Netcetera web hosting

I recently created an account with Netcetera to host an ASP.Net MVC 2 web site for work. I initially tried to host it from an existing Fasthosts account, but their package didn’t support ASP.Net MVC 2.

It’s a good price and hosted in the UK so might be slightly better in terms of data protection legislation anyway.

However, the transfer of our domain hadn’t happened after the 5 calendar days were up (all part of the disgusting game of too-much-hassle-to-swap the domain registrars are permitted to play). I opened a support ticket and am told that the transfer was cancelled because it was locked at the current registrar. Can we please unlock it and send an authorisation code?

I was there and saw it being unlocked the first time around. I personally provided the authorisation code and personally clicked the emailed link from Netcetera to confirm the transfer, so I know this is bullshit. And, regardless, that’s no excuse for not letting us know that there was an issue with the transfer.

Update:

I think the domain transfer failed because it’s still within the 60 day new registration period so can’t be moved yet. To be fair this isn’t Netcetera’s fault so much as a failure of the domain registration system in general, although, as the Gaining Registrar, Netcetera should have been informed of the failure and could have passed this on. Lesson learned: next time I’ll use a new, less desirable domain name initially and only commit to the desirable domain name once I’m sure the hosting package is the right choice. I’ll also avoid any ‘free transfer’ option and just include the extra expense of the second domain when shopping around.

In the mean time I’ve picked a second domain name and registered that and pointed it at the website. Not ideal, but will have to do for now. I couldn’t initially figure out how to get the new domain to point to the existing website, but Netcetera’s email support got back to me within minutes to point me in the right direction.

First, I needed to go to the website’s control panel at http://cp2.netcetera.co.uk/. Then click on Domains > Add Domain.

Then use the Domain Alias link to point the second domain to the first website. The result is shown in the picture above (as I took it after already completing this process).

And now http://www.agricommon.org is up and running.

I should point out that I registered the new domain using Netcetera’s main website first – the instructions above then get it to refer to the website.