How vital can an affordable domain be?
One of the most important prerequisites for creating a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what visitors will notice first when they stumble upon your web site and what they will relate you with. The domain should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that tells your web site's visitors what the web page is about.
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)
A domain name traditionally contains 2 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 Second-Level Domain Name. There are a couple of sets of Top-Level Domains that you should consider before you select the domain name you wish. Your pick should be built upon the intention of your web page and on its target spectators. Let's take a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most common Top-Level Domain Names meant to indicate a given intention - .com (commercial enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (businesses), .info (informative websites), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (certain professions), and so on. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domains encompass most fields of life, so you should go for the one that would explain the aim of your web page best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domains, but some of them involve additional procedures to confirm that you are eligible to own such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).
Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)
The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Selecting such a domain is good if your target group of website visitors is from a particular country. Many folks would sooner purchase commodities or services from a local web page, and if your aim is Canada, for example, selecting a .ca domain could increase the visits to your web site.
URL Redirection
You can register several Top-Level Domains, which can redirect your site's visitors to a specific site such as domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and lower the likelihood of someone snatching your web page visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with another Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not utilizing a trademark.
Name Servers (NSs)
Each domain name has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) disclose where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting vendor whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is using now. You can replace the NSs of your domain name at any moment. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the site hosting service itself from another. So, if you register your domain name and detect good website hosting plans somewhere else later, you can point your domain name to the present company's name servers straight off.
Name Server Records (DNS Records)
On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a specific set of NSs, all its domain name server records will point to the same site hosting company. Some site hosting distributors, though, enable you to edit certain name server records, including the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which displays on which server your site is situated, while the MX records indicate which web server tackles the mail aliases related to your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new web site designer and he develops an .ASP web site that will be located on his personal Windows web server, you may wish to modify solely the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. So, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows hosting server, but your e-mail accounts or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux web space hosting account. The .ASP environment is created by Microsoft and necessitates a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux server would be far more reliable.
Cut-Price Top-Level Domains Brought by 'Exclusive Hosting'
Just a small number of web hosting companies allow you to edit particular domain name server records and very often this an additional paid service. With Exclusive Hosting , you get an extensive variety of TLDs to select from and you can modify all records or redirect the domain names using a forwarding tool at no added charge. Therefore, 'Exclusive Hosting' would be your finest choice when it comes to administering your domain and to creating a successful presence on the Internet.