NetHosted Blog

One of the primary purposes of a domain name is to translate a word or series of words into a numeric IP address which can be referenced globally on the internet by any other machine on the internet. An example of this would be www.nethosted.co.uk which can be resolved to 85.13.250.34. This use is facilitated by the use of the Domain Name System (DNS) and domain registrar authorities.

For domain name registration will need to use a domain registrar. In many cases web hosting companies also offer domain registration services so you can use a single point of contact for both website hosting and domain registration. An advantage of this is the webhosting company will generally have a lot of experience dealing with domains and DNS and are likely to offer superior support to a simple domain registrar, and having access to both hosting and domain means they can make any necessary alterations required. A domain name also allows you to have your own personalised email address when combined with an email hosting package, which would make any business look more professional.

To register a domain name you will need to provide your details to the registrar, your name, address, contact email and telephone number will then be publically available through the WHOIS database when your domain name is looked up. It is possible in most cases to have protected WHOIS details and this is a service that some registrars offer, this generally uses the registrar’s details instead of your personal details. You will pay a fee for domain registration but this is quite cheap, generally working out at less than £1 a month. Some hosting companies may offer a free domain name with their shared hosting packages as an incentive, which can save you some money and allow you to get a domain and hosting at the same time!

When a domain is registered this will come under a Top Level Domain (TLD) which can describe to a certain degree what kind of domain this is. A TLD is the letters of the domain after the final full stop, such as .com, .net, .uk or many others, there are hundreds of TLD’s as each country has its own one. There are also special TLD’s reserved for organizations such as .edu and .mil for US universities and military bases respectively. There are certain restrictions on some domain TLD’s, some have different registration periods and restrict the use of nameservers to certain TLD’s.

For .uk domains you may have heard of an IPS tag (sometimes also incorrectly called an ISP tag) which is a unique key that all .uk registrars that have an account with Nominet (UK domain registry authority) have. If you wish to transfer a .uk domain you will need the IPS tag of the uk domain registrar you are transferring to, in our case for example this is NETHOSTED. These tags are used to identify what company is responsible for the ownership of a domain, and you can view all these tags at the Nominet website. Once you have the tag of the new uk domain hosting company you are transferring your domain to you need to update this tag with your existing registrar, either via a domain control panel or by contacting their support. When the tag has been updated on the domain to your new domain name registration company’s tag they will have control over it and be able to make changes to the nameservers and details as required.