Domain Registration, Transfers, Renewals and Management

We are a well established domain name registration provider offering a full range of domain services, including registration, transfers and renewals, as well as domain management, parking and reselling.

Choosing a domain name

A domain name can be between 3 and 67 characters long and is not case sensitive. Beyond that, a few points are worth thinking about before you register anything.

• Register the same name across the extensions that matter to you. If you want yourdomain.co.uk, consider registering yourdomain.uk and yourdomain.com as a minimum so that nobody else takes them.
• Consider common misspellings and typing errors of your name, particularly if it is easy to get wrong when heard rather than read.
• Shorter is better than clever. A name that has to be spelled out over the phone will be spelled out over the phone for years.
• Check it is not already a trademark before you build a business around it. This is far cheaper to check than to resolve later.
• Avoid hyphens and numbers where you can. Both create ambiguity when the name is spoken aloud.

If you register several domains as suggested above, you can set up hosting on the main one and forward the additional parked domains to it free of charge, depending on the hosting package you choose.

Once a domain is registered it can take up to 12 to 36 hours for DNS servers worldwide to see it, although in practice this is usually much quicker now.

Looking after a domain once you own it

A domain is one of the few parts of an online business that is genuinely difficult to recover once lost, so it is worth handling carefully.

Keep the registrant contact details current. Renewal notices and verification requests go to that address, and a domain lost because nobody read an email sent to a former employee is a situation we have seen more than once.

Make sure the domain is registered to you. Domains registered in the name of a web designer or agency rather than the business itself cause serious problems when the relationship ends. If you are not certain who the registrant is, check.

Renew early rather than late. Recovering an expired domain is possible but not guaranteed, and rarely cheap.

Domain registration

To check availability or purchase a new domain, please click here.

Domain transfers

To transfer a domain to Havenswift Hosting, please click here.

Transferring a domain does not move your website and does not cause downtime by itself, provided the DNS records are in place before the transfer completes. We will check that for you if you are unsure.

UK domain name registrar & Nominet member

Havenswift Hosting is a registered TAG holder and member of Nominet, the body responsible for maintaining the register and administering transfers of all .uk domain names. As a member we have a say in how Nominet is run and consequently in how .uk domains are administered.

By registering a .uk domain through us you are agreeing to the Nominet terms and conditions as well as our own terms of service, and are required to confirm this with a tick box at checkout.