Domains

In order to have a web site you are going to need a domain name. A domain name is the web address that you use to visit a web site such as www.earnonline.org.uk for this web site or www.google.com for Google. You have to buy a domain name so that you can use it for your web site and they are sold on a first come first served basis and so most of the good ones have unfortunately gone.

A domain name is actually leased to you and so you only get it for 2 years and then you have to renew, this is no problem though as domain names are very cheap to buy. With the UK extensions such .co.uk and .org.uk you have to buy them for 2 years but with other extensions such as the .com you can buy them for anything up to 10 years. If you are making a web site for a UK audience then a UK extension is much better as people and search engines will see that it is a UK web site. Also buy a domain name that is related to the content of your new web site and preferably contains some relevant words.

The best place to buy a UK domain name is 123-Reg as they are cheap and offer all that you need. Simply use the search form on their web site to search for available domain names and when you have found one that you like you can order it and add it to your 123-Reg account.

Once you have a domain name you have to set the nameservers or DNS to point at your hosting so that when people visit your domain name they actually see your web site. Now this depends on the type of hosting that you have, if you have a single hosting package then they should give you the nameservers and you can set these in the control panel of your domain name in your 123 Reg account. If you have your own server then you will have to set up your own nameservers but this is very easy (we will cover that on the servers page).