Using your own name

Sooner or later you want the address to be yours: yourbusiness.com rather than an address somebody gave you. There are two ways, and the first one is much easier.

Buying a name works on every plan, the free one included, and it is registered to you whatever you decide next. Pointing a name at your site is part of putting the site in front of the world, so that comes with a plan, the same as publishing. The name itself is bought separately, at its own yearly price, whichever plan you are on.

Buying one here

Open your project's settings, go to Domains, and search for the name you want. You will see which endings are free - .com and the rest

• and what each one costs per year, in plain money.

Buy it with the card on your account. There is no other company to sign up with, no separate password, and no page of extras you did not ask for.

Then we do the connecting. A name bought through Spanli is pointed at your site for you. There is no step where you copy settings from one screen to another. Give it a short while and your site answers at your new name, over a secure connection.

You will see the purchase move through a few steps of its own - processing, then registering, then active. If anything goes wrong at the registrar's end, the purchase is refunded and it says so rather than leaving you wondering.

Connecting one you already own

Keep it where you bought it and point it here. Two steps:

1. Type it into Spanli. Settings, Domains, add the name you own.
2. Copy one line. Spanli shows you exactly one line to add at the company you bought the name from, and exactly where it goes. Paste it there and save.

That is the whole job. Spanli watches for it and tells you when your site starts answering at the name.

If you are connecting the bare name - yourbusiness.com rather than www.yourbusiness.com - some companies will not accept the line as shown, because of an old rule about bare names. Spanli says so when that is your situation. If your provider offers something like "forwarding" or "flattening" for the bare name, that is the setting that solves it; otherwise use the www form and forward the bare name to it.

Moving a name to another site

A name answers for one site at a time, and you can hand it to another one - another of yours, or someone else's - without it going dark in between.

The owner of the site it is on starts it: Settings, Domains, the menu beside the name, Move to another project. It asks for one thing, the email address of the person who should get it. Your own address is fine

• moving a name between two of your own sites is the usual reason people do this, and there is a shortcut that fills it in.

Nothing moves yet. The name keeps working exactly where it is until the other person accepts, you can withdraw the offer until they do, and an unanswered offer lapses after a week.

They see it on their Account page and pick which of their sites it should point at. That site has to have been published at least once: a name pointed at a site nobody can reach would simply stop working.

If the name was bought through Spanli, its yearly renewal goes with it and is charged to whoever accepted it from then on. If it is a name you connected yourself, there is one line to change at your DNS provider afterwards - we email both of you the exact value the moment the move finishes.

Deleting a project does not release a name you bought. That delete is refused while the name is still attached, so move the name somewhere else first and then delete.

Renewals

Leave a domain renewing automatically so it cannot quietly lapse, or switch that off and decide each year. It is a switch you control per name.

Every domain charge appears in your receipts alongside everything else you have paid for.

Two honest limits

It is yours, not lent to you. The name is registered to you, not rented for as long as you stay a customer.

It does not give you email. Spanli makes and runs your website; it does not provide mailboxes. Buying a name here does not set up you@yourbusiness.com - that comes from an email provider, separately. This one catches people out, so it is worth saying twice.

Your Spanli address still works

Adding your own name does not remove the address your site already had. Old links keep landing on your site. See Your Spanli web address.