The information below is designed for people who know little about domain names.  If you are already familiar with domain names then all you will want to know is that pinkdylan are members of Nominet, and we hold our own bulk register account.

You need a domain name for your "Internet identity" - to use as your website address (www.pinkdylan.co.uk) and for your email address (info@pinkdylan.co.uk).   In our case "pinkdylan.co.uk" is our domain name.

Once registered the names are yours for the registration period (usually 2 years) and you have the right to renew them. As long as they are renewed then you can retain the same web address and email addresses for life - they are also portable, you are not stuck with one hosting company.

But what name do I go for: .co.uk? .com??

There are many different types of domain names available, the ones that most UK based organisations will consider fall into two categories - "UK" names, and "American" names. Just like the UK never prints the country name on its postage stamps, because we were the first to invent them - the Americans don't add a country identifier onto their domain names. For this reason they can also be considered "International", and there is no reason why UK companies cannot use them. Larger companies and companies with offices in several countries will routinely use "dot com's".

The most commonly used names in the UK are as follows:

• UK Names:

  • ".co.uk" - used by UK based commercial organisations - the first choice for most UK based businesses.

  • .org.uk - intended for UK non profit making organisations.

  • .me.uk - intended for UK individuals - that's me!
     

• American (and International) Names:

  • .com - used by American and International commercial organisations - from microsoft.com to the local-pub dot com!

  • .net - intended for ISP's (internet service providers). We use pinkdylan.net for our server addresses:

  • .org - intended for American or International non profit making organisations.

  • .biz - desirable ".com's" are running out so this is a new option and suitable for the same types of organisation as a .com is - "biz" meaning "business".

All domain names are made up from letters a-z, numbers 0-9, and the "-" (minus sign), followed by an extension (such as ".com"). There can be no spaces or other characters.

Names are issued on a "first come, first served", basis - and it is now often difficult to find one that is nice and short and relates to your business name or the nature of your business. 

In an ideal world (i.e. if available) most businesses would register BOTH .co.uk and .com versions of a domain name, and also (if the name is two or more words added together), both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions. Multiple domain names can all point to one website, and all work for your email. The advantage of multiple names as described above is twofold - firstly, you are preventing someone else using a very similar name, causing confusion and secondly you are relying on peoples memory less. Also, hyphenated versions of multi-word names are easier to read on paper, but the non-hyphenated versions are easier to speak out verbally.

pinkdylan can register names for you - we are members of Nominet - who issue ALL "UK" names, and we hold a bulk register account for registering the "American" names.

ADSL Broadband:

In line with our policy of offering a "one stop solution" we are able to provide quality broadband services. We now offer nothing slower than 2meg (subject to availability) and can offer capped and non-capped products.