Home > Basic Tutorial >
Domain Name Registration
A representative domain name is a good way to start making your website more known. A domain name is the address of your website and it it can be used to any allowed transaction between your computer and the domain.
A domain name is a 'substitute' for IP address (if you don't know what IP address is, don't worry!). If your website server's IP address was 123.123.123.123, it can be given a domain name, which can be easier to remember.
An example of a domain name could be mynewpages.com and you can use it to browse web pages with the address www.mynewpages.com or when doing other things like transferring files, the bare domain name mynewpages.com is used.
How to Choose a Good Domain Name?
1) Keep it short and simple: Think if your 'Mary Poppins' fansite had the domain name of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.com! That would get too hard, don't you think?
2) Make it memorable: A dull domain name is a good domain name, but a funny and rhyming domain name is the best domain name. Compare www.minersfansite.com and www.miningmoles.com. Which is the memorable one? I hope I created an example good enough and you went for the second option!
If your visitors want back to you without bookmarking, but can't quite remember the domain name that would be bad, not all of them can remember to bookmark it right away. Many real brands have goofy names and that's what makes us remember them!
3) Describe what's within: If you were selling chopsticks online, you wouldn't like to have domain name like AsianStuff.com, would you? Make it ChopstickShop.com and it would be describing exactly what it keeps inside. Having keywords of your website instead of company name in the domain name is always better option. This is an easier way for search engines to find your site too!
Of course if your company website is to make your brand more visible and familar to people and it's a virtual 'limb' of your real world shop, I recommend naming it after the company name. That's the exception to the rule.
4) Suffix: There are several suffixes for domain names. The following listing is just a little fracture of them.
| .com | Stands for company. Most used. Suits any website containing services. |
| .net | Network suffix. |
| .org | Organisation suffix. |
| .edu | Educational suffix. |
| .gov | Government suffix. The favorite of government websites in the United States. |
| .uk | This is just an example suffix for United Kingdom. Many countries have their own suffixes. |
If you are not sure which one is for you, take .com since it's not a problem if your website had practically anything inside and had this suffix.
Registrars
Registrars are the service providers offering domain names. Usually the only difference between them is the price and their support given to the customers.
What Is a Good Registrar?
1) Support: Support is very important here. Seek their pages for phone number and e-mail address. Try even testing them by calling and e-mailing them your questions! Phone support should be available any time and e-mails should be answered in max one day.
2) Price: Go ahead and choose as inexpensive as possible noticing the support of course. This is about getting a domain name, not a domain name and pile of other junk.
Where to Register?
I'm a little awkward saying anything about this because I'm thinking that you all want a web hosting not only domain which is not probably true but I think GoDaddy offers good domain name registering for a very good price. It servers a huge number of people and can be trusted.
Let's proceed to 'Web Host'