The Snug Rhino

just about to register my web domain name with 123reg and noticed they charge for an email address - i need a few, one for me, business partner an "info" one, etc - is that the norm?

i assumed once you owned the abc.co.uk bit the email addresses were free?

Soulgirl

You don't get email for free just because you buy a domain from them. You'll be paying for 'hositng' - they're giving you the option of email only rather than webspace I expect.

The Snug Rhino

seems the websapce (which i dont need) is free and email is extra

RichB

123reg charge £10 per year per POP3 mailbox.
This isn't bad and you do get webmail.

If you all already have POP3 mailboxes then you can setup your 123reg domain to forward aliases i.e snug@rhino.co.uk -> snugrhino@btinternet.com
You can setup as many of those as you like for FREE.
What you are being charged for is the POP3 mailbox itself.

Hope that makes sense.

RichB

and I don't think your webspace will be free either!

Soulgirl

Why buy a domain name if you don't want a webspace? Or do you have someone else that's going to give you a sub-domain on their websapce? If so, they can allocate you an email address with that sub-domain using your domain name

The Snug Rhino

ok.....over my head!

i will have my web site hosted elsewhere at 123.co.uk/rhino

all i need is to own www.rhino.co.uk and have that link to the 123.co.uk site (which i dont own)

i also need people to be able to email me at tiggs@rhino.co.uk

make sense??

Soulgirl

Fine, so when you choose your host, you'll get email along with everything else Usually, you'll be able to have at least 25 email address @rhino.co.uk.

For example, I use www.anhosting.com - look what you get for 7 dollars a month! That's mahoosive

http://www.anhosting.com/all-inclusive-web-hosting.php

OK, might be far too much webspace for you right now, at the beginning, but knowing you've all that space and scope for growth means you wont have the hassle of moving hosts later on.

If you need any help please don't hesitate to ask. You can email me at karen@thesoulgirl.com if you like

RichB

A domain name is purley an entity that tells other internet services where to direct certain requests, it has an MX record which tells the internet where all email is to be directed (your incoming mail server also know as your POP3 mail server)
When you buy a domain name from someone like 123reg, your domain's MX record is (by default) set up to be their incoming email servers, they configure their servers to forward email sent to any/all/certain addresses to other mail servers (called mail forwarding). If you buy a POP3 mailbox from someone else, you will set up your domains MX record to the IP address of the server where that POP3 mailbox lives.

A domain also tells the internet where your web site is. Convention says that all websites live on a sub domain called www but it doesn't have to be. If you want you can set it up so that you can access your site by going to http://rhino.com or http://scoobynet.rhino.com.
Normally people setup a WWW record to point to the IP address of the web server that hosts your website, that server then has settings that listen out for requests to www..... and then show the files in a certain folder.
You can also set it to forward requests to other sites, in the same way that if you type in bbs.scoobynet.co.uk you end up at www.scoobynet.com

Damn, it's hard to explain this after too many Kingfishers.....

Soulgirl

If I confused him, you've just bashed his f*cking head in LOL

TopBanana

<cough> who farted?

Soulgirl

If it's a bloke, what's new!

The Snug Rhino

errrrrrr....ok???


so if i buy my domain name from 123-reg.c0.uk for £2.99 for 2 years do i then need to pay my £13 per year for each email address i need?

seems the anhosting option is much cheaper if you need lots of email addresses?

RichB

OK, maybe that was a little OTT but it was an attempt to explain how this stuff works. All a domain is, is a signpost to other things.
An email address is not a mailbox, with 123 you can have as many email addresses as you like for free BUT all they do is forward the mail to another address - You have to have a POP mailbox for each person who wants to receive mail and from 123reg these are (were) £10 per year per person. Anhosting say you can have unlimted of these which is good but only if you need a lot.

I would suggest you should go with someone like http://www.titanhost.co.uk/ who are UK based, used by many on here and are likely to offer a bit more of a personal touch than these virtual ISPs with their template - out of the box websites based in the US.

I doubt Titan are that much more expensive anyway, call them up and explain what you want, it 'will be much easier than listening to a load of sad geeks waffle on about MX records lol

Dream Weaver

Rhino, as Rich says, use Titan hosts.

I've used them for hundreds of websites/domains now in the past 5 years, and their service is faultless.

Prices are good, and support is instant so no messing about with faceless support numbers.

Soulgirl

That Titan is WELL expensive! 100 mb of webspace is TINY. I've used American hosts for the past 8 years and they rock.

The support from anhosting has been instant and personal. My previous host in the US was also instant and personal.

Dream Weaver

100mb may be small for a **** site hosting 1000's of video's, but for anything else it's fine, including ecommerce sites with 1000's of products.

Just depends how you optimise things.

Soulgirl

Dang.... that'll be why I've filled my 15 gig LOL

The Snug Rhino

ok....so if i have two people needing email i need 2 pop3 addresses - if i then want to add info@ and other X@ i can just choose who of the original two gets those sent tothem - that sounds fine.

is that right?

RichB

nearly - Just need to get the terminology right.

A POP3 mailbox is a collection point. Like your house.

An email address points to that mailbox BUT you can have as many addresses going to that POP3 box in the same way that Mrs Snug Rhino gets her mail delivered to the same house as Mr Snug Rhino.
They are different names but end up in the same place.

If Mrs Rhino wants her mail to be separate she'll be needing a new house (mailbox)

So you can have info@ mr@ contact@ addresses all going to your POP3 mailbox AND she can have junk@ tupperwareparties@ avon@ all going to mrsrhino's POP3 mailbox.

6 addresses - only 2 mailboxes.

With 123 reg you can buy pop3 boxes for £10 per year and then setup as many email addresses (aliases) that go to which ever box.

The Snug Rhino

perfect...i now have 2 pop3's and various adresses that link to them.