10 years ago, paying £100 to register a domain name was the norm with two year renewals costing £40 - £50 on average. Nowadays its not difficult to to buy a UK domain for around £3/year, but how much will it cost you to move that domain?

So has the price of domain names fallen in real terms? Probably. It all depends who you buy from. For example, Fasthosts (www.fasthosts.co.uk) currently charge less than £3 and £9 per year for UK based and international domains respectively. It is less obvious that they don't charge for the process of transferring a domain to or from their nameservers. Well done Fasthosts - (shame about the 0870 number for your sales and support lines though, but hey don't get me started on that!)

Another well established company, TheName (www.thename.co.uk) advertises prices of £15 and £38 for two year registrations of UK and international domains respectively. What they don't advertise on their site is that they also charge between £9 and £49 to move your domain away from their nameservers should you wish to do so at some point in the future. Nominet will advise that registrars are at liberty to charge for this service. Of course you could always contact TheName to ask about their charges if you're happy to pay 75p/min to use their 0906 phone number.

So when registering a domain it pays to ask a few questions to fully understand a registrar's charging structure particularly with regard to transferring domains. Don't get caught out by the small print.