Domain Registrars and Domain Names
To operate a website, you need a domain name.
When you own a domain name, you can set it up to forward web and email requests to go wherever you want.
If you don’t want to manage you own domain, we have a service that gives you ownership but lets us manage the technical side of things: OM4 Domain Name Registration Service
How Domains Work
You purchase a Domain Name from a Domain Registrar for an annual fee, and continue to renew the domain for as long as you want to keep it.
When you own a domain, you get to specify the Name Servers that determine where traffic goes for that domain. You set the name servers according to where you choose to host your website and email for your domain.
Add ons such as hosting and email forwarding are separate decisions to buying a domain. Many domain registrars offer fee based add ons as well as domains, and their marketing pitch may blur them all together. Once you buy a domain, you don’t have to buy other services from the domain registrar to get your website up and running or to setup email accounts.
Choosing a Domain Name
Choose .com domains (or country specific domains such as .com.au, .co.uk) that are short, memorable and without hyphens. Using domains that exactly match popular searches may help you rank for related searches, providing you ensure the site has relevant, useful content for that keyword.
Choosing Your Own Domain Registrar
If you don’t have an account with a Domain Name Registrar yet, you need to set one up. You setup an account with a registrar when you buy your first domain name with them.
A good domain name registrar is important – some issues to consider:
- Price. Some registrars charge a lot more than others. $15-20 per domain per year compared to $80-100 per domain per year may matter to you.
- Self Service. Some registrars have great self-service facilities, which let you manage your domain without having to get a human involved. Specifically, you want to be able to update your name servers, renew your domain and get your domain Auth Code / EPP Code (so you can transfer it elsewhere) via self service.
- Support. Good support is vital if you can’t get self-service, but you want self-service so support isn’t required.
- Multiple Domains. If you have more than a few domains, you will want one login for all your domains. Not a separate login for each domain.
The registrars we currently use and recommend are:
- Net Registry – for both .com.au and .com/.net etc domains. Cost around $20-25/yr for a domain.
- NameCheap – for .com/.net etc domains. Cost around $10-15/yr for a .com
We use a reseller account with NetRegistry to manage domains for our clients who don’t want to manage domains themselves. This lets us register domains in the client’s name and give them access to their own administration console, while allowing us to be the Technical Contact and make administrative changes such as setting name servers. OM4 Domain Name Registration Service
Registering a Domain Name
Once you have an account with a domain registrar:
- search for the name to see if it is available
- register it for one or more years – just pay for the domain itself, no add ons
- set the name servers (see below)
Would You Like Fries With That?
You don’t have to pay anything more than the fee for the domain name. So you can safely ignore offers for add ons such as hosting, forwarding, email forwarding, DNS services, other services. Some registrars make their add on offers very much in your face, and it can make it a bit tricky to avoid them. Persevere and you will find you can just pay for the domain without any add ons, all you need is the domain name and to be able to set your name servers.
Setting Name Servers
Each domain has one or more name servers assigned that control where requests for web or email are sent to.
To send web and email traffic to the OM4 hosting service, set your name servers to:
- ns1.om4hub.com
- ns2.om4hub.com
- ns3.om4hub.com
Check your name servers are correct by going to Pingability and doing a Domain Check.
Renewing a Domain Name
A good domain registrar will send you a reminder when your domain is due for renewal.
But you need to keep an eye on this. If the renewal notice gets into the Junk Mail folder and you miss your renewal, you could lose your domain.
Expiring domains are advertised on the Internet and domainers can swoop in and buy your domain as soon as it becomes available. After that you have no recourse.
Given it doesn’t cost a lot, you may want to pay for multiple years up front.
Transferring a Domain Name
If someone else has registered a domain name for you, you should ask for the password for the domain so you can transfer it into your own name. The password is variously called an Auth Code or an EPP Code.
You should first ask for the code from the person who registered it for you. If they can’t or won’t give you the Auth Code / EPP Code, then if the domain is registered in your name then you can possibly contact the domain registrar of the domain and ask them to either give you the code, or give you access to a login so you can get the the code yourself.
Once you have the EPP Code / Auth Key, you can go to your own domain registrar and use their facility to transfer a domain. Sometimes you may pay for another year (which is added on to the current expiry date), sometimes you just get a transfer.
A word of warning: *some* domain registrars (not the ones we recommend) have a habit of playing dead or pretending to misunderstand your request when it comes to giving out Auth Codes / EPP Codes. They think that by making it hard to transfer a domain away from them, they are helping their business. Personally, if a domain registrar causes problems with transfers, I go looking for a better registrar. If they will intentionally cause you grief over a small matter, they will probably cause you a lot more grief later on. There are several domain registrars we no longer recommend because of their behavior over domain transfers.
You can’t transfer a domain less than 60 days after it is registered, or less than 7 days before it expires.