Domain Name FAQ

It's a unique name that identifies an Internet web site, so people can find and visit; its the same as your telephone number, without a number no one would be able to call you. Another advantage is if you ever change internet service providers (ISPs) in the future you won't need to change your email address each time. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots, like "yourname.com", "house.net", "tree.org".

You or your client (if you are registering it on someone else's behalf). You specify at the time of ordering who you want to be listed as the registrant. At no time do we own the domain name. It is very important if you are the actual owner that your name or company name is always listed in whois as the registrant. We have sadly experienced customers held to ransom with providers and web designers whose customers have fallen out with. Our policy is always to register the actual owner rather than any third party unless instructed to do so by the owner.

Just like a company logo, a brand name, your domain name too represents your business identity. Its like a personalised car number plate it is unique, it helps you stand out from the crowd. Having your own domain name can be for life, it is easily portable, and it is not affected if you change ISP providers. Domain names are designed for people, IP addresses are designed for computers. If you want people to find your web site easily, you will need a domain name. We recommend you choose a domain name that represents your business and the products and services you offer. The easier your domain name is to pronounce, the easier it will be to remember.

The most popular cherished sought after domain names end in .com, while .co.uk is also very popular.

A .uk domain name says you do business in the UK and 4 out of 5 internet users prefer .UK results when searching on-line, a great indication of trust in the domain – it really has never been a better time to get your business on-line and .UK is great place for it to be.

We recommend you purchase both types of domain endings to promote and secure your business website identity. When choosing a domain name it is best to choose a memorable name. You could also register additional domain combinations such as an abbreviation of your company name as well as your full company name including with and without hyphens to secure your company name, website branding, thus protecting against future confusing similar competitor registrations and domain squatters.

Some companies even register misspelt domain names of their domain name. Domain names that are misspelt or spelt similar are then redirected to the main domain name web site. Other companies register all available extensions: .com, .co.uk, .net, .info, .biz, .org, etc. If your domain name is unavailable try using dashes , i.e. www.your-own-domain.com (they can also show up higher in search engines).

The domain suffixes basically differentiate between the various types of organizations on the Internet. Generally, the following rules apply:

    Top-Level Domains (TLD)
  • .com -- businesses and commercial enterprises worldwide, can also, be used for personal sites.
  • .net -- network-related organizations and enterprises worldwide.
  • .org -- charitable or non-profit organizations worldwide.
  • .info -- is for anybody that wants to share information on the Net.
  • .biz -- Restricted to business and commerce worldwide only.
  • .mobi -- It is a top level domain dedicated to delivering the internet to the mobile phone. Applicants must agree to follow the 'Switch On!' style guides provided by the registry. The guides contain a set of mandatory and recommended best practices for developing mobile content and services, and compliance with these guides will be periodically checked by the registry. http://mtld.mobi/
    You can test your .mobi website at http://ready.mobi/
  • .name -- is for personal sites (composed of a first and last name).
  • .tel -- is a domain service that holds all contact details, for more info visit http://www.telnic.org/.
    Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD)
  • .uk -- is the new shorter, sharper domain now available for registration in the UK.
  • .co.uk -- is for the registration of names relating to commercial enterprises in the UK.
  • .me.uk -- The me.uk Second Level Domain is intended for personal use. Domain Name registrations made under .uk are expected to be made for natural persons, such as Mr John Doe registering johndoe.me.uk
  • .org.uk -- It is for organisations which do not 'fit' into any of the other Second Level Domains of the .uk Top Level Domain. These may include: charities, trades unions, political parties, community groups, educational councils, professional institutions, etc.
  • .ltd.uk and .plc.uk -- Restricted, to Private Limited Companies and Public Limited Companies only. In order to register the registrant must be (for .ltd.uk) a 'Limited Company' incorporated under the Companies Act 1985, or (for .plc.uk) a 'Public Limited Company' incorporated under the Companies Act 1985; and the domain name registered by the applicant must be related to their company name in accordance with the algorithm set out in the rules.
    Most companies that are entitled to use the word 'Limited', 'Public Limited Company', 'Ltd.' or 'Plc.' in their name are created in this way. Applications are checked by hand, so will take longer than .co.uk or .me.uk applications.
  • .be -- Country domain for Belgium, useful for relevant local market information about your products and services.
  • .co -- Country domain originally reserved for Colombia, now used as an abbreviation for company, corporation, commerce, and collaboration, .CO domain names are memorable and short.
  • .eu -- Anyone based in the European Union can register a .eu domain as long as it is available.
  • .me -- is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Montenegro http://www.domain.me/.
The domain name suffix type itself has no bearing on accessibility on the Internet from a technical standpoint, but over time the .com domain type has become the most popular, sought after and recognizable on the Internet today.

