Nothing bookkeeping related i'm afraid just a bit of a rant - my 2 daughters were up a 5 this morning and i am currently high on red bull.
I am putting together a website and searched for a domain name, it is currently held by a company called Trifega, i contacted them and they are willing to sell it for "an attractive 3 figure sum"
I googled this crowd and it appears that they buy loads of unused domain names, and when someone wants to use it, they have to buy it off them.
Almost beautiful in its simplicity really, not illegal but should be!!!
There are a few options available to get the domain name if it is your company name, or trade mark etc, as it is a bit of a grey area as to being legal or not.
However this usually costs around £400 - £700 in legal fees and so if they are asking for less it might be easier to just pay them.
-- Edited by ICBUK on Friday 30th of July 2010 11:17:03 AM
Don't waste your money paying over the odds for a domain name. Whilst it is 'nice' to have the .com or .co.uk version, it really is not necessary. Get the .eu version instead or any of the many other variations including the just released .co extension (a little expensive at the moment at about £30 a year).
BTW, I just noticed your domain nmbookkeepingservices.co.uk was free (it is just £3 a year from 123-reg.co.uk and you could point it straight to your .com domain for free).
I would agree with Quentin with regard to .com unless you are planning an international business a .co.uk extension gives a little security that you are UK based. As a general rule, if I am purchasing online, or want to contact a company, I personally only look at the .co.uk websites.
It is also not necessary to have a domain name that is 100% the same as your business name, especially if it is a long name with associated email addresses (someone@nmbookkeepingservices.co.uk is a lot to type out and easy to mis-type). www.nmbooks.co.uk may work just as well. Most likely, prospective clients are going to find you using a search engine and it will be the content of your pages that bring them to your site. As long as the domain name is relevant.
You can get the domain (only .co.uk) with get british business online for free for the first two years and after that it is still cheap (it is with BT), hosting is free or you can redirect DNS to your favourite host. I got mine with them and redirected to MS Office Live where hosting is free and you can do your own design (there is advanced mode as well if you are not happy with their templates) for free. Hosting and design is free with GBBO as well but I did not like the design templates and the rest of it...(it is google pages)
Hi Attila, I read about BT's tie in with Google but had no idea it was live yet. Do they allow you FTP access do you know (or is it all template driven)?
-- Edited by Quentin Pain on Tuesday 3rd of August 2010 08:42:48 PM
it is all templates but at least you can get a domain for free and you can change DNS settings and point it somewhere else. (well, buying a domain is not significant cost anyway...) They did it to as the name suggest get businesses online so they can have a cheap lookin' website for free. I got mine from them, reidrected to office live and I can't remember my login now so I can't really check for you what other settings they let you to change but it is basically BT domain manager so if you have seen those you know what I am trying to say...
If someone is not tech minded I would not recommend to go with the everything free option in any way (get a professional to do it) but with a little knowledge you can get at least something half decent what does the job (for me it does)...but you have to do some research. I did not like their templates but there is others out there doing this bit for free and some have decent looking templates. All in all it is possible to get everything for free and no yearly fees either and you can do your own SEO for free,too but you do need at least some knowledge and lots of patience.
I did mine through one.com, worked out very cost effective. The templates are good and their live online help function is extremely useful when you get stuck!
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Jenny
Responses are my opinion based on the information provided. All information should be thoroughly checked before being relied on.
