Become one of the growing number of internet users and companies that have a distinctive presence on the Internet. By registering a domain name for yourself,
or your business, you can make it easier to be contacted by email, or for prospective customers to find your web site. In addition, if you change your internet
service provider (ISP), your email and web addresses will remain the same, enabling you to shop around for the best ISP prices and services.
Domains registered with us have always had free parking included, but now registration also includes FREE web and email forwarding,
so now you can start using your domain name right away!
You can either register a UK specific domain like anything.co.uk or a worldwide one such as anything.com - either address can be used by anyone,
anywhere in the world. You'll find there is more choice of available *.uk domains but that may not be the case for long as more people see the benefits of
having their own domain name, so don't delay.
If you can't find what you want in the .uk or .com domains, why not try looking at our popular .uk.com/.gb.com domains
or the new .uk.co domain, all will work in exactly the same way as a .co.uk or a .com, except that many more names are available.
Standard Web redirection
In order to actually make use of a domain name, accesses need to be forwarded to a real web site. Our web redirection system redirects any access to
http://www.yourdomain.co.uk/ to your actual web site, one perhaps you have setup using the space provided by your current ISP.
Standard web redirection works by converting a request for your domain name into one to your current website, this service is now offered FREE for all
domain registered by us.
URL Masked Web redirection
Masked redirection works much like standard web redirection except that the URL of your domain name is kept in the browser address bar. This effectively hides the fact that the
real site is coming from your free webspace, which is a cost effective way of projecting a professional image for your site.
This service is available with our standard and advanced forwarding accounts. You can see it in action by trying
http://www.grab-a-name.co.uk/ which simple uses frames based
redirection to access the VirtualNames site. You can set the Title and Meta Description and Keyword tags, and in addition, the frames redirect page contains a NOFRAMES area
which contains this information again in order to make your site more search engine friendly.
Email redirection
All domain registrations now come with basic email redirection as standard. This means that you can redirect all mail to anyone@yourdomain to
your current email address. And this address can be changed as often as you like from our web control panel, you can even put in multiple addresses
(to limit of 255 characters).
Our standard forwarding account now supports redirection for up to five different addresses. So info@yourdomain could go to one address and
sales@yourdomain could go to another.
One of these addresses can be the 'catch-all' postmaster address which will redirect all mail for whom you haven't set up a recipient.
Our advanced forwarding option, allows multiple addresses at yourdomain.co.uk to be either redirected to any other email address,
or to be saved to a POP3 mailbox on our servers, or both. The mailbox can either then be read by your email software, or you can use our web-based email system.
Reading your email on the web
Our advanced forwarding option allows you to read and reply or send email stored on one of your mailboxes via our web site.
This allows you to access your email from anywhere in the world.
Web control panel
All our accounts have access to our web control panel. This allows you to change web redirection and email redirection settings.
It also allows you to change the type of a domain from parked to for-sale etc, depending on the options you have purchased.
You can also set the guide-price for a domain on our for-sale page.
Autoresponders
Our advanced forwarding option also allows you to set up an autoresponder on any address (except postmaster) in your domain,
so that a courtesy reply is automatically sent to anyone sending mail to that address. You can try this out with our
test service. This is most useful for an info@yourdomain.co.uk address which
could send out information on your product, services or upcoming events, or it could be used with your sales@yourdomain.co.uk
address to acknowledge orders. It could also be used to automatically inform friends when you are not around to answer your email.
Server Logs
All accounts have access to server logs for the web domain name. These are obviously more or less useful depending on the settings for the website
(Standard redirection sites currently don't show any information). These can either be viewed online using the
Analog report analyser, or the raw logs can be emailed so another log analyser can be used.
SMTP Server
If you have the advanced forwarding option you are welcome to use our SMTP server for sending mail, providing you read your email from a mailbox
and you have read your email upto 30 minutes before trying to send mail. This measure is required so that others don't use our server as an
'open relay' for sending SPAM mail. Many email servers refuse to take mail that comes from an open relay.
Web Space
Having web space on our servers allows you to host your domain without the need to use masked redirection.
Our low cost hosting accounts start at £20+VAT per year for 50 MBytes of webspace
and 2500MBytes of transfer per month. You also have access to a cgi-bin to run your own scripts, such as form to email, message boards etc.
If you already have your own domain...
We would be happy to host your domain for you on our fast servers. We don't charge a transfer fee, but you would need to check with your
existing ISP if they do (some do, some don't). You would also need to sign-up for either our
forwarding service or
hosting plan.
Contact us for more information. There are more details in our
FAQ.
Transferring your domain away from us
Any domain you register with us is
your property (subject to your account being up to date) and we make no charge for transferring
the domain to another ISP. You must have had your domain parked, or hosted with us for at least 48 hours however before it can be moved.
Reliability
Our servers are spread around the internet to ensure the most reliable possible service. We have backup nameservers and mail servers located in the UK and USA.
Our main hosting services are supplied from the UK to ensure your sites are available quickly to your customers and we are continually investing in new
equipment and facilities.
You should also see our
Terms and Conditions.
