Beware the Northern Ireland domain name / web design scam!Page 1 | Page 2 2) £60 is too much for a domain nameIf you’re paying any more than about £20 to register a domain name, you’re probably paying too much. There are any number of low-cost domain name registrars that will let you register your own domain name using a credit card for less than £20 for 2 years. You need to be a little bit choosy here though. Make sure you pick a service that has an all-inclusive fee, so that you don’t have to pay each time you want to reconfigure things. At a minimum, included in the price should be:
Many registrars also offer some free space on which to host a web site and web site building tools. This is useful if you want to build a website yourself, but is generally too restrictive for a commercial website, so I wouldn’t give that much weight in my choice of registrar.
Domain Explorer do .com and .net registrations for $13.95 US / year, and I’ve found them to be reliable and easy to use. FreeParking.co.uk do .co.uk and .org.uk registrations for £9.99 / 2 years.
Very important: Make sure that if you give credit card details over the Internet, it is over a secure connection. You should see https:// at the start of the web page address. 3) You only need 1 domain nameHaving more than one domain name is of no advantage whatsoever. If someone knows the name of your business, or knows your domain name, they will type it in the address bar of their browser, and go right to your site. But for those who don’t, i.e. people who aren’t your customers yet, you can have a dozen domain names and it won’t deliver a single useful visit to your site. Most people will learn about your web site through 1 of 3 sources:
Basically, you have to go and tell people about your web site. So it makes sense to have a single domain name that is as easy to remember as you can make it. £20 spent on an extra domain name would be better spent on advertising or improving search engine rankings. What to doWell, as I hope I’ve shown, someone is trying to sell you something you don’t need, at an outrageous price. To quote Nancy Reagan, Just Say No! If you are concerned about someone stealing your domain name, then you can register it without having a website built. Once you’ve secured the domain name, you can take your time and decide what you want a website to achieve for you, and find someone reputable to build it for you. ConclusionThe website game can be pretty confusing to new players, and like any other area of business, there are sharks to be avoided. Shop around, ask for references and to see examples of previous work.
When you’re thinking of getting a website, your local enterprise company has information that can set you on the right path. Specifically, Invest Northern Ireland has produced brochures that will help you get started with websites and e-commerce.
Finally, as always, Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware!).
Frank Hagenson is the founder and primary consultant of Abracadabra Solutions. You can contact him to discuss any of the issues in this article by following this link:
Terms* URL stands for “Uniform Resource Locater”, and it is the standard way of naming web pages and other resources on the Internet. If you look in the address bar at the top of your browser now, you will see the URL of this page is http://www.AbracadabraSolutions.com/DomainNameScam.htm.
** DNS stands for “Domain Name Service”, and it works just like a phone book. When you visit a website, your computer looks up the domain name in the DNS to find the number (IP Address) of the web server. E.g. www.AbracdabraSolutions.com resolves to 209.61.186.169. Links
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