Ownership of a domain name

[Lily Moon]

Hello,
Could anyone help me to understand the DOMAIN REGISTRATION maze on a legal point of view?

I want to register my domain name but find the yearly fee going anything from £1.59 to £80!!

I would like to know whether there is ONE official registration office (like companies house for companies) where I know that my domain name will remain mine whether I decide to change the webhosting company or not.

I also would like to understand why such a difference in prices? Last but not least, HOW DO I PROCEED to make sure that I will not be charged an appalling amount for transfering my domain name?

I hope someone can help.

Best regards

Isabelle

 

[bwglaw]

Every registrar charges different fees. You need to shop around. We use http://www.ukreg.com. As for transfer charges, again you need to shop around because each registrar will charge different amounts. Read the Registrars charges, terms and conditions etc

The Domain Authority for UK domains i.e. co.uk, org.uk etc is Nominet UK and their website is http://www.nominet.org.uk - if you go to their site you can do a WHOIS search of any domain name and this will provide the details associated with that domain

 

[Rob Holmes]

Isabelle,

It's a common trick - sell low initially then bump the prices afterwards.

There are plenty of domain resellers on here - the prices vary from very cheap to ok value.

.co.uk's range from £2 to £10 a year - unless you're a nominet reseller then Nominet will charge you £80 a year.

You can only register .co.uk's for 2 years at a time.

.coms are from £3 to £10 a year - but these can be registered with some registrars up to 10 years.

If you purchased at a low price for a long time you'll not have to worry for a while.

Transferring out varies on if you have a .com or .co.uk and who you registered the domain with initially.

The prices vary depanding on how much service and profit the seller wants to offer and give <smile>

Like I said there are plenty of forum members that can supply these - we are one of them, out domain registrations are £5 a year for most domains and we can register .coms for 10 years at a time if you like.

Heres the link.. http://domains.ithostdirect.co.uk/

Hope this helps,

Rob

 

[Optegris]

As mentioned it is certainly worth shopping about for your domain, a couple of points that you should check though before registering:

1 - Registration fees - as you pointed out there is a huge variation in costs. Look for hidden charges. The £1.59 you mentioned is most likely for the domain name itself and will have extra charges associated with. For UK domains, the registrar is charged £2.50 per year so if they are selling the domain at less than that they are either deliberately making a loss or there are extra fees.

2 - Transfers - Although there is often a charge to transfer in, make sure that there is no charge to transfer out. As the administration time for a registrar is nil if their systems are up to scratch, you should not have to pay to transfer away.

3 - Ownership - The vast majority of registrars will register the domain to you but some shady operators will not and you will then have no rights to the domain.

If in doubt about any registrar, call or contact them before making your purchase

 

[Lily Moon]

Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer to my concern. It is most helpful and gives me a clearer idea of what I must look for.

Best regards

Isabelle

 

[mtw]

Isabelle,

The key to this is, as others have said, to research your domain registrar. However, this doesn't need to be a difficult or time-consuming process. Use one of the big names who are recommended by others here and your domain costs should remain peanuts!

I have used www.123-reg.co.uk for years. They are now part of Pipex (big company these days). Their registration prices are competitive, you have full control of your domain and can transfer out for free.

Also heard many good things about www.ukreg.com (as recommended above by bwglaw).

Stick with one of those and avoid tearing your hair out!

HTH

Mark

 

I use 123reg.co.uk they offer domain only for a few £s.

You then set the servers to your hosting account on some other server.