The purpose of this document is to give a brief overview of how the domain name system hangs together, how to register a domain, who is responsible for your domain name, how to contact them and a few pitfalls to avoid.
All domain names are managed by central organisations who each have responsibility for names ending with specific extensions eg .co.uk, .com etc. You can buy domain names from these large central bodies but normally you would use a registrar (or member) who can sell domains directly to the public at a discounted price. The registrar you buy the name from will then help you to manage it. This usually includes basic DNS, email facilities, renewal reminders and so on. An alternate, and common, option is to buy a domain name from an ISP who resells names from many registrars. This is a completely legitimate and very common practice.
Hosting and Transferring Domains
If you do not have a domain name then we will be happy to register one for you in your name.
If you have an existing domain name and would like Graphite Design to host your website we can offer two solutions:
1 Keep your existing registrar/ISP and ask them to change the DNS to point to our servers.
2 Transfer the whole domain to us to mange for you.
We are happy to operate in either way, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
For an excellent unbiased third party 'punters guide' to what you should look out for as a domain owner, just click the link below:
link: The Register Domain Guide
Whois?
For information on a domain name you will need to do a 'whois' search. This
shows the publicly available information on a given domain name. You can
use this to see if a domain has been registered and to whom. Most registrars
provide whois information for the domains they sell on their websites. Alternatively
use the whois links below to look up domains names directly with the top
level organisations.
whois uk: www.nominet.org.uk/whois.html
whois .com/org/net: www.internic.net/whois.html
UK domains
Domains ending in .uk (eg mybusiness.co.uk or mycharity.org.uk) are all handled by Nominet the central body for UK domain registration. Ultimately if you have any problems with your domain which your registrar cannot, or will not, help you with, then you should contact Nominet. You can email or phone them and we have always found them to be very helpful. For contact details please see their website.
Link: www.nominet.org.uk
Whois: www.nominet.org.uk/whois.html
Global Domains
(.com .net .org .aero .biz .info .name)
These global domains are centrally managed by several organisations and resold through many registrars and ISPs. For a full list of these bodies and accredited registrars please see the links below
Link: www.internic.net
Whois: www.internic.net/whois.html
Registrars: www.icann.org/registrars/
Other countries
Just like UK domains all other countries around the world have a central
body which deals specifically with their own countries domains. For a complete
list of these organisations please see below. Normally you cannot buy a
domain from a foreign country unless you are a resident or work there, each
country has its own rules. Once again you should try to resolve any problems
with the registrar you purchased your domain from (or who currently manages
it for you) in the first instance. If you cannot resolve the problem this
way then you should contact the central body responsible for your domain
directly. Currently a definitive list of the bodies responsible for worldwide
domains is held by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), see below.
Link: www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
A Bit About
DNS
DNS (Domain Name System) simply tells other computers on the internet where
your domain is, i.e. which computer (server) it is on. This means you can
buy your domain from a registrar or ISP, have them manage it, and have the
DNS point to one of our webservers. This means that when someone types in
your domain name or sends an email to one of your email addresses it will
come to our servers to be dealt with. This is basically what hosting is.
For a more in depth, and reasonably non technical(!), description of DNS
please see the link below.
