parish website scheme: URLs
Lots of people have asked us questions about URLS (that’s the website address – the bit that goes www.asiteaddress.com) with this scheme, and how they will work.
What the Parish Website Scheme will give you is a URL like this:
http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/parishholding/[your_diocese]/[your_parish_code][language]
So your URL might look like this, for example:
http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/parishholding/bangor/b700-en
The language code is either -en for English or -cy for Cymraeg/Welsh.
Now, that might be enough for you, or you might want a bit more:
http://www.thebestparishwebsiteever.org.uk, for example.
If you want your own URL then this is fairly easy to do, and in your own hands, and usually only costs around £10 for two years. We cannot do this for you, because all URL registrations have to be renewed every two years and - much as we might like to help - we simply don’t have the resources to chase PCC Secretaries around for renewed registration forms every two years.
Important note before you go any further:
what we are describing here is the process of registering a URL and directing this to your original URL (as above). In other words, you will have two URLs that both point to the same place. What we are not talking about here is transferring a URL, which is a much more complex business and not possible in this case.
Registering your own URL: how to do it
If you want to register your own URL, then the first thing to do is decide what you would like the URL to be. When you do this, remember that you need to find a URL that no-one else has already registered, so http://www.parishofuppercwmsomewhere.org.uk is likely to be available, but http://www.stdavidschurch.org.uk has probably been registered by someone else. Once you have a URL, you should think about where you’re going to include it – notice boards, visiting cards, parish leaflets…
If you want a bilingual address, then you can either try and find a URL that works bilingually (e.g. www.esgobaethbangordiocese.org) or purchase two URLs – one in English and one in Welsh. There is no limit to the number of URLs that you can purchase beyond the fact that each additional URL will cost you money.
.com, .org., .org.uk, .co.uk… what do I choose?
You will have seen websites with different endings to their URLs. In particular, you’ll have seen a lot of adverts for websites ending in “.com”. The generally accepted rule is that the “com” in .com stands for “commercial” and .com addresses are meant for trading businesses, as are the .co.uk addresses, whilst non-profit and religious organistations should use .org.uk (if they’re UK based) or .org (if they’re international).
These are online conventions more than rules and no-one polices them strictly - you’ll probably see a few parish website addresses ending in .com or .co.uk, and that’s fine. If you’ve got the choice, then .org.uk is going to be the least confusing choice, and also – because it’s not a commercial address – probably cheaper than a .co.uk or a .com address.
Registering my URL
Once you’ve decided what you want for your URL, then you need to register this somewhere. Companies that do this for you are easy to find – just do an internet search on “domain name sale”. The last time I purchased a URL, I used www.virtualnames.co.uk, from which the following screenshots are taken, but the Church in Wales does not wish to recommend or endorse a particular provider (nor can it guarantee services from any provider), and you should shop around for a good deal.
The only important fact to note is that you should make sure that the provider you buy your URL from has been around for a while and is well regarded, as it could be problematic if they go out of business.
- The first step to take when registering a URL is to make sure that the URL you want hasn’t already been taken. You can usually do this by entering the URL you want into a box, and searching for this. The screenshot below is taken from the homepage of www.virtualnames.co.uk
- The system will then tell you whether the URL is available or not. If it is available, you can usually click somewhere to purchase the URL (as on the “Add to basket” option in the screenshot). If the URL isn’t available, then you need to think of another alternative and try again.
- If you’ve decided that you would like to buy the URL above, and have clicked on the purchase option (“Add to basket” and then “Place order” in the case of VirtualNames), you’ll probably see a screen like the one. At this point, providers will often ask if you want any extra services, like some webspace to store your website on. You don’t need this, but you do need “redirection”, which is usually included for free.
(NB: You may see or be offered different types of redirection, and we suggest that you choose the default standard redirection rather than any “masked” option, which uses frames to work and interferes in the accessibility of a website.)
- Once you’re happy that you’re ordering the correct URL (NB: most providers allow you to upgrade your services if you need to at a later stage), you can go ahead and buy your URL in the standard way with a credit card.
In order that people are responsible for the URLs that they buy, you will have to supply a set of contact details that will be available publicly to anyone online in order to purchase a URL. You may want to think carefully about the best address to use for this, and may want to use a parish office address instead of a personal address for example. - Once you’ve purchased your URL, it may take a short time for that URL to become active. You are usually sent a username and a password to login to a “control panel” for the URL. In the case of VirtualNames, you can access this from the home page as pictured:
- Once you’ve entered your username and password, you’ll see a screen a little bit like this – it will differ with different companies, but the options are usually the same.
- In the case of VirtualNames, to change anything to do with the URL you have registered, click on “Domains”. You’ll then see another screen like this:
- The “Website settings” option is helpfully marked “Change website redirection and hosting settings”, so choose this, and you should see a screen like the one pictured.
- You can now enter the address you want your URL to redirect to, save changes, and wait for this to take affect.
- If you registered more than one URL, then repeat this process for each of them.
What about email addresses?
When you buy a URL, you often get an email address (or a limited number of email addresses) provided with it. For example, if you purchased www.parishofstsomewhere.org.uk, you might get webmaster@parishofstsomewhere.org.uk provided free, and the opportunity to buy further addresses – vicar@parishofstsomewhere.org.uk and so on.
This is slightly outside the remit of this guide, but these email addresses will work just like the URL – you will give a real email address to forward the email to, using the control panel (just as we did to set the URL to redirect to above). These e-mail addresses can be useful to have, as they can help prevent some of the spam that people get by putting their email addresses online.
They also look more professional, and can help keep email addresses static. For example, if you have a PCC Secretary and the post holder changes every three years, then you could set up a pccsecretary@parishofstsomewhere.org.uk email address, and forward this to one email for three years, and then change the email to which it is forwarded when the postholder changes.
What if you own a URL already?
It’s also possible that you also already own a URL, in which case you just need to redirect it to your new parish website address. How you do this will depend on how your URL is set up – you may be able to access a control panel as we did above to change this, or you may need to contact your supplier and ask them to do this. If you contact your supplier, you will need to ask them to “redirect” your URL to the new address.