What are Domain Names

One of the most essential preconditions for establishing a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what people will observe first when they visit your web site and what they will relate you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that notifies your web site's visitors what the site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name as a rule contains two constituents - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domains that you should consider before you choose the domain name you wish. Your decision should be built upon the intention of your website and on its target audience. Let's study the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most common Top-Level Domains aimed to indicate a given function - .com (business organizations), .net (networks), .biz (corporations), .info (informative sites), .org (non-profit organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (individuals or relatives), .pro (specific walks of life), and so on. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domains cover most fields of life, so you should select the one that would portray the intention of your web site best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domain names, but some of them include extra requirements to ascertain that you are eligible to have such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific domain names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Selecting such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a given country. Many people would prefer to purchase goods or services from a local site, and if your target is Canada, for instance, getting a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your site.

Domain Name Forwarding

You can register a number of Top-Level Domains, which can redirect your web page's visitors to a particular web page like domain.com, for example. This would raise the traffic and decrease the risk of somebody stealing your visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain Name with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) indicate where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting company whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is using at the moment. You can replace the NSs of your domain whenever you want. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the web hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and encounter good website hosting plans somewhere else at a later time, you can point your domain name to the current company's DNSs immediately.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain uses a given set of NSs, all its NS records will lead to the same website hosting supplier. Some website hosting suppliers, however, enable you to edit given NS records, such as 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 web page is hosted, while the MX records designate which web server tackles the email box accounts associated with your domain name. For example, if you engage a new web site designer and he build an .ASP web page that will be situated on his private Windows web server, you may desire to change just the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Thus, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows hosting server, but your emails or any sub-domain names like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux website hosting account. The .ASP platform is built by Microsoft and requires a Windows web server, even though a Linux hosting server would be far more dependable.

Modestly Priced Domain Names Courtesy of 'Duty Free Domains'

Just a number of web hosting distributors enable you to edit given domain name server records and quite often this an additional paid service. With us, you have a large array of TLDs to pick from and you can edit all domain records or forward the domain names using a forwarding tool at no additional charge.