Who’s your host?

Somebody asked for a review of their website the other day. The site itself was fine but all sorts of alarm bells started to ring when I investigated their domain. What we had was a UK based site with a .tv TLD, hosted in the USA. The result was that the site didn’t appear in UK only searches.

Before I offer some thoughts about domain names and hosts here’s a reminder of what’s what.

The domain name has two main parts: the domain and the TLD. The TLD is the bit after the dot: .com, .org, .co.uk. The domain is the bit in front of the dot which is why you can have bob.com, bob.edu, bob.de.

The registrar is the company that registers your domain name with the domain name registry. In the UK you ask somebody to register your domain name and they contact nominet who add you to the UK register of domain names.

The host is company who looks after the actual website. In most cases the site will be on a shared server somewhere in the world.

So that you can actually get to your website you need a name server. This is like the address book for a website. When you type in a domain on your browser, the internet provider goes to name server is for that domain to find out where the website is located. You don’t have to worry about your name server, your host should do all this for you.

Right, now that’s that sorted let’s get on with the nitty gritty.

Try to get a TLD that reflects your business. Anything with .uk in it is is good for a UK based busines. If you are an organisation then .org might be better. Use .net if you are in the IT or communication business and so on. The other advantage with a .uk TLD is that you will be registered with nominet, who maintain the register of .uk domain names. This can really work in your favour if you have a dispute or want to change you registrar.

Before you rush out and register your domain, do a bit of research. Many companies claiming to be registrars and hosts are in fact resellers. The company running the whole show sells their services to an affiliate who then promotes the business. What the host company gets is free advertising. So check who you are dealing with.

Once you have you domain registered you need somewhere to put your website. You can of course plump for a bit of free webspace but don’t expect much support and you can forget all about getting a decent ranking with the search engines. Have a look around and you find some very reasonable hosting packages. Do not head straight for the cheapest, you may discover later that your bandwidth is restricted or there is no technical support. Check to see if they really are a host or just a reseller, find out where the servers are located, if they have a helpdesk and so on. If you want to promote a UK website then you should really consider a UK based host, just because they have a .co.uk domain doesn’t mean they are based in the UK.

None of the above is complicated. Most registrars and hosts do their job efficiently and you won’t have to worry about the technical side of things. Just make sure your do some research before you unleash your site.