How do I find out if a domain name is available....and other questions of a technical nature - at least, it's technical stuff to a non-tech person!!

[Earlybird]

So, I am in the process of starting a company. It has a name, and the name has been registered via solicitors. The company will need a website, and an email address.

How do I find out if the name of the company is available as a domain name?
If it is not available, can I use the same method to check variations on the name?
How do I secure/purchase/register a domain name?
Once registered as 'mine', does that give me worldwide rights to that name in perpetuity?
If the name has already been registered by one of those entrepreneurial types who will 'sell' it to me, need negotiating tips please?
Assuming I have to purchase, what is a reasonable 'starting price'? It's not (and won't be) a mega-company.
How do I secure/purchase a URL?
Any obvious (or not so obvious) questions I haven't asked (because I haven't thought of them)?

Forgive me if I haven't get the technical aspects of the questions right. Am happy to be (gently) corrected. Thanks!

her you go nominet

what are you doing

You pay a yearly fee to keep the domain name so it's yours as long as you keep paying. (you can pay years in advance if you want)

Suppose you wanted turtlewax.com for example.
I'd go to Redlink because I'm already using them for three domain names and I know they are ok.

Because it's for a business you have to consider if you want to also pay for turtlewax.net turtlewax.co.uk etc. You don't have to for a small business of course.
These are Redlink Prices just to give an idea.

Once you've done that you fill in some details on there to point the name turtlewax.com to the IP number of your hosting company where you website is.

Your web hosting company can register the domain name for you which is easier, but ties you to them a bit and can cause problems later.

The url is now yours. Anything that starts with www.turtlewax.com goes to your website.

abcreg.co.uk 1and1.co.uk 123reg.co.uk are all ok as well.

set the DNS up nicely and anything.you.like.turtlewax.com will also work..

Greyriverside - why in the world was turtlewax your first thought??!!?? The mind boggles...

My therapist wants to know too.

I'm really not surprised! ;-)

I was told that there's a waiting period if you want to shift your .com to anther provider if they have your hosting.
eg I had a site and used another company to get another name when I was changing it (saved a couple of quid) but was told that I may have t wait to attach it to my website as .com has a waiting period of a month. .co.uk didn't have one so it was ok.
Has anyone else heard of this?

no. Typically domain transfers take less than 2 days (even for .com types where you normally need an authorisation code to transfer). A month sounds like incompetence.

For email, get your domain name first then go to www.googlemail.com and set up an account as [email protected] or whatever.
When it comes to getting a domain name, pick a hosting company/provider and have the money ready, tell them to get it for you (and once you've done a searchfor it you need to buy it straightaway as otherwise there is a risk of a domain squatter bagging it).Do think about possible variations of the name ie farty_bum, fartybumUK, fartybumltd or .com .co.uk or .net if you don't get your first choice.

OK - what should I look for when choosing a hosting company/provider? Any you'd suggest/recommend? Any to avoid?

Need to have something that will work for America and UK.

Personally, I like hosting with www.34sp.com - they are UK based. Prices are not the lowest, but they are reasonable. I've been using them about 5 years now.
I would suggest registering domain name through them as well, not the cheapest, but having everything with the same provider saves setup hassles. You can pick up e-mail directly via POP3, or have it forwarded to another mail provider, like Goodlemail.

If you need a shopping cart facility, then perhaps take a look at www.1and1.co.uk. I've used them for domain registration, not for hosting, but they seem to do start-up packages for small businesses.

I use 1and1 for home hosting, small business hosting and also have a number of dedicated servers hosted with them.. ..never had any problems. They do packages that include hosting and a number of domain names as well as email with antivirus and spam filtering..

Thanks to all for the information. But , it makes me feel completely out of my depth, because this is all new for me.

Is this something a novice could figure out without too much trouble, or would I be best advised to pay someone who knows what they're doing? I'm going to have a basic website designed - could that person do all this other stuff for me too?

I'm afraid my Luddite tendencies are showing....

It's all quite easy once you get your head around it. Yes, your website designer can probably arrange hosting and domain registration as well.
Just ask on here if you need any help with anything.
Have you picked a domain name yet? That would be a good starting point.
My domain name www.nicksbabysittingservice.co.uk ranks well in Google, but is horribly long, so a pain when put on a business card, t-shirt etc. It describes what I do, thus why I feel it ranks well on Google. When thinking about a domain name, consider what Key Words describe your service/product and also consider length.

That's a nice site nannynick. Excuse my pedantry but I notice you are
"Nick is always punctual, police and the children love him."
I'm assuming your polite and not a member of the constabulary...

Lol, expect there are loads of little errors all over the place, especially ones which a spell checker won't detect.