A valid domain name can have min. 3 max. 63 characters (excluding the extension) but try to create the shortest domain name that is most recognizable to your audience.

You can use any combination of 26 letters in English alphabet, numbers from 0 to 9 and one "-" (hyphen) character. You can cannot start or end a domain name with a hyphen, domains are not case sensitive. Special characters, like the underscore "_", the exclamation mark "!" or the "@" sign, are not permitted as part of your domain name. No profanity or use of any name protected by trademark. One and two letter domain names are not allowed. The only characters (barring letters and numbers) that can be used in Domain Names are hyphens. Domain names cannot contain spaces.

Yes, we support multiple domain names pointing to the same website, this is often referred to as a domain alias or domain redirect. Domain alias is faster while domain redirect can be slower, but better for search engines. For example domain aliasing is useful if you have two domain names ending in .com and .co.uk, both would take a visitor to the exact same pages of your the website; while another example could be to handle typo errors.

If there are no trademark disputes, your secured domain name will be yours for as long as you maintain the yearly registration fees.

Generally, if you've registered the name in good faith, it's not a name belonging to an internationally known company, and you can show that you have a legitimate reason to use that name then you are likely to be able to keep that name. That may not be the case if it can be shown that you purchased the name for the express purpose of re-selling it to a company with a legitimate claim to the name.

Whois is a tool to retrieve the registration information of a domain name, including the registrant's name, contact information, and record creation date.

A domain name server is a computer that holds records of domain names.

Transferring means changing the registrars. If you have domains that were registered with other registrars such as Network Solutions, you do not have to renew your domain with them. You can transfer the domain to us and renew at our low rates. Transfer needs to be done before the domain name expires. Please see the restrictions below. Transferring a domain name does not mean transfer of ownership; you are still the registered owner.

    In order to transfer a domain name successfully certain criteria's should be met:
  • A domain name that was registered or renewed less than 60 days ago cannot be transferred. You will just have to wait 60 days before proceeding with a transfer afterwards.
  • Domain names that are on HOLD cannot be transferred. Registrars can place a domain name on hold, such as domain names that are in dispute between two parties. Until the ownership issue is solved and domain name is taken out of hold it cannot be transferred.
  • If the existing registrar has the domain name locked for either non-payment or at the user's request domain cannot be transferred. If you have purchased but not paid for a domain name, existing registrar will not permit it to be transferred.
  • Expired domain names cannot be transferred. Original registrar has the right to refuse the transfer of an expired and unpaid domain. Just to be on the safe side, we require that you should allow a minimum of 30 days prior to expiration date to do the transfer.
  • All .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .name and .us domains require an authorization code. If you do not know your Auth Code, you can obtain it from your Registrar. Please have it ready before you initiate a Transfer of Registrar.
  • If you don't have access to existing Admin Contact e-mail of the domain name, transfer cannot be done. The Admin Contact's approval via e-mail is required. If your domain names Admin Contact e-mail is not valid anymore, first you should update it with your existing registrar, and then apply for transfer. Most of our transfer failures occur due to this reason. You can use WHOIS to find out the current admin contact email.
Do not attempt to do a transfer if your domain does not meet the requirements. That will result in a rejection and a charge of £10.00 processing fee (to cover our cost). Same fee will apply if transfer gets cancelled by Admin Contact either by rejecting or by not replying in 30 days. Transfer Request acceptance from the registry can take anywhere from one to 30 days. You do not pay any processing fee for successful transfers. If a domain transfer is rejected for a different reason, you will not be charged for any fees.

Do a WHOIS search for the domain in question. It will show you the date it was registered (created), the date it will expire, whether it is on HOLD or not, and the Admin Contact e-mail. (If the domain was renewed after its original creation date, you should calculate the last renewal date based on the creation date)

Unless you try to transfer a domain name that does not meet the above requirements there are no additional costs. Only amount you will be charged is the one year registration fee. This registration will add one year to the existing expiration date of the domain no matter how early you do the transfer. There are some companies that make you pay an additional charge to release the domain for transfer.

