Starting from scratch

If you’ve hitherto been using a free email address – such as one at gmail.

com, yahoo.com or live.com – this is the perfect time to set up your own domain and start self-hosting. Meaningful domains are becoming scarcer. Even though new top-level domains such as .art, .dance and .ninja are appearing all the time, the most memorable options are often quick to disappear.

You can shop around if you like; there’s no obligation to register the domain and buy hosting from the same provider. However, doing so means you have a single point of contact should you run into problems. We’ve bought from a range of providers in the past, including Manchester-based 34sp.com and Ionos ( ionos.co.uk).

Prices vary widely depending on both your preferred supplier and your chosen domain type. For example, with Ionos you can register a .co.uk domain for £1 for the first year (renewing at £10 per year thereafter), while a domain terminating in .film, .diet or .hosting will cost £90, £160 and £500 per annum.

Many hosts include some form of complimentary hosting when you lease a domain, but it’s worth checking what this includes. The email service, for example, might only include a small inbox or a single email address, and while upgrade options are usually available, it could work out cheaper just to register elsewhere.

Once your domain is up and running, you’ll need to administer it through the host’s dashboard. Like router configuration pages, these vary widely between providers. Some design their own back end, while others implement an off-the-shelf package such as cPanel or Plesk. It doesn’t really matter what they’ve chosen, so long as it lets you set up and amend email accounts and, if necessary, administer a website.

Don’t get too hung up on the underlying technology. It’s not greatly important which version of Linux or Windows the server is running on, so long as it’s kept up to date and supports the processes you rely on. Indeed, whether your domain is hosted down the road or in a distant server farm won’t make much difference if you’re only using it for email. Even if you want to host a website, you can always link up with a content delivery network (CDN) such as CloudFlare to ensure a fast, reliable connection from anywhere.