What are Domain Names

One of the most essential prerequisites for creating a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will notice first when they stumble upon your website and what they will relate you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that tells your website's visitors what the website is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name usually has two constituents - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the SLD. There are a few groups of Top-Level Domain Names that you should examine prior to choosing the domain name you wish. Your selection should be based on the purpose of your web site and on its target spectators. Let's take a look at the gTLDs, or generic TLDs - these are the most popular Top-Level Domains intended to denote a specific purpose - .com (commercial establishments), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (businesses), .info (informational web sites), .org (non-profit organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (individuals or relatives), .pro (certain walks of life), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most fields of life, so you should pick the one that would indicate the purpose of your web page best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them involve extra procedures to confirm that you qualify to have such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific Top-Level Domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Opting for such a domain name is good if your target group of website visitors is from a specific country. Many persons would elect to purchase goods or services from a local site, and if your goal is Canada, for instance, picking a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your website.

Domain Redirection

You can register different Top-Level Domains, which can redirect your visitors to a specific website such as domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and decrease the probability of somebody pilfering your web site visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with another TLD - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each TLD has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) display where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting company whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can replace the NSs of your domain name whenever you like. You can have your domain name registered with one firm and get the website hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain name and detect decent website hosting packages someplace else later, you can point your domain name to the current provider's name servers straight off.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a particular set of DNSs, all its records will direct to the same web hosting provider. Some hosting suppliers, however, allow you to modify certain domain name records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which indicates on which server your website is hosted, while the MX records show which server tackles the email box accounts associated with your domain name. For example, if you engage a new site designer and he constructs an .ASP site that will be located on his private Windows web server, you may desire to edit just the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Hence, 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 present Linux website hosting account. The .ASP environment is devised by Microsoft and necessitates a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux server would be far more dependable.

Moderately Priced TLDs Courtesy of 'Tropical Hosting'

Just a few web hosting providers allow you to modify specific records and quite frequently this an extra paid service. With us, you get a large variety of Top-Level Domains to select from and you can edit all domain name records or forward the domain names through a forwarding tool at no additional charge.