Now, if you’ve decided to build a website for yourself, and you know what all things you’re going to put on your website, and if this is your first website, then you must be wondering about how the website will go online?
So, let’s look into this.
Domain Name
A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are also hostnames that identify Internet Protocol (IP) resources such as web sites. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). Domain names are used in various networking contexts and application-specific naming and addressing purposes.
Source: Wikepedia
So what exactly is a domain name?
A domain name is a unique name which identifies your website on the internet. It’s like your telephone number. So when someone put your domain name in address bar, your website will be open in his browser.
Take for instance that you’ve open this website by typing www.xcellence-it.com in your web browser. In this case, xcellence-it.com is a domain name. google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com are just few more examples of domain name. You can choose and register any domain name suitable for your website and purpose given that no one else has already registered it.
Domain names are often referred to simply as domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, but only an exclusive right of use.
Let’s understand domain suffixes
Suffixes are included in a domain name, which are referred as Top Level Domain (TLD). These TLD’s are based on the category of organization that they are related to. Below you’ll find some of the popular TLDs:
- .com used for commercial business website, most common among all TLDs used, .biz is also used for same purpose
- .edu used for educational institute
- .gov used for government agency
- .net used for commercial network
- .org for not profit organizations
There are also country specific domains like…
- .in & .co.in for India
- .uk for United Kingdome
- .ca for Canada
- .us for United States and the like.
Winkepedia manages a nice list of all TLDs. Open list of all Top Level Domains.
An important purpose of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorable names to numerically addressed Internet resources.
This abstraction allows any resource (e.g., website) to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet. Such a move usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the corresponding translation of this IP address to and from its domain name. For domain owners, this requires changing a domain’s Name Server entries which reflects the newer IP address of physical location of server.
Tips for Choosing Right Domain Name for your Website
Your domain name is the center of your Internet identity. It seems like every time you turn around there are new domain name extensions popping up. The best rule of thumb is to stick with a domain name extension that will be recognized by your customer base.
Choose the domain name that is well associated with your target market. Depending on who you are targeting this could mean choosing names that sound sincere, cool, current, active and professional.
Keep it Short and Simple
Good domain names are easily memorable and easily typed. Generally this means keeping them short. Give preference to words with fewer syllables and words that are easy to pronounce. Short is good, but don’t use difficult to remember acronyms.
Use Plurals
Whenever possible, use a plural form. It this seems more natural. If you’re selling toy trains, go with “toytrains.com” instead of “toytrain.com”.
Mind Your Key Words
You can register a long domain name containing a list of relevant words for your web site to achieve a higher ranking in some search engines. You can use up to 63 characters to create a long domain name with keywords and automatically redirect visitors to the real web site.
Mind Visualization
Use words that can be visualized. Vision is the strongest of human senses. Even better, use words that involve several of the 5 senses. This usually involves choosing more common nouns (names or objects), verbs (actions), and adjectives (descriptions).
Associate with your Target Region
Register the domain name in the correct global or country level domain. For universal appeal use a .com, .info, .biz, .org, or .net domain. For local appeal use an appropriate domain in your country, such as .co.in, .co.uk or .org.au. Many search engines provide more emphasize to websites with country specific domain and give them preference over others in local searches.
Avoid Confusing Spellings / Words
Always use correct spellings in your domain name unless it is required by other preferences like your product or brand name. If your domain is targeted at a worldwide audience then stay away from words that are spelt differently throughout the world. Some common English words are even offensive in other languages.
Try to Be Unique
Don’t choose domain names that are very similar to others if possible. After all, you want customers coming to you, not your competitors! An exception to this rule is if you register the domain name of a commonly misspelt word, in the hope of catching additional customers, provided that you are not infringing on any trademarks.
Check for Unintentional Wordings
Do check for unintentional wordings before you register a domain. Words such as “Jeans Wearing” which can also be read as “Jean Swearing”. Avoid them altogether or use capitalization in marketing material (JeansWearing.com) or hyphens in the domain name (jeans-wearing.com) to separate the words if really necessary.
Ensure Trademark Issues
Ensure that there will be no trademark or other legal problems with the domain name you choose.
Renew it before it’s too late
Remember, you don’t own your domain name. You’re merely renting it for a specified period. Don’t let your domain name expire, or your competitors may snatch it out from under you.
Once you decide your domain name, you must register it as soon as possible. Because thousands of website is developed each day & lots of domains are registered every day. So, if you delay, you might found yourself losing the right domain name for your website.
Don’t forget that we provide Domain Name Registration services at very affordable rates.
Remember that you can register your domain name with one provider yet use hosting services provided by other service provider. In this case you need to update domain name servers of your domain provided by your hosting service providers.
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Many thanks for posting this. I quite agree with your thoughts.