What are Domain Names

One of the most crucial prerequisites for building a successful Internet presence is the domain name. It is what people will note first when they visit your website and what they will link you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that informs your website's visitors what the website is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name as a rule consists of 2 fragments - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should consider before you select the domain name you want. Your choice should rest on the goal of your site and on its target visitors. Let's have a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic TLDs - these are the most widespread TLDs aimed to show a particular function - .com (commercial enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (corporations), .info (informative sites), .org (non-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (given professions), and so on. As you can perceive, these TLDs cover most spheres of life, so you should settle on the one that would explain the intention of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them involve extra requirements to ascertain that you are eligible to keep such a Top-Level Domain Name (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific domain names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Settling on such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a given country. Many guys would rather purchase commodities or services from a local website, and if your target is Canada, for example, getting a .ca domain name could boost the visits to your web site.

URL Forwarding

You can register different Top-Level Domain Names, which can redirect your web site's visitors to a specific web page like domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and lower the possibility of someone stealing your site visitors by using the same name with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every Top-Level Domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) specify where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the hosting firm whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is using at the moment. You can substitute the name servers of your domain name at any time. You can have your domain registered with one provider and get the web hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain and encounter good website hosting plans someplace else later, you can point your domain name to the current company's NSs straight off.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain utilizes a specific pair of NSs, all its domain name records will direct to the same website hosting supplier. Some web hosting companies, however, enable you to modify specific NS records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which specifies on which server your site is hosted, while the MX records designate which web server tackles the email aliases related to your domain name. For example, if you take on a new web site designer and he constructs an .ASP website that will be hosted on his personal Windows web server, you may want to change only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. Hence, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows hosting server, but your email mailboxes or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux website hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and calls for a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux server would be far more dependable.

Low-cost Top-Level Domains Courtesy of '82Hosting'

Only a number of web hosting vendors permit you to modify specific domain name server records and very frequently this an additional paid service. With us, you get a big selection of TLDs to pick from and you can modify all domain name server records or forward the domain names via a redirection tool at no added cost.