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What is a domain name?

What is a domain name and how do I buy one?


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Just like you have an address to your home that you can give out to people, you also have an address to your website, which you need so people can find your website on the world wide web. This address is your identity on the web and is called a domain name.

A domain name is a necessity when you set up a website on the Internet. It's also pretty much a necessity when you go to set up a business, so that your customers have an online destination for your business. However, being able to find a domain name that is available and suits your business name can sometimes be hard to find. With this in mind, you may want to buy the domain name right away when you find one. Many business will only name their business after first finding a really good domain name and then go about working on the website, and starting the actual business. This process of buying the domain name without making a website and buying hosting is called domain name parking. Domain names are parked by their owners for use later.

Choosing a Domain name

The choice of your domain name can be critical for your business. A domain name should be such that it helps people remember you for your products and services. It should also be easy to understand, not too lengthy, and should connect with your target customers. A domain name that matches your business name or the brand name will certainly help. Though there are no hard and fast rules, it may be better to first choose a domain name and then start a business rather than trying to fit in a domain name to the existing business. Try not to include hyphens in your domain names. It's too much trouble to type or remember the hyphens and will often irritate the users when they can't find your site.

Domain name extensions

Every domain name has an extension to it like .com, .org, .edu, . net, .biz, .uk, etc. These extensions are also called a top level domain or TLD. The name on the left of a TLD like .com is the subdomain. Subdomain and Top level domain add up to make a complete domain name. For example in www.mywebsite.com, "www" is the subdomain of "mywebsite", which is the second-level domain, and ".com" is the top level domain while the domain name for the website is "mywebsite.com".

There are different categories of top level domain names which serve different purposes. For example the TLD .com classifies a business purpose, while .org denotes an organization and .uk can be used for a website based in UK also known as a country code top-level domain (ccTLD).

If you are based in New Zealand and you think you have more to do with local people you can probably choose a .nz top level domain for example www.pizzapomodoro.co.nz However, if you think you can benefit if people all over the world visit your site then you can choose a .com top level domain. For example www.amazon.com is an online book store selling books worldwide.

Domain names are unique. This means that no two websites can have the same domain name. This can makes them exclusive and costly.

Buying a domain name

Domain names cannot be bought. It can be leased by paying on a per annum basis from Internet Companies called domain registrars.

With millions of computer users and millions of businesses starting all the time, it is becoming difficult to get the name of your choice. Therefore to buy a domain name you need to first make sure the name of your choice is still available. Once you find a name you like be sure to grab it right away. It's also a good idea to buy the .com, .net and .org of the domain name that you find so competitors are unable to buy them.

Domain name availability can be checked via sites like www.whois.com. When you're ready to buy your domain name you'll want to buy from one of the top domain registars world wide like Godaddy.com


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I also share my thoughts in domain name.
Domain name:
A domain name is a unique name that identifies a website. No two organizations can have the same domain name.

Types of Domain Names
1.generic domains ----which include .com domains
2.country code domains---- which use a two letter country code, such as .uk for United Kingdom.

uses of Domain name:
Every company or organization that wants to be on the internet will register a domain name for use as their on-line identity

or name that clients will use to access on-line services such as the organization's website or email system.
Domain names are used in URL's to identify particular Web pages.

Before choosing your domain name keep in your mind follow these steps:
1. choose your domain name in .com extension. .com is universal it is suitable for all websites and commercial websites.
2. choose simple that people can easily remember and identify your website.
3. choose your domain name relevant to your website name.
After choosing your domain you can register it.

while registering your domain you can consider these features.
1.Reliability and speed of access
2.Amount of web space
3.price
4.Customer support
5.Company existence.

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