How vital can an top domain be?

One of the most vital preconditions for setting up a successful online presence is the domain. It is what visitors will observe first when they discover your site and what they will relate you with. The domain should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that tells your site's visitors what the website is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain usually contains 2 components - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domains that you should contemplate before you choose the domain you desire. Your choice should be built upon the aim of your web page and on its target spectators. Let's take a gaze at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most typical TLDs meant to indicate a given intention - .com (business enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (firms), .info (informative web sites), .org (organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (particular professions), and so on. As you can see, these TLDs cover most spheres of life, so you should select the one that would express the purpose of your web site best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domains, but some of them involve extra steps to verify that you are eligible to register such a TLD (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

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

Domain Name Forwarding

You can register a bunch of domains, which can forward your website's visitors to a given web site such as domain.com, for instance. This would increase the traffic and reduce the probability of somebody swiping your visitors by using the same name with another TLD - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every Top-Level Domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) display where the domain is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting supplier whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is using now. You can alter the name servers of your domain whenever you like. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the webspace hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and encounter good website hosting solutions someplace else later, you can point your domain name to the current company's NSs at once.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name utilizes a particular set of name servers, all its DNS records will direct to the same website hosting vendor. Some site hosting companies, however, allow you to edit certain records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which indicates on which hosting server your website is hosted, whereas the MX records exhibit which server handles the mail addresses associated with your domain name. For example, if you take on a new web page designer and he develops an .ASP web site that will be situated on his personal Windows web hosting server, you may want to modify only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. Thus, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web hosting server, but your e-mail boxes or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux web page hosting account. The .ASP platform is devised by Microsoft and calls for a Windows web server, even though a Linux hosting server would be far more stable.

Moderately Priced Top-Level Domains Delivered by 'Free Hostia'

Only a number of web hosting providers enable you to edit certain DNS records and quite often this an extra paid service. With Free Hostia , you have a wide variety of Top-Level Domains to select from and you can modify all NS records or redirect the domains via a forwarding tool at no extra cost. Because of that, 'Free Hostia' would be your finest pick when it comes to handling your domain and to creating a successful presence on the web.