All .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .name and .us domains require an authorization code. If you do not know your Auth Code, you can obtain it from your Registrar.

  1. You submit a transfer request from our transfer page. A confirmation e-mail will be sent to the new Admin Contact e-mail.
  2. An e-mail for each domain will be sent to the current Admin Contact e-mail address. The Admin Contact of the domain (either yourself or somebody else) will receive also as usual an e-mail message containing a link to the Registrar webpage of which is the start of transfer process which has to be approved. The new issue is that in this webpage the Admin Contact must type in the AUTH-INFO created or set thru the losing registrar website.
  3. Then the request will be sent to "loosing" registrar for their approval. This registrar has to approve or reject normally within 5 days. They usually don't wait that long. Your domain will be renewed for one year and the new expiration date will be one year from the last expiration date. The "loosing" registrar may or may not send a confirmation e-mail, indicating whether they approved or rejected the transfer (Network Solutions does send e-mails). If you don't receive an e-mail, using WHOIS you can check the new expiration date of the domain name.

No. Once your registration is completed your domain name and registration period is sent to the root servers. After that, the domain name itself and the registration period cannot be changed. Domain name cannot be cancelled. If you decide not to use it, you can leave it to expire at the end of the registration period.

Please allow up to 24 hours for root servers of InterNIC to reflect the updates and up to 48 hours for the changes to propagate to entire internet. Domain registry databases can take between 24-48 hours to be updated so even though your domain has been registered it may still show up on WHOIS or "domain checkers" as being available. Global domain names tend to take the longest to show up as being registered due to a new shared registry system.

As standard both International and Nominet domain names are charged for the first two years (Although you can now register International domains for up to 10 years). After this a renewal is due to the local NIC. If you have moved the domain away from us in this time, you will be responsible for keeping up the payment to the local NIC for the domain name. If you bought the name through us, and if we still look after the domain name when it comes time to renew, then you will be sent a reminder e-mail and will be able to renew the domain on-line.

To terminate your service and transfer your domain name to a new domain name registrar, there is an administration fee of £10 per domain name to process each transfer.

There are basically four contacts for a domain name. First is the registrant owner, this is either you or your client. Next is that Admin Contact, this will be whomever you choose to list. The admin contact will be responsible for the overall control if the domain is to be moved so ensure this is an e-mail address that is not going to become obsolete. Next comes the Technical Contact, by default we are listed as the Technical contact as it is us who are running the name servers etc used by the domain name. Finally the Billing Contact, again as it is us that pay the bill to International, it is us that are listed as the billing contact.

Yes, we have an extremely popular transfer-in facility. Every month, thousands of people decide to entrust Alpha1TecLabs with their domain name to benefit from the freedom of having total control over the domain name themselves.

First of all you will need to go to our Domain Cart or Order section and complete the order wizard for a "Transfer". We will then verify the transfer details are correct and then notify you of the transfer procedure.

Domain name server IP details are listed below:
Domain Name Server IP Details

With a transfer this is up to you. However, it is better that we are listed as the email technical contact for a domain name.

URL Forwarding is directing the visitors of your internet address to a web site at another address.

If you have a web site that have a long or confusing URL you may want to buy a more useful domain name and then forward it to your existing web site. This saves you money since you will not have to pay for the web hosting.

Please send your request details to support.

To setup dynamic DNS you need to obtain a DNS client. Two supported clients are:

Private domain name registration is where you can protect your privacy with a private registration. With a standard registration, ICANN regulations require that your private contact information (Name, Address, Email Address, and Phone Number) be included in the publicly accessible whois database. This means that anyone, anywhere has access to your personal data. With a TLD private registration, the registrar's contact information is listed instead of your personal information. A private registration:

  • Protects your privacy
  • Shields you from identity theft, stalkers, and fraud
  • Saves you from domain-related spam
For country .uk domain names Nominet provide provide a free registrant whois opt-out field. If the registrant is a personal registration then the registrant can also choose not to have their address details displayed on the whois. In this case the 'opt-out' field should by marked as y. If the 'opt-out' field is marked as n then their address details will be displayed on the whois. The default value is that the registrant is not opted-out.

