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A domain name is the address people type to find your website, such as harrisplumbing.co.uk. It’s also the part after the @ in your email address. You don’t buy it outright. You register it for a year or more at a time, and as long as you keep renewing it, nobody else can use it.
That’s the short answer. The rest of this guide explains how the pieces fit together, what the different endings mean, and the few things that go wrong for small businesses, usually because nobody explained them at the start.
What’s the difference between a domain, a website and hosting?
These three get muddled all the time, so it helps to separate them.
- The domain is the name. On its own it does nothing except point somewhere.
- The website is the pages, pictures and text that people see.
- The hosting is the computer, kept running in a data centre, that stores the website and sends it to anyone who asks.
Think of a shop. The domain is the name over the door and the address in the phone book. The hosting is the building. The website is everything on the shelves. You can change building without changing your name, and you can rename the shop without moving out.
This is why a café in Ludlow can keep the same domain for fifteen years while its website is rebuilt three times and moved between two or three hosting companies. The domain stays put. Only what it points at changes.
What are the parts of a domain name?
Take harrisplumbing.co.uk. It has two parts:
- The name:
harrisplumbing. This is the bit you choose. It can use letters, numbers and hyphens, but no spaces. - The ending:
.co.uk. You’ll also see this called the extension or the TLD (top-level domain). You pick it from a fixed list.
You may also see www. at the front. That’s a subdomain. Most websites are set up so the address works with or without it, so it isn’t something you need to buy separately.
Capital letters don’t matter. HarrisPlumbing.co.uk and harrisplumbing.co.uk are the same domain, which is handy for writing it clearly on a van or a business card.
.co.uk vs .uk vs .com: which ending is which?
For UK businesses, three endings cover nearly everyone.
- .co.uk is the one most British customers recognise. It says “this is a UK business” without any explanation.
- .uk is the shorter version, for example harrisplumbing.uk. It’s newer, so fewer people are used to it, but it works in exactly the same way.
- .com was meant for commercial organisations anywhere in the world. Plenty of UK firms use it, especially those that sell abroad or online.
There are many others, such as .org for charities and clubs, .net, and endings like .shop or .london. None of them changes how the website works. They change what the address suggests to the person reading it.
A .co.uk and a .uk with the same name are two separate domains. Owning one doesn’t give you the other, and they can belong to different people. That’s worth knowing before you print anything.
Who runs .uk domains?
Every ending has a registry, the organisation that keeps the master list of who holds which name. For .uk, .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk, that registry is Nominet, a UK organisation based in Oxford.
You don’t usually deal with Nominet yourself. You register through a registrar, a company accredited to add names to the registry on your behalf. WebHostGB is one, and so are most hosting companies. The registrar takes your order, sends it to Nominet, and handles renewals and changes for you. For .com, .org and .net, different registries run the list, under rules set by ICANN, the body that oversees domain names worldwide.
Do you buy a domain or rent it?
“Buy a domain” is how everyone says it, but registering a domain is really renting it. You pay for one year (or several), and when that runs out you pay again to keep it.
As long as you renew on time, it’s yours for as long as you want it. If you stop paying, it lapses, and once it’s fully released anyone can register it.
Prices vary by ending. At WebHostGB a .co.uk or .uk is £8.01 a year and a .com is £12.72 a year, and the renewal price is the same as the first year. Be wary of very cheap first-year offers elsewhere that jump at renewal. See our domain prices for the full list.
How does DNS work?
DNS stands for Domain Name System. It’s the reason typing a name gets you to the right place.
Computers on the internet find each other by numbers called IP addresses. People are bad at remembering numbers, so DNS acts like the contacts list on your phone. You tap “Mum” and the phone looks up her number. You type harrisplumbing.co.uk and DNS looks up the number of the server that holds the website.
Each domain has a set of DNS records, and a few matter for a small business:
- Nameservers say which company holds the rest of your DNS records. This is usually your hosting company. See how to change your nameservers.
- A records point the domain at the server where your website lives.
- MX records say where email for the domain should be delivered.
When you change a DNS record, the change isn’t seen everywhere at once. Internet providers keep a copy for a while to save looking it up every time, so it can take a few hours to show up for everyone. Our guide on how to check DNS propagation explains what’s happening, and our DNS checker shows what your records currently say.
Can you have email on your own domain?
Yes, and for a business it’s worth doing. An address like jo@harrisplumbing.co.uk looks more established than harrisplumbing@gmail.com, and it stays with the business if you change internet provider or move away from a free email account.
Your domain doesn’t send or store email itself. The MX records tell the world which mail service handles it. That might be the email included with your hosting, a dedicated business email service, or Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. See how to use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace email with your domain if you already use one of those.
Why should your domain be registered in your own name?
Every domain has a registrant, the person or organisation recorded as its holder. That’s who controls it.
A common story goes like this. A roofer in Telford pays a web designer to set everything up. The designer registers the domain in their own name, because it’s quicker. Years later the roofer wants to move to someone else, and finds the domain isn’t legally theirs. If the designer is helpful, it’s a form to fill in. If they’ve retired, moved on or fallen out with the client, it can mean losing the address the business has printed on every van.
So check now, while it’s easy. Our guide on how to check who owns a domain shows how to look it up and what to do if the name on record isn’t yours. The registrant should be you or your business, and the contact email should be one you actually read.
What happens when a domain expires?
When the renewal date passes without payment, the domain stops working. The website disappears and email to that address bounces or goes nowhere. For a business that takes bookings or orders by email, that’s the bit that hurts.
There’s normally a period after expiry when the holder can still renew it, but the details depend on the ending and the registrar, and it can cost more to recover a domain late. After that it’s released.
To avoid this:
- Turn on auto-renew. See how to renew a domain.
- Keep the email address on your account current, so renewal reminders reach you.
- Keep a card on file that won’t expire before the renewal is due.
- Renew for two or three years at a time if you’d rather not think about it.
Can you move a domain to another company?
Yes. Moving a domain to a different registrar is called a transfer. It changes who you renew with. It doesn’t change who owns the domain, and if it’s done properly your website and email keep working during the move.
The method depends on the ending:
- .uk and .co.uk domains are moved by changing a setting called the IPS tag, which tells Nominet which registrar now looks after it.
- .com, .org and .net domains need an authorisation code from your current registrar. They also can’t be transferred again within 60 days of being registered or transferred.
Our guide on how to transfer a domain to WebHostGB goes through each step, and the domain transfer page has the prices.
Common questions about domain names
Do I need hosting to have a domain?
No. You can register a domain and leave it unused, which some businesses do to reserve a name for later. You need hosting, or a website builder that provides it, to put a website on it, and a mail service to use it for email.
Can I change my domain name later?
You can’t rename a domain once it’s registered. You register a new one and point the old one at it. That’s quite common after a rebrand, and keeping the old domain running for a while means people with old business cards still find you.
Can I have more than one domain for the same website?
Yes. Many businesses hold both the .co.uk and .uk versions, plus a common misspelling, and point them all at one website.
How long does it take to register a domain?
Usually a few minutes from payment. Pointing it at a website and having that show up everywhere can take a few hours longer, because of the DNS caching described above.
Getting started
If you’re still choosing a name, our guide on how to choose a domain name for your business has a practical checklist. When you’ve settled on one, you can check it’s free and register it on our domain search page. It will be registered in your name, and you can move it elsewhere whenever you like.