A domain name is effectively your company's identity on the Internet. It's worth considering not only how the domain represents your company, but also how easy it is to remember for people wanting to return to your site.

Registering a new Domain name or transferring a Domain to Encryptec

Unless you are already familiar with domain names and associated naming schemes, please take a look at the notes below regarding domain name geography. If you would like to register a new domain name, please email us or give us a call!

Domain name geography

Every domain name implicitly shows the location of the company it represents. Unfortunately this can be confusing when companies choose to opt for a specific look, over technical correctness.

Domain names generally end with a two digit code that indicates which country the names apply to. For example UK based domain names end in .uk, French names .fr, German names .de and so on. An authoritative list of country codes can be found on the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) web site.

US based domain names

As the home of the Internet, US based domains names started off as special cases and don't follow these rules. We have for example .com (commercial entities) .gov (US government) .mil (US military) etc, many of these have since been termed gTLD's (generic Top Level Domains) and are supposed to represent organisations with no geographical dependence. That said, there is still a perception that many of these names refer to US organisations, and indeed the term .com of often synonymous with the boom and bust style of Internet company prevalent in the mid to late 1990's. The current list of available gTLD's can be found on IANA's gTLD page

Domain name Hosting

In order for people to be able to send you email and view your web pages, the Internet needs to know where your Internet mailbox is and where your web server is. The company hosting your domain name are responsible for providing a service (to the Internet) that provides this information as and when required.

Things to consider when choosing a company to host your domains

• How much will the initial registration cost ?
• How much will the company charge you for additional services ?
• How much will the company charge you if / when you want to move your Domain(s) elsewhere ?
• How reliable is the company's underlying Internet Infrastructure ?
  It is worth remembering that if their Domain name resolution service becomes unavailable, so will all your email and web services !
  

Encryptec's Domain hosting

• Charges differ for UK and non-UK based domain names, details are shown on the products page and are exclusive or VAT.
  

• Effectively there is no registration fee, but you need to pay for one year's hosting in advance. (note that after a domain has been registered this fee is non-refundable)
  
• You may transfer your domain at any time provided that your service fees are paid up-to-date, but there is no pro-rata refund for transferring mid-way through an annual term.
• Encryptec run a number of name resolution servers in parallel to ensure maximum availability.