domain name and website hosting

[Danny]

Has anyone any advice or recommendations for registering domain name and hosting my (small) website in France. My service provider is Club Internet. Is it better to host and/or register with someone else?

Also, any thoughts on .fr or .com or .net or all for my new domain ?

Danny

EDIT
p.s. is it possible to redirect my current address (i.e. with the club internet pages personal address) to the new domain name address if I take my hosting elsewhere? My club internet address is already known (a bit) and I would prefer not to lose any business. I hope that makes sense

 

[Llwyncelyn]

Have sent you a pm. 

 

rdgs

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]

Has anyone any advice or recommendations for registering domain name and hosting my (small) website in France. My service provider is Club Internet. Is it better to host and/or register with someone else?

Also, any thoughts on .fr or .com or .net or all for my new domain ?

Danny

EDIT
p.s. is it possible to redirect my current address (i.e. with the club internet pages personal address) to the new domain name address if I take my hosting elsewhere? My club internet address is already known (a bit) and I would prefer not to lose any business. I hope that makes sense

[/quote]

I use UK2 (www.UK2.net) have done since they started. Never any problems.

To get a .fr domain, you need to "qualify", essentially have a SIRET number. Also quite difficult to arrange, which is why most French organisations use .com! Always register all of the domain types you can (I own all the "aplaceinfrance" domains, except .co.uk - as a result, I get some very interesting emails....!!!)

To answer your last query, probably not, most ISP's won't. I have no experience of club internet, apart from saying that it is an awful choice of name for an ISP (but so, IMHO is "alice").

 

 

 

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Llwyncelyn"]

Have sent you a pm. 

rdgs

[/quote]

Just out of interest "rgds", what is so secret that you reckon the rest of us won't benefit from it, or if so irrelevant, why would the rest of us want to know what you have done. Isn't the point of a PM, just that, "P"?

 

[Russethouse]

 I recently spent some time in the company of a lady who works as a 'functionaire' ( hope thats the right term) and whose job is to make sure web sites registered in .fr follow the rules and regs. If you are .fr you MUST have a French language option on your site.

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="nicktrollope"]

I use UK2 (www.UK2.net) have done since they started. Never any problems.

To get a .fr domain, you need to "qualify", essentially have a SIRET number. Also quite difficult to arrange, which is why most French organisations use .com! Always register all of the domain types you can (I own all the "aplaceinfrance" domains, except .co.uk - as a result, I get some very interesting emails....!!!)

To answer your last query, probably not, most ISP's won't. I have no experience of club internet, apart from saying that it is an awful choice of name for an ISP (but so, IMHO is "alice").

[/quote]

I didn't have to quote my SIRET when I registered an .fr domain for my website. You can only buy .fr domains from French hosting companies who are members of AFNIC. I bought mine from online.net.

In answer to the OP's question about whether to go for .com, .fr, .co.uk, I think it is best to buy the domain which corresponds to where the majority of your target market are based. Or buy more than one domain and point it to the same site, which is what I've done (.co.uk and .fr).

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

If you are happy enough with your existing provider but just want a more 'serious' looking domain name then you could probably do things the other way round.

I've always used Demon as my personal ISP but a few years ago a mate of mine set me up with my own domain on a hosting service. They were quite happy to redirect all my mail to my Demon account. I also had the option of collecting mail from both Demon and my host mailbox but it didn't seem worth the extra config.

I don't know about French services but there are lots in the UK and the good thing about the internet is that it hardly matters where your hosting company is based.

By the way, I have heard that France will soon be relaxing the requirements for a .fr domain, but can't remember the details.

[hastobe]

You must have one domain name that is associated with the IP address of your web site - but after that you can point as many other domains at it as you like.  This is how gateway pages work. 

With regard to purchasing domain names I use www.123-reg.co.uk where you can get UK / US domain names from a couple of quid and you can control the nameservers, forwarding etc etc.

Kathie

[Eslier]

A good option is one of the relatively new ".eu" domains. As they've been available for less than a year there are more name options available than ".com" for example.

[Tay]

The regulations regarding buying a .fr domain have been relaxed,so you don't need to prove that you have a siret - 1and1 are cheap providers.  UK2 charge a release fee should you wish to change hosts, but this can be 'by-passed'.  Personally, I wouldn't recommend them and wouldn't use them.   As Eslier said, .eu domains can be a good option, but the only drawback is that they aren't well-known yet. 

[ChezShells]

best for domains - www.1and1.fr

Hosting - never ever had any problems with www.routhost.com

You should be able to forward your club address to your new one automatically.

I tend to side with .com then .fr for france related sites.

Lee

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="Eslier"]A good option is one of the relatively new ".eu" domains. As they've been available for less than a year there are more name options available than ".com" for example.

[/quote]

I've registered a few .eu domains and they are quite expensive for some reason! I'm still not sure if they are going to take off or not. When the FT group re branded itself as Orange there were some rumours that they would go with an .eu domain as they are a big European company, but they went for .com in the end.

[Llwyncelyn]

Hi Nick I have and had nothing to hide nothing whatsoever and to even suggest that I have is forgive me fishing and fishing big time.

All I related were my experiences and where I compared and contrasted and made a suggestion.  Thats all!  I have taken a quick scan of the forum this morning and witnessed lots of pm's coming and going.  However they were all unremarkable because in each and every case you did not deem it necessary to comment?

[Danny]

Many thanks for the responses and links. It is going to take me a bit of time to get my head around all the options.

My web site is in French and English. My business is here in France but my clients come from far and wide.

I might try to have .fr and .net as .com is already taken for my preferred name...

Danny

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]

Many thanks for the responses and links. It is going to take me a bit of time to get my head around all the options.

My web site is in French and English. My business is here in France but my clients come from far and wide.

I might try to have .fr and .net as .com is already taken for my preferred name...

Danny

[/quote]

Another thing to think of is the search engines - if people search using google.com for example, the .com domains are favoured, likewise for google.co.uk, the .co.uk domains have better ratings. If tbe majority of your clients are not French, they are unlikely to use google.fr to search on and so you are better off going for a .net, .com domain.

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Llwyncelyn"]

Hi Nick I have and had nothing to hide nothing whatsoever and to even suggest that I have is forgive me fishing and fishing big time.

All I related were my experiences and where I compared and contrasted and made a suggestion.  Thats all!  I have taken a quick scan of the forum this morning and witnessed lots of pm's coming and going.  However they were all unremarkable because in each and every case you did not deem it necessary to comment?

[/quote]

Sorry if I have offended, but I certainly was not fishing (for what?).

Your posting (from someone who usually makes sensible postings, at length) seemed .... unnecessary? After all, the OP knew you had sent him a PM (one would assume) so why was this fact of importance to the rest of us - which is what I asked.

Sorry again.