How important can an affordable domain be?

One of the most important preconditions for running a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what people will perceive first when they chance upon your website and what they will identify you with. The domain should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that notifies your web site's visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain as a rule contains two fragments - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the SLD. There are a couple of categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should examine prior to selecting the domain name you desire. Your decision should be built upon the aim of your site and on its target spectators. Let's analyze the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most typical Top-Level Domain Names intended to denote a given function - .com (commercial entities), .net (networks), .biz (corporations), .info (informative web pages), .org (organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific region), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (given professions), etc. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most fields of life, so you should pick the one that would express the objective of your website best. There is no limitation as to who can register such Top-Level Domains, but some of them include extra procedures to confirm that you qualify to keep such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific domain names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Registering such a Top-Level Domain is good if your target group of website visitors is from a particular country. Many visitors would prefer to purchase goods or services from a local website, and if your target is Canada, for example, selecting a .ca domain name could boost the visits to your web site.

Domain Name Redirects

You can register a number of Top-Level Domain Names, which can redirect your web site's visitors to a particular site like domain.com, for example. This would raise the traffic and lower the risk of somebody stealing your website visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with a different Top-Level Domain - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each TLD has domain records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) disclose where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting distributor whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is using at present. You can modify the name servers of your domain at all times. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the website hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain and find decent website hosting solutions somewhere else afterwards, you can point your domain name to the current company's DNSs immediately.

Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name uses a certain set of NSs, all its name server records will direct to the same web site hosting company. Some site hosting firms, though, permit you to edit given name server records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which indicates on which web hosting server your web site is situated, whereas the MX records disclose which hosting server handles the e-mail address accounts associated with your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new website designer and he creates an .ASP web site that will be hosted on his own Windows web server, you may want to alter only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows web hosting server, but your e-mail box accounts or any sub-domain names such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux web hosting account. The .ASP environment is invented by Microsoft and requires a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux web server would be far more dependable.

Affordable Domain Names Brought by 'Exclusive Hosting'

Only a number of web hosting companies allow you to modify certain NS records and quite frequently this an extra paid service. With Exclusive Hosting , you get a vast selection of TLDs to select from and you can modify all domain name server records or redirect the domains through a forwarding tool at no extra charge. Therefore, 'Exclusive Hosting' would be your best pick when it comes to managing your domain name and to establishing a successful presence on the web.