Registering a Domain

[Guest]

A relative of mine has asked me to look into setting up a website for a new business venture. At the present moment in time i'm doing some self study on HTML and CSS.

My query however is with Domain registration. As we are currently manufacturing items and putting together a portfolio of products we have not decided on the finished content for the website. He has decided on a company name, lets call it Example and will be a sole trader to begin with. My query relates to registration of the domain. What is the difference between business and personal registration when registering a domain. By that i mean can action be taken against an individual that registers a business domain using personal details? When is one better than the other? The only reason i ask is because Example is not a registered business, yet, so could i still register a domain, Example.co.uk, against it?

Does anyone have any thoughts on a registar. I've looked at two so far UKReg which i believe is part of Fasthosts and UK2. At present i just want to register the domain then when we have our content take out a hosting package, with the same registar or another one.

Thanks for your help. I hope it all makes sense what i am asking.

[AlphaPapa]

So far as i understand, if the domain is available to buy from a registrar then anyone can buy and own that domain regardless of whether or not its an individual or a business.

I have purchased domains for clients, friends etc with no problems. I also own the domain for the company i used to work for

Always used 123REG to buy domains.

[PeteVRS]

I would recommend 1&1 Internet for domain registration, they're cheap, you can just register domains and nothing else, you can upgrade in time to hosting too, they let you point your domain anywhere (so you can host elsewhere if you want) but most importantly I have transferred quite a number of domains both into and out of 1&1 and they don't hassle you or charge ridiculous termination fees etc. They also handle renewals for you too. Although for my websites I outgrew 1&1's hosting services, I have still kept my domains with them as they're a big company and should be reliable. You will however get a lot of recommendations as we all have our favourites! Essential facilities to look for are...ability to park the domain, redirect and forward the domain (for free), update the domain records (including mail servers and target IP), auto renewal of domain.

One difference between business and personal registration is you can hide personal details etc on personal registration but for business registration you cannot normally. Some domains are also unavailable to personal registrants. I don't really think it makes an awful lot of difference these days, less so for a sole trader, might look a little more professional to register in a business name in case anyone looks it up however, and it makes it 101% clear it belongs to you. However you do it, register your domains ASAP and it is WELL WORTH the small extra investment of getting the other domain endings now, before someone gets them later (eg. if you register example.co.uk also get example.com, example.net, example.org etc. It is a sad fact of life that if you don't get them, a competitor might when your business becomes active).

Good luck!

[gadgetman]

Always keep domains and hosting with separate companies is my advice.

[Guest]

Thanks to all everyone for their advice so far. Just been trying to register the domain for him. I was going to register it under a business but i cant as there is no company number yet and it wont let you register it without one. Then tried to register it as personal using business address only to find that it wont take the address in the required fields.

[Robshaw]

Thanks to all everyone for their advice so far. Just been trying to register the domain for him. I was going to register it under a business but i cant as there is no company number yet and it wont let you register it without one. Then tried to register it as personal using business address only to find that it wont take the address in the required fields.

What website are you using?

[Guest]

What website are you using?

Eventually got it registered it with 1 & 1. The address format was the problem.

[Babs]

Another recommendation for 1&1, I've got a hosting package with them and run about 8 domains presently.

[foo]

Always keep domains and hosting with separate companies is my advice.

+1.

[Guest]

Been offered space on a friends server but only for a short period of time in order to "play" about with the shopping cart that he has created using cre loaded. When its time to get a hosting plan i'm on my own. Now the fun begins.

Edited 11 April, 2010 by Guest

[Guest]

I've noticed a few people have mentioned using seperate companies for domain registration and hosting. Can i ask, what are the reason for this?

[DaveHarries]

Thought this link might be useful:

http://forum.netmag.co.uk/

Dave

[Babs]

Always keep domains and hosting with separate companies is my advice.

Why?

[gadgetman]

I've noticed a few people have mentioned using seperate companies for domain registration and hosting. Can i ask, what are the reason for this?

Why?

So if you move hosts, it's as simple and a nameserver change which these days is instant and your traffic wont see any downtime, or very little. You can likewise change registrars when you notice name registration cheaper elsewhere.

But when using the same firm for both, you will almost certainly experience downtime which for an online business, or one which replies on a web presence isnt good. At best could be a few hours, but I've seen many sites offline for a few days whilst moving when using the same company for both.

[Guest]

Thought this link might be useful:

http://forum.netmag.co.uk/

Dave

Cheers for the link. I often wondered what the mag was on the shelf of my local tesco's. Now i know.

[Guest]

Been looking at cre loaded shopping cart over the weekend. Has anyone got any experiences of other open source shopping carts?

[AlphaPapa]

I have installed and used osCommerce and prestashop.

Granted it was a while ago so things may have moved on. Generally they are excellent bits of software for free, the main problems for me was the amount of time it took to get a shop up and running, depending on the number of products it can take weeks to get things how you want them.

Also, from experience a shop needs to look well designed for people to have trust in it and actually buy things. So unless you know what you are doing and are familiar with skinning the software you can end up with a rather naff looking shop. Or even worse, looks just like 100 other online stores.

Have you though about shopify? All of the hard work has been done for you.

[Guest]

I have installed and used osCommerce and prestashop.

Granted it was a while ago so things may have moved on. Generally they are excellent bits of software for free, the main problems for me was the amount of time it took to get a shop up and running, depending on the number of products it can take weeks to get things how you want them.

Also, from experience a shop needs to look well designed for people to have trust in it and actually buy things. So unless you know what you are doing and are familiar with skinning the software you can end up with a rather naff looking shop. Or even worse, looks just like 100 other online stores.

Have you though about shopify? All of the hard work has been done for you.

I've had a quick glance at Shopify. Will probably have to look at it in better detail. Is it one you recommend?

[AlphaPapa]

Briskoda uses it.. our shop is a shopify shop.

[Guest]

Briskoda uses it.. our shop is a shopify shop.

Ah, so it does. I would never had known that.

[Guest]

Been "playing" with the deom of prestashop and i'm quite impressed. Only problem is that for some strange reason there are reports that it doesnt work well with 1&1 hosting. Has anyone got any experience of this?