How essential can an affordable domain be?

One of the most vital requirements for building a successful Internet presence is the domain. It is what visitors will note first when they visit your web site and what they will associate you with. The domain should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that informs your visitors what the site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain traditionally consists of 2 parts - 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 couple of sets of Top-Level Domain Names that you should examine before you select the domain you want. Your choice should be built upon the aim of your web page and on its target viewers. Let's review the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most widespread Top-Level Domains meant to designate a given purpose - .com (business enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (firms), .info (informational web pages), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (certain walks of life), and so on. As you can see, these TLDs encompass most spheres of life, so you should choose the one that would designate the purpose of your website best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domains, but some of them contain extra steps to show that you are eligible to possess such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Getting such a TLD is good if your target group of web page visitors is from a certain country. Many people would want to purchase goods or services from a local web page, and if your aim is Canada, for example, selecting a .ca domain could boost the visits to your web page.

URL Forwarding

You can register a number of Top-Level Domain Names, which can forward your web page's visitors to a specific website like domain.com, for example. This would raise the traffic and decrease the chance of somebody stealing your site visitors by using the same Second-Level Domain with a different TLD - 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) exhibit where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting vendor whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can alter the NSs of your domain whenever you want. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the web hosting service itself from another. In this way, if you register your domain name and find good website hosting packages someplace else at a later time, you can point your domain to the current provider's NSs right away.

Name Server Records (NS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name uses a given pair of DNSs, all its domain name server records will point to the same site hosting distributor. Some web space hosting firms, however, allow you to modify certain name server records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which shows on which server your web site is hosted, while the MX records exhibit which hosting server handles the mail address accounts related to your domain name. For instance, if you engage a new site designer and he constructs an .ASP website that will be hosted on his own Windows web server, you may wish to alter just the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. So, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows hosting server, but your e-mail accounts or any sub-domain names like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux site hosting account. The .ASP environment is created by Microsoft and calls for a Windows server, although a Linux web hosting server would be way more reliable.

Cheap Domains Delivered by 'Exclusive Hosting'

Just a small number of web hosting providers enable you to modify certain DNS records and very frequently this an additional paid service. With Exclusive Hosting , you get a large collection of Top-Level Domain Names to pick from and you can modify all domain name records or redirect the domains via a redirection tool at no extra charge. For that reason, 'Exclusive Hosting' would be your finest choice when it comes to handling your domain name and to setting up a successful presence on the web.