What are Domain Names

One of the most vital prerequisites for creating a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what people will perceive first when they visit your website and what they will relate you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that tells your web site's visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name usually is composed of two parts - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a couple of sets of TLDs that you should consider prior to selecting the domain name you desire. Your choice should depend on the purpose of your website and on its target visitors. Let's examine the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most popular Top-Level Domains meant to indicate a particular function - .com (business organizations), .net (networks), .biz (companies), .info (informative websites), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (specific walks of life), and so on. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most realms of life, so you should settle on the one that would depict the purpose of your web page best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them contain extra requirements to show that you are eligible to register such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Registering such a domain name is good if your target group of web page visitors is from a given country. Many visitors would want to purchase commodities or services from a local web site, and if your goal is Canada, for instance, getting a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your website.

URL Forwarding

You can register a number of domains, which can forward your visitors to a particular site such as domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and lower the risk of somebody stealing your web page visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with a different Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) indicate where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing at present. You can alter the name servers of your domain at any time. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the website hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain and discover good website hosting services someplace else later, you can point your domain name to the present company's NSs instantly.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain name utilizes a specific pair of NSs, all its domain name server records will direct to the same website hosting provider. Some web hosting suppliers, though, permit you to edit specific NS records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which demonstrates on which web server your website is hosted, while the MX records show which web hosting server tackles the mailbox accounts associated with your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new website designer and he designs an .ASP web page that will be accommodated on his personal Windows web server, you may desire to change only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. In this way, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows web hosting server, but your e-mail address accounts or any sub-domain names like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux hosting account. The .ASP environment is created by Microsoft and requires a Windows server, although a Linux server would be far more stable.

Budget TLDs Supplied by 'Web Hosting Dorks'

Only a few web hosting distributors permit you to edit certain DNS records and quite frequently this an additional paid service. With us, you have a large assortment of Top-Level Domain Names to pick from and you can modify all records or redirect the domains via a redirection tool at no added charge.