If you fail to renew your domain names on time the domain will expire. Once it has expired the domain name can be deleted at any time. This means all expired domain names will be deleted at any time after their expiration date, subject to the registrar's sole discretion and allocation of technical resources. Deleted .COM and .NET domains will enter a 30 day Redemption grace period during which it may be possible to reinstate the domain names for a charge which will vary between different registrars. This charge is also known as the domain name expiry recovery fee. Remember, when you renew, the time is added to the end of the expiry date, not the date you performed the renewal, so really you have nothing to lose by renewing early. And if your names are important to you, go ahead and renew them for two years or more.

Forget about renewing your domain names every year! Multi-year registrations allows you to register individual domain names up to 10 years.

An internationalized domain name (IDN) allows the domain name to operate without using Western-based characters, which could contain one or more native language characters. IDN's allow Internet users domain names in the full alphabet of their language. Such domain names could contain letters or characters such as Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese and Spanish, etc.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities. It can be reached at http://www.ICANN.org.
ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy? ICANN Registrar Transfer Policy?

Nominet is the Internet registry for .UK domain names.

What is a registrant?
A registrant is the individual or organisation (e.g. limited company, partnership, sole trader etc) that registers a specific domain name. This individual or organisation holds the right to use that specific domain name for a specified period of time (two years for a domain name ending in .uk ). This person or organisation is the ‘legal entity’ bound by the terms and conditions of the domain name registration agreement with Nominet.

What is a ‘registrar’?
A registrar is the company or organisation that you choose to register your domain name through. This may be an ISP or a domain name reseller or just a company that specialises in registering domain names. Registrars have previously been referred to as 'Registration Agents' or 'Tag Holders'

The registrar is the agent through which people register domain names – it does not mean that they are an agent of Nominet. Your registrar may be a member of Nominet, but they will act on your behalf rather than Nominet’s behalf.

It is normal to receive a welcome email from Nominet, it is nothing to worry about. Nominet operate the UK registry, anyone who registers a UK domain name will automatically be contacted by Nominet via email.

When Nominet state you have an account with them they mean your recent domain name registration. Your account billing payments, service contract is with us your registrar. We should always be your first point of contact should you have any queries.

One useful feature of their operation is that they provide a free control panel where you can login and update your UK domain name registration whois contact details directly online via "Online Services" at https://secure.nominet.org.uk/auth/login.html

If you believe your current DNS registrar maintainer will not transfer your UK domain on request you should read http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/maintain/changeregistrar/ to force a change of registrar TAG change request using the online service, please note Nominet will want to charge £10 (plus VAT). To login to the online service go to https://secure.nominet.org.uk/auth/login.html if you have lost your password and email address, click Re-establish your identity with Nominet. Our Nominet UK IPS TAG is: ALPHA1TECLABS.

To transfer away a .co.uk domain name from your 1and1 account, cancel this package from http://contract.1and1.co.uk and choose cancel domains and/or additional items. Choose the domain name that you wish to transfer and select change of provider for this domain name then it'll ask you for the tag. Our Nominet UK IPS TAG is: ALPHA1TECLABS.

A .co.uk domain transfer usually takes about 24hrs to complete, while a .com type transfer can take about a week to 30 days!

If you fail to renew your .uk domain name with Alpha1TecLabs, Nominet may send you a final renewal reminder by email. You will then have 30 days to arrange for your registrar Alpha1TecLabs to renew your domain name. If we do not receive a renewal request for your domain name within 30 days of the expiry date, the domain name will be suspended. It will then be cancelled 60 days after suspension if we have still not received a renewal instruction for your domain name. The entire deletion process therefore results in two potential drop dates, ninety-two days and ninety-nine days approximate after the expiry date of the domain name.

If you are unsatisfied with the service you have received, and you have not been able to reach a resolution via our support system, you can make a formal complaint by emailing support@Alpha1TecLabs.com including your account information, and detailing the outstanding complaint.

We will acknowledge your complaint within 24hrs, an investigation will be carried out into the issues raised and a full response will be provided within 3 working days. Where the issue is particularly complex it may take longer to respond. If this is likely, we will provide information on the action which will be taken and advise when you can expect a full response.

Registrants will receive an email 30 days prior to expiry date, requesting renewal of service and online payment. Note: Registrants can arrange for more notice or can renew for longer periods by emailing support@Alpha1TecLabs.com.

We validate registrant data, by validating address and contact details against payment bank details and post code data and a valid contact email address. If notified a domain name cannot be validated, we will contact the registrant again to validate and provide proof of registrant data. From May 6th 2014, if any registrant is unable to validate or provide proof of identity, then we will lock invalid domain registrations for 30 days before they are cancelled.