What are Domain Names

One of the most vital preconditions for building a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what visitors will observe first when they visit your web site and what they will associate you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that tells your site's visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name usually is composed of 2 constituents - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the SLD. There are a few categories of TLDs that you should consider prior to picking the domain name you desire. Your choice should be based on the goal of your web page and on its target visitors. Let's have a peek at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most popular Top-Level Domain Names meant to show a given purpose - .com (business entities), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (firms), .info (informational websites), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (individuals or relatives), .pro (qualified professionals), and so on. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domains cover most spheres of life, so you should pick the one that would illustrate the aim of your website best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domain names, but some of them contain additional procedures to prove that you are eligible to have such a domain (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Choosing such a domain name is good if your target group of site visitors is from a particular country. Many persons would sooner purchase goods or services from a local website, and if your target is Canada, for example, settling on a .ca domain name could boost the visits to your web site.

Domain Redirects

You can register a number of TLDs, which can forward your web site's visitors to a certain web site such as domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and lower the chance of someone pinching your site visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain Name with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not availing of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) show where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the hosting distributor whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is using at present. You can switch the NSs of your domain name at all times. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the website hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and stumble upon decent website hosting packages somewhere else afterwards, you can point your domain name to the new provider's DNSs instantaneously.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name utilizes a particular pair of DNSs, all its domain name records will direct to the same website hosting vendor. Some web hosting distributors, though, enable you to edit given domain name records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which displays on which hosting server your web page is located, whereas the MX records specify which server handles the email mailbox accounts related to your domain name. For example, if you appoint a new web designer and he build an .ASP web page that will be situated on his own Windows web hosting server, you may desire to alter solely the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Thus, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows hosting server, but your mailbox accounts or any sub-domain names such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux website hosting account. The .ASP environment is designed by Microsoft and calls for a Windows web server, even though a Linux server would be way more reliable.

Low-cost Top-Level Domains Distributed by 'Plenty-Hosting'

Only a few web hosting providers allow you to modify certain DNS records and quite frequently this an extra paid service. With us, you get a vast assortment of Top-Level Domain Names to choose from and you can edit all name server records or forward the domain names through a forwarding tool at no added charge.