How valuable can an affordable domain name be?

One of the most essential requirements for creating a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what people will perceive first when they stumble upon your website and what they will identify you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that notifies your web site's visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain traditionally consists of 2 parts - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are a couple of categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should examine before you choose the domain name you desire. Your decision should depend on the goal of your web site and on its target audience. Let's take a glance at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most common Top-Level Domains intended to indicate a particular intention - .com (business enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (corporations), .info (informational sites), .org (non-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (certain walks of life), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domains cover most fields of life, so you should choose the one that would express the purpose of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domains, but some of them contain additional requirements to demonstrate that you qualify to own such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Getting such a Top-Level Domain is good if your target group of website visitors is from a particular country. Many persons would want to purchase goods or services from a local web page, and if your aim is Canada, for example, registering a .ca domain could increase the visits to your website.

Domain Redirects

You can register different domains, which can send your web site's visitors to a specific site such as domain.com, for instance. This would boost the traffic and reduce the risk of someone pilfering your web site visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not availing of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every Top-Level Domain Name has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) disclose where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting supplier whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is utilizing now. You can swap the NSs of your domain whenever you want. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the webspace hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and discover decent website hosting solutions someplace else later, you can point your domain to the present provider's NSs straight away.

Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain utilizes a given set of DNSs, all its domain name server records will point to the same web hosting vendor. Some site hosting providers, though, permit you to edit given domain name server records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which details on which server your web page is hosted, whereas the MX records indicate which hosting server handles the email box accounts related to your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new web page designer and he sets up an .ASP website that will be located on his own Windows web hosting server, you may wish to modify only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web server, but your e-mail address accounts or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux webspace hosting account. The .ASP platform is invented by Microsoft and calls for a Windows web hosting server, although a Linux web server would be way more reliable.

Inexpensive Top-Level Domains Offered by 'My hosting company'

Just a small number of web hosting providers allow you to modify given DNS records and very often this an additional paid service. With My hosting company , you get a wide array of TLDs to choose from and you can edit all DNS records or forward the domain names through a forwarding tool at no added cost. For that reason, 'My hosting company' would be your best pick when it comes to managing your domain and to building a successful presence on the World Wide Web.