Buying your own domain names without us!

We've spent a very long time searching the web for the best, cheapest, and most suitable places to buy things on the web for domain names, and are always amazed to find how many people are getting ripped off by severe over charging. If you're new to web design (like we were a few years ago) then you may not understand all the technical information given. So please take a quick look at the technical description pages on our site. Plus if you have any questions (technical or other) then do contact us by phone or email before spending any money, it's a normal rate call, and we don't charge for our answers (unless you ask too many questions)!

123-reg
If you want to buy one, two, or more domain names, and you already have web space set up, and an email account somewhere else, then this is the place to buy your domains from. They'll give you complete control over the ownership details, give you free email forwarding for up to 100 separate email addresses, and non-banner free web forwarding. It really does seem to be the cheapest for whatever web extension you were hoping to buy.
They've recently introduced cheaper web hosting as well now, with a free starter package, going up to pretty much any price you'd like to spend with secure servers, more with shopping carts, and reseller packages for a variety of other prices; take a look.

1 & 1
These guys also seem to be pretty competive with 123-reg, also offerring similar packages to the above.

If you wish, you can of course contact us, we can then buy the domain name on your behalf for the same price as advertised, set up an new account for you in your name (it will still be your name as the registered owner) then for an additional agreement, do all the updates, ftp file transfers, design, email accounts, technical support etc. for you, to another site, or at the site you have hosted with either of the two suppliers shown above!

Domain Registrars to avoid:

(This is where I rant a little about some of the companies I've used before and been let down by)

AVOID: UK2.net - They claim to be cheap and great, 'the UKs biggest host', and claim to offer great offers like domains for just 1p, or at cost price etc. for a limited time ... But THIS IS NOT THE FULL PRICE! Unfortunately you have to input virtually all your name, address, credit card information etc. before you find out the real cost (even then you have to total up the various monthly charges to calculate the real price), and even then, unless you use them to host your website (with the price of hosting increasing disproportionately every year), if anyone types your domain name, they will be inundated with around 6 new popup windows advertising the UK2 site, as well as a UK2 banner across the top of ALL your web pages! I'm amazed they have done as well as they claim, but judging by the amount of forced advertising they do, it's not really that surprising a lot of people know about them! If you're looking to buy any domain names, I would heavily recommend that you DO NOT USE THEM!

AVOID: Easyspace - The prices aren't bad (although they are still higher than my two recommendations shown above), but these are another company who just love banner advertising on your website, unless you pay large additional premiums almost doubling the cost of your domain name to have it removed!

AVOID: Netbenefit - Here's an interesting one .. there are no prices advertised on the website! .. All you need to do is give them a call, and a sales person will convince you why they are so great! Unfortunately, for about £40 a year (depending) buying a domain name will only give you web forwarding and virtually nothing else (but at least there are no banners!) If you want the emails people send to you domain name, that will cost extra (such as myname@ yourdomainname.biz) but if you don't pay the premium, any emails just disappear into an abyss and no one will know the better, they don't even get returned to sender! Also, if you want to update a domain name, and you have more than one that you've purchased from them, you have to go through a very technical password system for each domain you own through themselves, which you have no hope of remembering without referencing your sales receipt!

AVOID: Great Domains - So you have what you think is a great domain name you want to sell?
For around £50 to £200 you can get them to tell you how much they think it's worth, they'll then advertise it for you (by taking ownership of the name), and offer the price for more than a couple of thousand dollars. If they do sell it, then they also take a nice large percentage cut!
Thankfully their prices have reduced by about 60% in the last couple of years, but I'd certainly recommend not to buy any domain names from them from fresh.

Other Companies
There are far more companies I've found and often tried who charge far more than these companies (too many to list here), many will offer your a free domain name when you sign up for an ISP (internet Service Provider), but will charge you lots, or make it very difficult for you to transfer that domain name elsewhere later (for example if your business succeeds, and you decide to get you dial up or internet connection with someone else). However, if you know of anyone else who you think sounds too good to be true, (or just better or far worse than the guys I've shown above), then please do tell me, I would be very interested to know. I'll even check them out for you, and then let you know all I can find out (after all, I'm also looking to save money where I can and expect to continue buying some great domains at superb prices for my clients).

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