Buying a domain name

I'm after some advice. I was lucky enough to win a Clikpic pro website in a competition in Digital SLR Photography magazine in January and I have chosen a domain name for it. When I looked at registering and buying it I was asked if I wanted to pay extra to protect my personal details. Have you done this with your website? If not, did you receive lots of spam? Is it worth it or are they just after your money?

Sorry for all the questions but I've never done this before!

Who are you trying to register the domain through?

Shop around. I don't pay any extra to have my details hidden.

Ive never heard of these extras. I use 123-reg

They are probably referring to the 'Whois' details.
Unless these details are hidden (your name, address etc) then anyone can see them. The reason you might opt to make your details visible are if you are the owner of a highly desirable domain name and are hoping somebody may be interested in buying from you - good luck with your site

I've been looking at 123-reg and it's called WHOIS privacy. It's only £14.97 for 3 years - just wondering if it's worth it! Also £15 with Easyspace, also called WHOIS privacy. It comes up as an extra when you go to buy the domain name.

I'd pay it, you then have the option to give your personal details to who you want, when you want

This is the exciting information you would be hiding, type into your search bar 'Whois www.kenmacgregor.co.uk'

Thanks Glowingblue!

Nice website Ken, definitely something to aspire to!

Did that take you to my website? I was expecting you to find this: link

Surely if you have a website you are wanting people to contact you and that means giving out a fair bit of personal information?

Hello Kirsty,

WHOIS privacy is generally priced at £5 per domain per year and hides your domain contact details behind a third party, so to speak.

If your domain name ends in .co.uk and you are a non-trading individual, then you have the option of not publishing your domain contact details, hence negating the need to pay for WHOIS privacy.

With regards spam, spammers will target well known email addresses such as contact@, info@, admin@, support@, sales@ etc and you will therefore be the recipient of spam even if you do not publish these addresses, via the WHOIS domain details or otherwise.

To avoid receiving (most) of the spam, make sure the email hosting provider has effective spam filters or make use of one of the many cloud-based mail filtering services.

Ask if you have any more questions and congratulations upon winning the website.

Well, I now have an address for you, a place in Nottinghamshire Drive.

My address comes up too if I search for any of our websites.

New Jersey surely?

I prefer the Notts version personally.

My hosting site hide personal details automatically, anyone doing a "whois" will only find their contact information.