Buying website domain names

[fatboy slim]

I was chatting about the internet over an ale and the advice was to buy a website e.g. myname.com. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/cool.gif
I had a look at a few sites (domainnames.com and some others) and thought I'd ask the experts for some advice??

In no order...

The difference between .com and .net or .org??

What do I need once i've paid for myname.com??

What is web hosting??

Once I've decided how to make my dotcom fortunes :) , is the software to build a site v. expensive or hard to use??

Thanks for any help available.

[TBone]

Depends on what you want to use the site for.

To start with :

.com - companies (usually American although not always so these days)

.net - companies whose business is mainly with the internet - e.g. ISPs

.org - non-profit making organisations - e.g. charities, PPRuNe

.co.uk / .co.de - companies in a specific country - uk, germany etc.

You won't be allowed a .net or a .org address unless you can prove you qualify for one.

There are lots of ways to get your own domain name - www.freenetname.com (http://www.freenetname.com) is one who will give you one free. There are catches though, mostly involving advertising. Normally you would pay something around £50 to register it, then a nominal fee, say £25 a year to keep it.

Web hosting is where another company hosts your web page on their computer, rather than it sitting on yours. This is normally the way it's done, unless you are a large corp. with your own dedicated internet servers. You would usually get a fairly large chunk of diskspace (10Mb+) to put your pages on.

If you are serious about starting an e-business, it might pay to invest in a professional site designer. There are several tools on the market, some free, which are easy to use. The more powerful web design tools are a tad trickier and need knowledge of HTML. Microsoft's FrontPage 2000 is probably the easiest and most powerful of the off-the-shelf tools. Somewhere in the region of £200 to you.

If you were thinking of adding the latest multi-media to your site, purchasing Shockwave or Flash would put an even bigger dent in your wallet.

Collecting cash is hideously expensive with the 'no-business-history' credit card schemes which skim 10% off the top of every transaction.

If you just want to post pictures of your **** and leering mates at the pub, stick to your ISPs homepage package and use FrontPage Express which, again, is free !

Hope this helps

Cheers

[fatboy slim]

:) Many many thanks for your time. :)

[ALKIN]

Who's seen those rediculously priced second hand domains along the lines of www.I-have-the-keys.co.uk (http://www.I-have-the-keys.co.uk) for sale at £250,000. There are some really stupid people out there who are giving the domain trade a bad name. Be careful!

[Checkboard]

Some domain companies that offer you cheap or free domain names actually register the domain name in their own business name, then "let" you use it.

This means that if your business takes off, they own the name, and can begin charging you for it, or sell it to you for an exorbitant fee.

If you are after a name for a bit of fun, there is no problem, if you are serious about business then you need to make sure you register the name yourself.

[flygirl2]

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a decent 'aviation related' internet domain name ?

[addinfurnightem]

Talk to Blackadder at [email protected]

[braindrain.UK]

Try www.poshnames.com (http://www.poshnames.com) I can vouch for them. It is run by a PPL holder - very helpful and not too pushy.

[flygirl2]

Thanks for the suggestions Adder and Brains,

I have contacted 'poshnames.com' and they have been ace. They have a whole section devoted to 'aviation'. Thanks for the tip.

flygirl 2

[Narada]

Flygirl - why not consider coming up with your own domain name and registering it? There is usually a big premium to pay on the domain name that has already been registered by someone else. Usually it costs only a few dollars a year to register a domain name - typically less than $50. There are many providers of domain registration/email forwarding/web site services depending on your needs.

[flygirl2]

Thank you Narada. Such kind people in here...

[InFinRetirement]

If you go to www.freenetname.co.uk (http://www.freenetname.co.uk) you can have a domain name (co.uk) for free. No charge.

I have one and it works fine.

[Sector3]

.com, .net, .org domain names available for AUD$35
http://www.dnhd.net/cgi-bin/cricon.cgi

[Sector3]

.com, .net, .org domain names available for AUD$35
http://www.dnhd.net/cgi-bin/cricon.cgi

[Pete O'heat]

There's an ad on http://www.aviationcentral.co.uk selling some aviation domain names.

If you want to make your own one up, try http://www.easily.co.uk, The charge £9.99 for co.uk's for 2 years, or £35 for .com's.
You get a free .co.uk with every .com

Pete