When you purchase a domain - for example mydomain.com, you need to register it with a registrar. Which registrar is the right registrar depends on which top level domain you choose (for example, .com or .net). Registrars are identified by IPSTAGs. We will automatically select the right registrar for you Information about the domain is held by Name Servers (also known as Domain Name Servers or DNS). You can look at information about your domain using a facility called WHOIS. There are typically three types of information displayed: NS Records - These determine which Name Servers have the definitive information for the domain, and dictate which Internet Provider(s) are responsible for it's management. SOA Records - Annotation of the responsibility for the domain. This includes the authoritative name server, i.e. where the buck stops when it comes to information about this domain, the contact email address for this domain and various figures governing how often the domain's information should be refreshed. MX Records - These govern how and where mail for the domain should flow. So how does this help you get your web site on line? You need to define some hosts for your domain. Typically you would register www.mydomain.com as your web site address and you might also choose to register a mail handler such as mail.mydomain.co.uk. In order to process mail for the domain, you will also need an MX record pointing to the host which is handling your email. When you order a domain from us we will create www.yourdomain.com, ftp.yourdomain.com, mail.yourdomain.com and appropriate SOA and MX records for you automatically.