Domain charges seem high

Don't want to rock the boat..

[diggle]

My problem is this. I am based in the UK and have my webspace with an ISP. They also register my domain having taken over the company that previously registered it.
They currently charge a massive £80 plus VAT = £94 for 2 years' domain name registering.
They also host the same domain and charge £116 a year (inc vat).
All my mail from the domain is current redirected by them to an email address I have had for ages but which is now receiving over 300 spam emails a day. I want to cancel this account but to redirect to another email address the host want to charge me £49 plus vat for simply changing the forwarding.
My problem is this:
My site ranks very highly on Google. I would change hosting and domain registration to another company but I'm scared of dropping in the rankings should anything go wrong or if there is downtime.
Is there anything else I can do? If I left web hosting with this hosting firm but changed domain registration to another company where I could alter email forwarding as much as I liked via a control panel without charge, would this be feasible?
What would it entail?
Any help greatly appreciated.

[edited by: engine at 12:40 pm (utc) on Nov. 14, 2003]
[edit reason] hosting company name removed [/edit]

[max_rk]

If its .co.uk name you can change IPS TAG to another agent's. It will move your dependency away from current host. Then you have a choice to change host or configure your MX records.

[diggle]

Thanks for that Max-rk.How does that work in practice though? How do you chamge an IPS tag?(You need to walk me through this!)
It is a .co.uk.Do I simply change to another registrar and get the current host to point it at that?

[edited by: engine at 4:05 pm (utc) on Nov. 14, 2003]
[edit reason] removed specific host name [/edit]

[max_rk]

Ask your current tag holder (it seems that they are your hosting providers as well) to do so. Ask them to change tag to HOSTEUROPE. then go to www.123-reg.co.uk and create an account.

If they do not change tag for you, Go to www.nominet.org.uk which is the *.uk registry and ask the to do it for you. They may charge you £15.

123-reg.co.uk are reasonably good with what they do and the prices are low. And most important you can move domain from them as you please.

This is based on my personal experience and should be used only as a guide. If you not sure, please seek professional help. I do not want to be responsible for any damages.

[diggle]

Thanks max.
Has anyone else done this - and were there any problems.

[max_rk]

There should no problems if everything done in order required. Don’t get scared by my disclaimer.

Here is action plan for you.

1) change ips tag to different agent (123-reg.co.uk is good)

2) I think 123-reg lets you to configure A and MX records. Change records as required.

a) A record to pint to your current host
b) MX record to pint to your new email server ( you set A record to your current host and this way you don’t have to move. Then configure MX record used for email. So you can host your email with other host.)

3) wait 24 hours

4) Change DNS from your current host's to new DNS. ( just to be safe you could try to add new DNS servers but not remove old. So you have 4 DNS servers for domain) If new servers does not resolve, old will be used. If everything works well, remove old DNS servers.

This way your site stays with old host but your email can be hosted with new host.

IMO you just totally move to new host. I do not think google going to penalize you much.

Max.rk

[Mardi_Gras]

The £49 does seem high, but if you are making money on this site, just one day of downtime -perhaps one hour of downtime - could eat up the £49.

You're only paying about £10 a month for web hosting. If the only problem you have is this e-mail forwarding issue maybe you should just pay the £49 and leave well enough alone.

I would swap the registration to another registrar down the line, though - I don't think it is a good idea to have hosting and registration with the same company.

[diggle]

Thanks for that max and Mardi.
Mardi - why do you not think it is a good idea to have hosting and registration with the same company?
If I change registration, won't I still have the same downtime problem?

[Mardi_Gras]

>why do you not think it is a good idea to have hosting and registration with the same company?

Because if that single company goes out of business, you have nobody to help you get things straightened out. If your hosting company goes down and your registrar is unrelated, you can probably get re-pointed and back in business without much trouble, relatively speaking.

>If I change registration, won't I still have the same downtime problem?

I wouldn't think so - all the pointers that tell the world where to find you would still be aimed at the same place. If I am wrong about this (and I am not an expert in this area) someone please correct me.