web hosting

Setting up your web presence from scratch can feel more than a little daunting. You know there are lots of different issues to consider in relation to choosing domain names, setting up email addresses and setting up a web site – but where do you start?

Interact can help you through this maze and, along the way, provide a little marketing advice to ensure that your web site and email are presenting your business in the best possible light.

new domain names

If you want your business to present a professional face to the world, you should pay particular attention to selecting the best domain name. This is becoming increasingly difficult, as millions of names have already been registered. We can help suggest names and quickly check whether the name you want is available. See also our business names service for more information about choosing names.

We can register domain names on your behalf if you wish. We are equally happy for you to register them with a reputable registrar – and we can then arrange for the domain name to point to the web site and email services that we set up for you as part of your Interact web hosting account.

If you are registering names yourself, we would recommend that you choose a registrar that:

allows you full “DNS management” so that you can point email and web traffic to your Interact web hosting account
registers the domain names in your own name or the name of your business so it is absolutely clear who owns the names
does not charge exit or transfer fees if you decide at some future date to transfer your domain names to another registrar

Feel free to contact us before you register the names if you have any queries.

domain name transfers

If you have already registered a domain name through an ISP or registrar, you can still take advantage of Interact’s web hosting account. We can help you transfer the name to a reputable registrar (see above) and then point email and web traffic to your new Interact web hosting account. The entire process of transferring domain names may take a few days - but it is usually possible to keep your existing email and web sites functioning until the transfer goes through to minimise any disruption to your business.

email

All Interact web hosting accounts include:

100 POP3 mailboxes - so you can set up email addresses for different individuals such as f.bloggs@yourdomain.co.uk, j.soap@yourdomain.co.uk etc
webmail – so you can read your email from any PC by logging onto your email account through a web browser
a "catchall" email address that you can specify – so any email for your domain that does not match one of your POP3 accounts can be forwarded to this mailbox. Alternatively, mail for non-existent addresses at your domain can be bounced back to the sender - this can significantly reduce the amount of spam you receive
unlimited email forwarders – so you can set up several generic email addresses such as info@yourdomain.co.uk, sales@yourdomain.co.uk and forward each of them to specific individuals. Or you can forward your email to a completely different address e.g. forwarding your business mail to your personal mail address
unlimited auto responders – so you can set up standard emails to be sent out as replies to mail received at specific addresses
spam protection using SpamAssassin – so you can filter spam into a separate folder in your inbox then periodically check it and delete it. Alternatively, spam can be deleted on the mail server and not delivered to you

We recommend that you set up your own anti-virus protection and ensure that it is kept up to date (we cannot take responsibility for clients' virus protection).

We will give you instructions for how to set up your email programme (e.g. Outlook or Outlook Express) to send and receive mail using your Interact account.

web site

All Interact web hosting accounts include:

1 Gb of web space – more than enough for most clients’ sites
20 Gb of bandwidth per month – again, more than enough for most clients
4 parked domains – so you can point 4 additional domain names to the same web site material
password-protected directories – so you can make some material available only to specific users to whom you have issued passwords
web statistics – so you can see how many users have visited your site
4 MySQL databases

price

Basic hosting accounts suitable for brochure sites and most content managed sites cost £99.00 + VAT p.a.

E-commerce sites - please contact us for a quote.

All Interact hosting accounts run for a period of 12 months and are payable in advance in one payment. Renewals are also for a minimum period of 12 months payable in advance.

internet access

Unfortunately, Interact does not offer internet access. You should approach an ISP (internet service provider) and set up an account with them. See this site for a comparison of broadband services from various UK ISPs.

terms and conditions

Click to see our web hosting terms and conditions.