How vital is to locate the best domain?

One of the most essential prerequisites for creating a successful Internet presence is the domain name. It is what people will observe first when they chance upon your website and what they will relate you with. The domain should be easy to remember, but should also be something that notifies your visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain typically is composed of 2 constituents - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a couple of categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should examine before you select the domain name you want. Your decision should rest on the goal of your site and on its target audience. Let's have a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most typical Top-Level Domains aimed to indicate a specific intention - .com (business organizations), .net (networks), .biz (businesses), .info (informational sites), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (certain walks of life), etc. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most realms of life, so you should pick the one that would express the aim of your web page best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domains, but some of them include additional steps to prove that you qualify to possess such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Picking such a Top-Level Domain Name is good if your target group of site visitors is from a specific country. Many guys would sooner purchase goods or services from a local site, and if your aim is Canada, for instance, registering a .ca domain could increase the visits to your site.

Domain Name Redirection

You can register a bunch of domain names, which can send your site's visitors to a given web site such as domain.com, for instance. This would boost the traffic and reduce the probability of someone pilfering your website visitors by registering the same name with a different Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each TLD has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) specify where the domain is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is utilizing now. You can swap the name servers of your domain name at any time. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the site hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain name and find decent website hosting services someplace else later, you can point your domain name to the present provider's DNSs instantly.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name uses a given set of name servers, all its domain name server records will lead to the same webspace hosting supplier. Some web hosting firms, though, allow you to modify certain DNS records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which designates on which web hosting server your website is located, while the MX records designate which server tackles the e-mail address accounts associated with your domain name. For instance, if you hire a new web page designer and he build an .ASP website that will be accommodated on his private Windows hosting server, you may want to edit just the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. Thus, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows server, but your mail accounts or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux webspace hosting account. The .ASP environment is created by Microsoft and requires a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux web hosting server would be way more stable.

Inexpensive Domains Delivered by '311Host'

Just a number of web hosting vendors allow you to edit given name server records and very often this an additional paid service. With 311Host , you have a big array of TLDs to select from and you can modify all DNS records or redirect the domain names via a forwarding tool at no extra charge. Because of that, '311Host' would be your best choice when it comes to managing your domain and to creating a successful presence on the Internet.