Our customers often ask these questions so we've provided the answers on this page for quick reference. If your question isn't answered here, please contact us.
A domain name is an identity on the Internet. This web site's domain name is ukcentric.com. You'll need a domain name if you're thinking of setting up a web site or you want to have an email address that reflects your identity on the Internet.
For example if you want to set up a web site called www.widgets.co.uk and use an email address of info@widgets.co.uk, you'll need to register the domain name widgets.co.uk.
You need to register a domain name if you're setting up a web site, if you want to use a distinctive email address, or if you think you might want to do either of these in the future.
Thousands of domain names are registered every single day. Use our domain name checker to see if the domain name you want is available. If it is, don't hesitate, register it straight away because somebody else might register before you.
Getting hold of a domain name before anybody else gets it is very easy and cheap with UKcentric. Getting hold of a domain name after somebody else has registered is extremely difficult and can be hugely expensive, time-consuming and involve complex litigation.
Domain names are offered on a first-come first-served basis so if you find a domain name that's available you may register it.
Simply use our domain name checker to find out if your desired name is available. If it is, proceed through our checkout to pay for the domain name, then we'll do the rest. We'll notify you by email as soon as the domain name has been registered.
Use our easy domain name checker.
Click here for the current prices.
Once we receive your order, we automatically begin the registration process. This can take up to 12 hours to complete, but is usually completed within 20 minutes. Once your domain name has been successfully registered you will receive an email confirmation, together with details of how to make changes to your name.
Although there are no hard and fast rules, .com domain names normally denote global firms, whereas .co.uk usually denote UK based companies. Either way, they are both visible to anyone in the world on the Internet. If you are buying a .co.uk we strongly recommend that you buy the .com version of your name at the same time. Together they have a resale value far in excess of the separate names.
Furthermore it is our experience that if you start a web site using one name, somebody else will pick up on this, register the other name and try to sell it to you or compete with you.
.org and .org.uk names are usually used by non-profit-making organisations. .biz is a new possibility for global commercial web sites, and .net is normally as a complement to .com.
.info is used for informational web sites.
.me names are usually registered by individuals for their personal web sites.
Yes. Your payment is taken through Worldpay (owned by Royal Bank of Scotland), the leading UK providers of secure online credit card transaction facilities.
Your credit card details are not passed to us, but instead are only held for the duration of the transaction.
Your credit card statement will show a payment to UKCENTRIC LTD, our parent company.
Yes! We now offer full email forwarding services for free with every single domain name purchased. You can designate up to five separate email forwarding addresses.
For example if you registered the domain name mysite.co.uk you could set up sales@mysite.co.uk to forward to one email address, and george@mysite.co.uk to forward to another email address. You can also set up a "catch-all" email address to forward emails that arrive at any address on your domain name so you will never miss any email sent to your domain name.
Note: email forwarding does not allow you to send emails, only receive them. To send emails through your domain name you will need web hosting.
To use email forwarding, log in and click "Domains", then go to the domain name you wish to receive email to, and click "Email forwarding".
Yes! If you add one of our low-cost web hosting and email plans to your domain name during registration, you can have up to 50 email addresses for your domain name (see plans for details). Alternatively, we provide free email receiving and forwarding facilities with all domain name registrations (see above).
Yes! This is called web forwarding and we provide it free with every domain name purchase. To use web forwarding, log in and click "Domains", then go to the domain name you wish to use, and click "Web forwarding".
Although registrations are immediate, it can take up to 48 hours for a domain name to become "visible" to the Internet. The average length of time it takes is about 12 hours. During this time your web browser may display an error message. After this time, your domain name will show a standard page from this web site.
If you want to change what you see when you visit your name, please see web hosting, below.
You can purchase low cost web hosting from us which will give you full access to set up your web site and use email once your domain is registered.
New to web hosting? Read our beginners guide to web hosting.
If you want to divert traffic to your existing web site which is hosted with a company other than ourselves, there are two ways to do it.
1: You can update your nameservers to those of your hosting company. They will be able to provide you with the nameserver names. To do this: log in to your UKcentric account, click "Domain names", click the relevant domain name, then click "Nameservers".
2: You can use our "web forwarding" facility. This is a simpler method which allows you to just divert web users to your web site URL. To do this: log in to your UKcentric account, click "Domain names", click the relevant domain name, then click "Web forwarding".
To do this you must first have a customer account. If you do not already have one, please create an account.
The fees for transferring a domain name into UKcentric are identical to our low-cost registration fees.
Unlike other companies, we do not charge for transferring domain names away. This is because we recognise that if we provide great services there will be no need for customers to move away.
However, we do stress that transfers are time-consuming, can incur charges from the receiving company, and are totally unnecessary. If you want to host your domain name with another company you can easily do this by updating your nameservers (see above). If your hosting company have told you that you must transfer the name to them to host it, this is technically not the case.
We're a web design company in London, and we've been trading successfully since 1999. We're friendly, approachable, and in this virtual world we are very real! We welcome your comments and questions:
UKcentric Ltd Unit 34 Surbiton Business Centre 46 Victoria Road Surbiton Surrey KT6 4JL
Ring 020 8399 4920
We're proud to say that we are full members of Nominet, the body which administers the .uk domain, and members of Joker.com and eNom, two of the .com administration bodies.
As well as this we've won numerous awards for web site design and services and we are members of Kingston Chamber of Commerce.
We put the "gone" into "jargon". We're experts but very approachable so please don't hesitate to contact us. We're available during office hours to answer your emails and calls.
Your domain name is registered for a period of years (2 years minimum in the case of .uk names). Before this time is up we'll contact you using the email address you've given us. You then have the choice to register your domain name again or leave it to expire. Re-registration will involve a charge similar to your initial registration fee.
To make sure you receive our renewal notices, please ensure your spam filters and junk mail filters are set up to be able to receive emails from ukcentric.com. If you don't you may miss our renewal notices, and your domain name may expire.
It is a very good idea to make a note in your diary a week or two before the expiry date - our renewal notices are sent as a courtesy to help remind you when your name is going to expire, but the responsibility for renewing in time lies with you.