One of the most crucial requirements for creating a successful Internet presence is the domain name. It is what people will observe first when they chance upon your web site and what they will link you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that notifies your visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name usually has two fragments - 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 Second-Level Domain. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should contemplate prior to picking the domain name you desire. Your pick should depend on the purpose of your site and on its target spectators. Let's take a gaze at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most common Top-Level Domain Names meant to indicate a specific intention - .com (commercial entities), .net (networks), .biz (businesses), .info (informational sites), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific), .name (individuals or relatives), .pro (particular professions), etc. As you can perceive, these TLDs encompass most realms of life, so you should settle on the one that would illustrate the purpose of your web page best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domain names, but some of them involve extra procedures to show that you qualify to own such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific domain names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Settling on such a domain name is good if your target group of website visitors is from a certain country. Many folks would like to purchase commodities or services from a local web site, and if your goal is Canada, for example, getting a .ca domain name could boost the visits to your web site.

URL Redirects

You can register different TLDs, which can redirect your site's visitors to a given web site such as domain.com, for instance. This would raise the traffic and decrease the probability of someone snatching your site visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with a different Top-Level Domain - if you are not availing yourself of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) display where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is using now. You can modify the name servers of your domain whenever you wish. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the web hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain and detect good website hosting packages somewhere else at a later time, you can point your domain name to the current provider's NSs straight off.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain uses a particular pair of NSs, all its records will be directed to the same web hosting company. Some web hosting suppliers, however, permit you to edit certain domain name server records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which designates on which web hosting server your web page is situated, whereas the MX records demonstrate which web hosting server handles the mail accounts associated with your domain name. For example, if you appoint a new web designer and he sets up an .ASP site that will be hosted on his personal Windows hosting server, you may wish to alter only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Thus, www.domain.com will point to the Windows server, but your email box accounts or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux web hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and necessitates a Windows web server, although a Linux web hosting server would be far more reliable.

Affordable Top-Level Domain Names Delivered by 'SiteSculpt'

Just a few web hosting providers enable you to edit particular DNS records and very often this an additional paid service. With us, you have an extensive collection of Top-Level Domain Names to pick from and you can modify all NS records or forward the domains through a forwarding tool at no additional cost.

This article is also available/published at: Domain Names Defined (sitesculpt.site)