How vital can an affordable domain name be?

One of the most important prerequisites for running a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will mark first when they visit your web site and what they will associate you with. The domain should be easy to remember, but should also be something that informs your visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain typically has two fragments - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the SLD. There are a couple of categories of Top-Level Domains that you should contemplate before you pick the domain name you desire. Your pick should rest on the aim of your web page and on its target spectators. Let's check out the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most popular TLDs aimed to denote a particular purpose - .com (business establishments), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (businesses), .info (informational web sites), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (persons or families), .pro (certain walks of life), and so on. As you can see, these TLDs cover most fields of life, so you should select the one that would indicate the purpose of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such Top-Level Domain Names, but some of them contain additional steps to prove that you are eligible to register such a Top-Level Domain Name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific Top-Level Domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Settling on such a Top-Level Domain is good if your target group of site visitors is from a specific country. Many guys would want to purchase commodities or services from a local web site, and if your aim is Canada, for instance, selecting a .ca domain name could boost the visits to your web page.

URL Forwarding

You can register different TLDs, which can forward your website's visitors to a specific website such as domain.com, for example. This would raise the traffic and reduce the chance of someone pinching your website visitors by using the same Second-Level Domain Name with a different Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each and every TLD has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) demonstrate where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting supplier whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can switch the DNSs of your domain whenever you want. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the web site hosting service itself from another. So, if you register your domain name and come across good website hosting services somewhere else afterwards, you can point your domain to the new provider's DNSs at once.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a particular pair of name servers, all its domain records will point to the same site hosting firm. Some site hosting vendors, though, permit you to modify specific NS records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which demonstrates on which server your site is hosted, whereas the MX records show which hosting server handles the e-mail accounts related to your domain name. For instance, if you engage a new web designer and he creates an .ASP web page that will be situated on his personal Windows server, you may wish to modify only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. Thus, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows server, but your e-mail accounts or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux web hosting account. The .ASP environment is devised by Microsoft and requests a Windows server, although a Linux web hosting server would be far more stable.

Inexpensive Domains Provided by 'Speedi Hosts'

Only a small number of web hosting distributors permit you to modify specific domain name records and very frequently this an additional paid service. With Speedi Hosts , you have an enormous collection of Top-Level Domain Names to choose from and you can edit all domain name server records or forward the domains through a forwarding tool at no additional cost. Because of that, 'Speedi Hosts' would be your best pick when it comes to administering your domain name and to building a successful presence on the Internet.