Domain names: register a .co.uk from £8.01 a year

A domain name is your address on the internet, the part after the www, and the part after the @ in your email. We register .co.uk, .uk, .org.uk and .me.uk domains for £8.01 a year, .com for £12.72, .org for £14.13 and .net for £14.61. You pay once a year and renew each year.

Should I choose .co.uk or .com?

If your customers are mostly in the UK, a .co.uk is usually the best choice. People in Britain recognise it straight away, and it tells them you’re a UK business. A dog groomer in Welshpool or a builder in Telford will do well with a .co.uk.

A .com makes more sense if you sell to customers abroad, or if the .co.uk version of your name has already gone. Plenty of businesses register both, use one for the website and point the other at it, so nobody ends up on the wrong site. The shorter .uk ending is another option, and costs the same as a .co.uk.

Tips for choosing a domain name

Keep it short and easy to say out loud, because people will hear it on the phone and read it on the side of your van. Avoid hyphens and odd spellings if you can. Using your business name is usually best, and adding your town can help if the plain name has gone, for example smithplumbingshrewsbury.co.uk. Check it reads properly when the words run together.

Whose name is the domain registered in?

Yours. The domain is registered in your name or your business’s name, not ours. That matters because the domain is often the most valuable part of a website: it’s on your vans, your business cards and every email you send. If you ever decide to leave, you can take it with you.

How domain transfers work

Transferring means moving the registration from your current company to us. Your website and email don’t have to stop working while it happens.

• For .co.uk, .uk, .org.uk and .me.uk, the transfer is done by changing the domain’s “IPS tag” at your current company. You place the transfer order with us, then ask your current company to change the tag, or change it yourself in their control panel.
• For .com, .org and .net, you ask your current company to remove the transfer lock and give you an authorisation code (sometimes called an EPP code). You enter that code when you order the transfer.

If you’re not sure which applies to you, open a ticket and we’ll talk you through it.

DNS management and email forwarding

DNS is the list of settings that tells the internet where your website and email live. If you host with us, you can change these records in cPanel. That’s useful when another service, such as Microsoft 365, Gmail or Google Business Profile, asks you to add a record to prove you own the domain.

With email forwarding, an address like hello@yourbusiness.co.uk delivers straight into the inbox you already use, such as Gmail or Outlook. You get a professional address without another mailbox to check.

Do I need hosting as well?

A domain on its own is just the name. To have a website, you also need somewhere to put it. Our cPanel web hosting starts at £2.99 a month and WordPress hosting at £3.99 a month.

Domain included with the managed website

If you’d rather have the whole thing done for you, our managed website is £47 a month and includes your domain name. We design the site, write the words, host it, set up email forwarding on your domain and make 10 changes a month. You still own the domain.