Domain Names

In order to have a website and custom email addresses you require at least one domain name and a web hosting account.

Domain name:
A domain name is a name registered to reflect your business and/or website and will be the address where visitors can reach your website. When you register a domain name it becomes your property and becomes unavailable to anyone else for registration. You can register a domain name for up to ten years in advance, but for a minimum of one year.

You just ordered and paid for a new domain name but apparently you can't start using it because of something called DNS Propagation.

According to your service provider you'll have to wait anything from 24 to 48 hours before it's activated (and your're like what's up with that, it's not like they're shipping it to my front door).

A Whois record contains all of the contact information associated with the person, group, or company that registers a particular domain name. Typically, each Whois record will contain information such as the name and contact information of the Registrant (who owns the domain), the name and contact information of the registrar Registrar (the organization or commercial entity that registered the domain name), the registration dates, the name servers, the most recent update, and the expiration date.

A nameserver is a computer that is permanently connected to the Internet and translates domain names into IP addresses (or vice versa), enabling you to enter www.example.com instead of 194.63.248.47. In other words, it's the mechanism by which computers across the world can identify which server to go to in order to obtain the necessary website to display when you enter a domain name in your browser.

The domain lock is an added layer of security to guard against unauthorized domain transfers and name server changes. When a domain name is locked, the domain name cannot be transferred even if an EPP code is obtained. The domain would have to first be unlocked before a transfer can occur.

Once a domain name reaches it's expiry date it remains unchanged for about two weeks before going into the redemption period.

The redemption period is a grace period for the current registered owner.

Domain names that fail to be renewed every year will first proceed to an inactive state referred to as the redemption period. The redemption period lasts for 30 days before the domain proceeds to the deletion phase.

EPP stands for "Extensible Provisioning Protocol". It is an authorization key provided by a previous registrar and required by a new registar to complete the registration transfer for a domain name. The code acts as a security code for your domain, so that only you can transfer the domain.

To obtain the EPP code from your current registrar, simply contact them and specifically state the you want the "EPP Code" for the domain you wish to transfer.

A domain can either be transferred to Namhost from another web host, or it can be transferred away from Namhost to another web host.

Transferring to Namhost from another web host

In order to transfer a domain to Namhost, the following must happen in the specified sequence:

Domain name registration and hosting prices are separate.

We keep these prices separate because there are some users who only wish to register domain names through Namhost but have hosting from another provider.