc VAT.

Just get your hosting and domains with Vidahost. It's really not that complicated. Plus you get a free domain with all their hosting packages anyway.

shine · 19 Jun 2012 at 15:42

Russinating said:
£30 for a .com/.co.uk domain for 2 years? Err, what? A .co.uk should cost no more than £7 inc VAT.

Just get your hosting and domains with Vidahost. It's really not that complicated. Plus you get a free domain with all their hosting packages anyway.

Same as this but also consider TSOHost - you'll get one free domain with your hosting package.

visibleman · 19 Jun 2012 at 17:29

Bit of a faff but i'd use namecheap.com for the *.com TLD (£6.80 per year) and 1and1 or 123-reg for the *.co.uk TLD (roughly £3-4 per year).

And as said, you'll need some hosting on top (Tsohost, Vidahost, Vooservers). If you opt for a control-panel based package, then that will deal with DNS, Mail etc.
After that you need to point the domains to your hosting package, which is a simple case of entering the hosts nameservers into your domains nameserver/DNS settings/fields (you'll have the option via your domain companies control panel).

uniQ · 19 Jun 2012 at 17:48

Just use a reputable provider for your domain:

namecheap.com (google for a June discount code, will work on the .com)
domainmonster.com
gandi.net

Are all good bets. Avoid 1&1 like the plague.

justintime2001 · 19 Jun 2012 at 23:31

Vidahost - Customer support is excellent and prices are good too.
Use the discount code friends1 for 10% off.

rexehuk · 20 Jun 2012 at 08:22

Been using Namecheap for 10 years, never had a single problem and their prices are some of the best.

Russinating · 20 Jun 2012 at 09:00

For the sake of £1 per 2 years it's worth saving the hassle and just buying your domains with your hosting provider.

Smoogels · 22 Jun 2012 at 15:52

You should never buy a domain with your hosting provider.

I personally register all domains on namecheap.com then host it on hostgator.com. If you wanted hosting in the UK, then I have no idea. They all seem sucky compared to elsewhere

Method · 22 Jun 2012 at 16:49

Smoogels said:
You should never buy a domain with your hosting provider.

I personally register all domains on namecheap.com then host it on hostgator.com. If you wanted hosting in the UK, then I have no idea. They all seem sucky compared to elsewhere

Out of interest, why should you not being using their packages?

I'll be hosting with a UK based company, but I'm interested on the reasoning behind not picking the packages.