How important is to find cheap domain names?

One of the most vital prerequisites for creating a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will mark first when they come across your web site and what they will associate you with. The domain should be easy to remember, but should also be something that tells your website's visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name usually contains 2 constituents - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are several categories of Top-Level Domains that you should contemplate before you select the domain name you want. Your choice should be based on the goal of your site and on its target spectators. Let's review the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most widespread Top-Level Domains intended to indicate a given purpose - .com (business enterprises), .net (networks), .biz (companies), .info (informative web pages), .org (non-profit organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (specific walks of life), and so on. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domain Names cover most realms of life, so you should go for the one that would show the objective of your web site best. There is no limitation as to who can register such TLDs, but some of them contain extra procedures to confirm that you qualify to keep such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Choosing such a Top-Level Domain Name is good if your target group of website visitors is from a particular country. Many visitors would sooner buy goods or services from a local site, and if your goal is Canada, for example, opting for a .ca Top-Level Domain could boost the visits to your web page.

Domain Forwarding

You can register different domains, which can send your website's visitors to a certain site like domain.com, for example. This would raise the traffic and decrease the possibility of someone snatching your site visitors by using the same SLD with a different Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not availing of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every TLD has domain records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) specify where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the hosting firm whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can swap the name servers of your domain name at all times. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the site hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain name and discover good website hosting packages someplace else later, you can point your domain to the present company's DNSs at once.

Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain uses a specific set of DNSs, all its NS records will point to the same hosting company. Some web space hosting suppliers, though, allow you to edit specific domain name server records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which details on which hosting server your web site is hosted, while the MX records show which server tackles the mailbox accounts related to your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new web site designer and he develops an .ASP website that will be located on his private Windows server, you may want to edit solely the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. Hence, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web server, but your mails or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux web site hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and calls for a Windows web hosting server, although a Linux server would be far more reliable.

Reasonably Priced Domain Names Brought by 'AfterHost'

Only a number of web hosting vendors allow you to edit given name server records and very often this an extra paid service. With AfterHost , you have an enormous array of Top-Level Domain Names to pick from and you can edit all records or forward the domain names through a forwarding tool at no additional charge. Because of that, 'AfterHost' would be your best choice when it comes to administering your domain and to setting up a successful presence on the World Wide Web.