Using a Pre-owned Domain Name for your Website

For many businesses that are considering a name for themselves, the availability of a domain name is quite rightly a major factor. It's a fantastic opportunity to own the domains that reflect your exact name.

Thoughts about a company name may start a number of months before you actually get going in business so it is highly desirable to buy the domain names that you want as soon as you see them. Do your checking and purchasing through a domain name registrar such as 123-reg or 1and1 or one of the others amongst the thousands that exist.

As part of this domain buying process your domain name registrar may offer you hosting. This will no doubt bump the price up considerably and if you've not got a website or the company isn't even trading yet it's an expense that will do you no good at all.

Therefore, it is important to understand that purchasing the domain name on its own is enough. As and when you are ready to put your website live your hosting can be provided. Some of the benefits include:

• Not having to pay for hosting until you need it;
• Not wasting the annual hosting fee when there is no website to put up there;
• When hosting is eventually purchased it will be the correct kind for the type of website you build or have commissioned.

In addition to this, you can buy your hosting from virtually any hosting provider. Again, there are lots available include Emerging Innovations hosting and this article may help you to understand the differences between different hosting types.

When you've purchased your hosting the next step is to get your existing pre-owned domain names to point to your hosting. Once pointed, typing in your domain name into a browser will display your website. Email provided through your hosting account will also now work.

The simplest way to point your domain name is to change your domain name's nameservers. You should be able to set these yourself by contacting your domain name registrar through which you initially purchased the domain. Many have a control panel that you can log into and make the changes manually.

So what nameservers should you use? Well, you can't guess them or make them up. Indeed getting them wrong will mean that your website and email will definitely not work. No; Your only option is to get the correct nameservers from the company through which you purchased your hosting. Many hosting companies will send you a welcome email containing this information when you sign up.

With the nameservers changed you need to be patient and wait for up to 48 hours for the world to see your new hosting (actually it can be more like 4 hours but 48 hours should be the maximum).

Just to be clear, changing the domain name's nameservers does not change ownership or the registrar of the domain. You will still own the domain and the registrar that you purchased it through will still invoice for it periodically.

Finally, keep in mind that if your hosting company allows it (through the use of parked or addon domains for example) you can point more than one domain at your hosting account.

If you need assistance with managing your domain names or need any special hosting then Emerging Innovations will be able to help but we hope the above has clarified things a little for you.