Domain Name Registration

Internet Domains

Yellowstone - in conjunction with its specialist web hosting service YellowServe - are members of Nominet (the UK domain name registration authority) and several US-based registration services. This enables us to register domains DIRECTLY without 3rd party involvement.

Currently domain name registrations are running at an all time high, and the availability of some domains is now fairly restricted.

Therefore it is advisable to register your company's name as quickly as possible.

In general there is no restriction on who can have any particular domain name. For example: xyz.co.uk is available to the first person who wants it. The general exceptions are as follows:

1. Where the name is a registered trade mark. In gereral anyone registering the name of a trade mark will lose it to its rightful owner in the end. For example if you had managed to register "coca-cola.com" the soft drinks company would force you to hand it over by using the courts.
2. The domains .ltd.uk and .plc.uk. can only be registered to the company of that name. Check with Companies House, who deal with company name registration. In these cases your company registration number will be needed in order to carry out the domain registration. Nominet has in place checks to ensure that no such domain names are registered to the wrong organisation or individuals
3. The domain .net.uk is reserved for Internet Service Providers (ISP's) only.

It should be noted that under current rules all other domains can be registered by anyone. Beware: Your domain name is not safe until it has been successfully registered for you!

Once the registration process has occured and you have your website name, it must be hosted somewhere. Yellowstone can also provide this service at a very competitive price. There are two types of domain hosting which Yellowstone can provide:

1. Where the domain is simply 'parked' and is not in general use
2. Where it is fully active and linked for use with email facilities and web space.

For more information about Yellowstone's web hosting service click here.