How vital can an affordable domain name be?
One of the most important requirements for setting up a successful Internet presence is the domain name. It is what people will note first when they stumble upon your website and what they will identify you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that notifies your visitors what the web site is about.
Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)
A domain name traditionally has 2 parts - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few categories of TLDs that you should examine before you choose the domain name you wish. Your choice should depend on the goal of your website and on its target viewers. Let's take a peek at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most typical Top-Level Domains aimed to designate a given intention - .com (business establishments), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (companies), .info (informational sites), .org (organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific), .name (individuals or families), .pro (specific professions), etc. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domains encompass most spheres of life, so you should opt for the one that would signify the objective of your web page best. There is no restriction as to who can register such TLDs, but some of them include extra requirements to show that you qualify to have such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).
Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)
The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific Top-Level Domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Opting for such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a particular country. Many persons would sooner purchase goods or services from a local website, and if your goal is Canada, for instance, settling on a .ca Top-Level Domain Name could increase the visits to your web page.
Domain Redirects
You can register a number of Top-Level Domains, which can send your web page's visitors to a certain web site like domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and lower the chance of someone snatching your site visitors by using the same name with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.
Name Servers (NSs)
Every TLD has domain records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) reveal where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting distributor whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is using at the moment. You can swap the NSs of your domain at any time. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the webspace hosting service itself from another. So, if you register your domain name and stumble upon decent website hosting packages someplace else afterwards, you can point your domain to the present provider's name servers right away.
Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)
In general, as long as your domain uses a specific set of NSs, all its domain name server records will point to the same web page hosting firm. Some web space hosting companies, however, permit you to modify given domain records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which displays on which web server your web site is situated, whereas the MX records disclose which server tackles the e-mail accounts related to your domain name. For instance, if you hire a new web site designer and he devises an .ASP website that will be located on his private Windows hosting server, you may wish to modify only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. So, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web hosting server, but your email boxes 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 built by Microsoft and calls for a Windows web hosting server, even though a Linux web hosting server would be far more dependable.
Low-cost Top-Level Domains Provided by 'hostatnocost'
Just a few web hosting providers allow you to edit specific domain name records and quite often this an additional paid service. With hostatnocost , you get a vast array of Top-Level Domain Names to pick from and you can modify all domain name server records or redirect the domains via a forwarding tool at no additional cost. That is why, 'hostatnocost' would be your best pick when it comes to managing your domain name and to establishing a successful presence on the web.