PC help: Webhosting costs

Q I have several websites hosted by different companies but one of them is now asking me to pay a fee for the renewal of a domain name in addition to the hosting costs.

I now feel very misled in that the annual fee now seems to be £34.65, which is no longer competitive.
Bryan Dale

A Although there may be a problem of unclear advertising here, separate charges for web hosting and domain registration are not uncommon.

The reason for this is that although most webhosting companies own the computers used to run the web pages, registration of the website names (called the domain name) is handled by independent organisations. For example, all domains ending in .uk are handled by www.nominet.org.uk.

The fees for domain registration are fixed by Nominet and may be passed on to the owner of the domain. Sometimes this is included in the cost of the hosting package. There can be confusion if the hosting package is for two years but the registration needs updating after one year.

Be sure to read the terms and conditions of web hosting subscriptions very carefully, especially the cheaper deals as there are often catches that can lead to higher costs.