Choosing A Domain Name

These are some of the top points that you need to consider when choosing your domain name. If you need any help, please feel free to contact us at support@ukip.com

• If you are buying a .co.uk domain name (e.g. ukip.co.uk), make sure you also buy the other main TLD's (Top Level Domains) for the same prefix (e.g. ukip.com, ukip.net). This will ensure that no-one else can come in at a later stage and capitalise on your brand name using another major domain name type. Although there are dozens of TLD types available, we've always purchased the .co.uk, .com, .net and .org variants to protect our brands. There's no harm buying more variants, but do make sure you take care of the important ones.
• If you do a domain name search and find only the .co.uk is available for your chosen prefix (e.g. ukip., it may be worth your while choosing another domain name prefix where most or all of the TLD's are available. We spent quite some time researching suitable domain names before deciding on Bytestart - dozens in fact.
• It is possible that a small business may grow into different areas of interest, or even change tack altogether. For this reason, it may be an idea not to make a domain name too specific to one area of your expertise.
• Keep your domain name as short as possible and simple - it needs to be memorable, but you want to be careful to avoid unfortunate abbreviations, for example a company called High-Tech Construction might choose hightechconstruction.co.uk, but should avoid hightechcon.co.uk!
• There are occasions when hyphens are good, for example a site called Experts Exchange changed from expertsexchange.com to experts-exchange.com to avoid certain misfortunate understandings!
• A few web promotion firms suggest inserting your major keywords into your domain name wherever possible to help with your search engine rankings. We do not subscribe to this view. Sure, there may be some small benefits in having some keywords in your domain name (e.g. "the-best-web-designers.co.uk"), but your web promotion effort should come later. Your domain name should be chosen to best represent your company's interests rather than to please the fickle search engines!
• Allowed characters - Domain names can only contain letters, numbers, and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. Domain names are not case sensitive.
• You should ensure that your domain name is not a commonly known brand name or trademark. Something like "Microsoftwebdesign.co.uk" would not be a good choice!
• Make sure you keep your contact information up-to-date. Although we will contact you when a domain name comes up for renewal, it is your responsibility in the end.