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About Domain Names
Create your own identity on the internet
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What is a domain name?
Practically speaking, your domain name (web address) is the core of your Internet identity, your online brand. Your customers and friends will remember this name and use it to find your website, your products or your services. Since no two parties can ever hold the same domain name (web address) simultaneously, your Internet identity is totally unique. |
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| Technically, a domain name is an addressing construct used for identifying and locating computers on the Internet. While computers use Internet Protocol (IP) numbers to locate each other on the Internet, people find them hard to remember. Therefore, domain names were developed to permit the use of easily remembered words and phrases to identify Internet addresses.
For example, the domain name rocketface.com represents the Rocketface website. When you type rocketface.com into a web browser or send e-mail to someone at rocketface.com, the Domain Name System (DNS) translates rocketface.com into the IP numbers used by the Internet and connects you to Rocketface®.
Selecting a domain name
Selecting a domain name is possibly the first and most important step you should take when beginning to develop a website. The domain name that you choose will be the name that your visitors will use to identify your website in the future. It is like a brand name or nickname that you would like your visitors to remember. There are several things to consider when picking a domain name.
- Pick a name that reflects the nature of your website or a name that stands out and captures the eye. (i.e. This second method is called branding) Although there are millions of domain names already in use on the web it is surprising how many unused names are still available.
- Keep it as short as possible. Keep the length of your domain name to 13 characters or less. This helps to make it easy to remember and requires less typing for your visitors. Of course this is one of those rules that is meant to be broken. A free flowing domain name that is easy to remember is really your goal.
- Be sure that you have full ownership of your domain name. Some hosting services will offer cheap domain name registration but keep the rights to the name themselves. This means that should you wish to change to another hosting service you will have to give up your domain name.
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Domain name registration
For a fee, which usually costs about $7.95 - $35.00 US (i.e. depends upon if you buy it in a hosting plan or not), you can register a domain name. This will give you an address on the internet that can be hosted on a web server and accessed by anyone.
The registration of domain names is administrated by several companies who are licensed to handle the task. The following page lists several links to domain name registrars.
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