You've landed in Danaville. This site is something of a personal knowledge base. Mostly a home for notes about my day-to-day discoveries in the digital world. While some tips may seem obvious (we learn a new thing every day right?), hopefully you'll find a few of them informative and perhaps useful in your own tech travels!
Domain Names 101
November 3rd, 2009 by danalwebb received No Comments »If you want to look professional, you need your own appropriate domain name. If you are going to use my webservices, I can arrange the domain name or names for you.
If you want to know more, or you’d like to buy your own domain names, read further:
Subdomains
It is possible sometimes to piggyback off another domain name, where yours would be a subdomain from the main name. You would be using the main domain’s hosting services and would have limited functionality and control. For example for a personal blog, you could use the services of blogspot and end up with a domain name such as http://www.danalwebb.blogspot.com/ .
Choosing your own domain name
If you want to buy your own domain name, one of the first difficult steps is choosing the name. So much so I have written a whole separate page on it. See information on choosing your own domain here.
Choosing the suffixes
You also need to decide what suffixes (ie top level domains and /or country code domains you wish to use). Then before you spend too much time on any one name, always check if it is available – use the appropriate who is servers to check if your chosen name has been taken (see below).
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS) worldwide. Click on their name to access a list of frequently asked questions. They also have some interesting (to me anyway!) maps.
Register the name as soon as possible
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html provides a list of accredited registrars who are officially allowed to register a top level domain name for you. If a company is not on the list, then they may be selling domain names purchased through an accredited registrar. ICANN recommends dealing directly. You can take a peek at which domain name servers are most active for US domain names at http://dailychanges.com/
To check a domain name registration internationally, you could use the not that pretty looking, but useful www.completewhois.com
A good registrar will usually provide tools to determine what domain names are available and possibly suggest others, as well as other information about who is entitled to regsiter a domain name.
Please note that domain name sales can be misleading… look at the renewal price to get a more realistic idea about the cost of owning a domain. Prices can vary greatly between suppliers, a low price may not always be the best if they are going to charge you to transfer, or higher prices for renewals etc.
US or global domains names
If purchasing a .com domain name, either do it with your hosting (or I’ll do it for you)
Posted under: SEO, Web Design
