Register your domain somewhere other than your host
It is convenient to buy both together and it is a mistake. If a hosting dispute arises — a billing problem, an account suspension, a company failure — you do not want the domain that is your business identity held by the same party. Keeping them separate also makes moving hosts a five-minute DNS change instead of a transfer.
Good registrars for UK buyers: Namecheap (free WHOIS privacy for life, honest renewals), Cloudflare Registrar (sells at wholesale cost, no markup, though it does not support .uk), LCN.com and Names.co.uk for .uk domains. Compare the renewal price, not the first-year offer.
.uk specifics
- Nominet is the registry for .uk. You always buy through a registrar, never from Nominet directly.
.co.ukremains the default for UK businesses..ukis shorter and increasingly accepted..org.uksuits charities and community groups..ltd.ukand.plc.ukrequire matching Companies House registration.- UK domains register in 1–10 year terms and typically cost £8–£12/year at a fair registrar.
- Transfers between UK registrars use an IPS tag rather than an auth code: you ask your current registrar to change the IPS tag to the new registrar's, then claim the domain there. It is usually free and can complete the same day.
- Check the registrant field is your name or your company — not your web designer's. This is the most common and most painful ownership problem in UK small business web work.
The DNS records you will actually touch
| Record | Does what | Typical value |
|---|---|---|
| A | Points the domain at an IPv4 address | 203.0.113.45 |
| AAAA | Same, for IPv6 | 2a01:4f8::1 |
| CNAME | Aliases one name to another | www → example.com |
| MX | Where email for the domain is delivered | 10 mx.google.com |
| TXT (SPF) | Lists who may send mail as you | v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all |
| TXT (DMARC) | Tells receivers what to do with failures | v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:… |
| CAA | Restricts which CAs may issue your certificates | 0 issue "letsencrypt.org" |
SPF, DKIM and DMARC are no longer optional. Google and Microsoft both enforce authentication for bulk senders, and a domain without them lands in spam. Your email provider gives you the exact records to paste.
TTL and why changes seem not to work
TTL is how long resolvers cache a record. A 24-hour TTL means some visitors keep seeing the old server for a day after you change it. Before any planned migration, drop the TTL to 300 seconds a couple of days ahead, make the change, then raise it again afterwards. And clear your own resolver cache before concluding it has failed — check with dig example.com @1.1.1.1 rather than trusting your browser.