Domains and Web Hosting
Domain Names
A good domain name is a vital component of any website. In addition to describing the site and acting as a memory aid, it acts as a focus for advertising and can increase the site's ranking in search engines.
Finding a unique domain name that no-one else already owns is usually not so easy. It can be a long and frustrating search to find the best name that is still available. Searching on a UK based site domain name site such as http://www.123-reg.co.uk will tell you what names are already taken and what are available.
The .co.uk domain names are inexpensive and show that you are UK based. You may prefer to buy a more prestigious .com domain name if your target audience are world-wide or in the US, in case someone mistype your web address, or to prevent competitors from muscling in. To make sure, you can buy both domain names and point them to the same website.
You can only "rent" your domain name for a set period, after which time it has to be renewed. You are always given the option to renew before the domain name is released for sale, but only providing you keep the registered email address up to date, or you won't receive expiry notification.
Domain Names - Checklist Before Buying
When buying a domain name from a seller or hosting company, the following questions are well worth asking:
1. Price - eg in 2007, for a 2 year period you can expect to pay a minimum of approx £7 for a .co.uk domain name and £20 for a .com - if you're charged a lot more, you might want to find out why.
2. What are the penalty costs (if any) for transferring your domain name to another domain hosting company?
3. There are unscrupulous companies and scams on the web, as anywhere. One trick is to offer to buy your domain name on your behalf, but to register it in a different name. If you do this in conjunction with an overpriced design and web-hosting package, you can end up locked into a bad deal with the company, and can only escape by paying some very stiff penalties.
4. Try a search on Google with the company's name and the word "complaints" or "problems".
Website Hosting Services
We can host your website on either Microsoft Windows web servers or UNIX web servers.
Windows servers permit associated Microsoft technologies such as ASP (a dynamic scripting language) or SQL-Server (a Relational Database) to be used.
UNIX servers are associated with technologies such as PHP (a dynamic scripting language) and MySQL (a Relational Database).
If you have a simple static website with no intention to change it, it makes no real difference whether you host it on a UNIX-based or a Windows-based web server.
Many hosts specialise in either UNIX or Windows based web servers only. In general, UNIX servers tend to be cheaper, very reliable and are scaleable up to very large websites.
On the other hand, it can be very much quicker and easier to develop small dynamic sites running on Windows servers. For example, you can start a website running from a small Microsoft Access database for a minimal cost. If this site proves to be successful, the database can be easily migrated to the more powerful but more expensive SQL-Server, or can even be migrated over to MySQL without too much difficulty.
