Domain Names Explained

One of the most crucial prerequisites for establishing a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what visitors will mark first when they chance upon your website and what they will link you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that notifies your website's visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name typically is composed of 2 components - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the SLD. There are several groups of Top-Level Domains that you should examine before you select the domain name you desire. Your decision should depend on the goal of your website and on its target viewers. Let's review the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most typical TLDs meant to designate a particular function - .com (commercial enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (corporations), .info (informative websites), .org (organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (qualified professionals), and so on. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most fields of life, so you should go for the one that would describe the aim of your web site best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domain names, but some of them contain extra steps to verify that you qualify to have such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

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

URL Forwarding

You can register different domains, which can forward your website's visitors to a given web site such as domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and lower the chance of somebody pinching your website visitors by using the same SLD with another Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every Top-Level Domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) demonstrate where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is using at the moment. You can switch the NSs of your domain at any moment. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and stumble upon decent website hosting solutions someplace else afterwards, you can point your domain name to the new company's name servers straight away.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

In general, as long as your domain uses a specific set of DNSs, all its DNS records will direct to the same website hosting company. Some website hosting providers, however, enable you to modify certain domain records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which specifies on which hosting server your web site is located, whereas the MX records demonstrate which server handles the email addresses related to your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new web page designer and he build an .ASP site that will be located on his own Windows web server, you may wish to alter solely the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Hence, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web hosting server, but your mail address accounts or any sub-domain names like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux web hosting account. The .ASP environment is invented by Microsoft and requests a Windows web hosting server, even though a Linux hosting server would be way more stable.

Inexpensive Domain Names Brought by 'Blue Point Host'

Only a small number of web hosting suppliers enable you to edit given DNS records and quite often this an additional paid service. With us, you have an immense assortment of Top-Level Domain Names to choose from and you can modify all DNS records or forward the domains through a forwarding tool at no additional cost.