How important can an top domain be?

One of the most essential preconditions for building a successful Internet presence is the domain name. It is what people will discern first when they chance upon your website and what they will associate you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that tells your site's visitors what the site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name traditionally is composed of 2 fragments - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the SLD. There are several categories of TLDs that you should contemplate prior to selecting the domain name you want. Your decision should be based on the intention of your site and on its target viewers. Let's explore the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most widespread TLDs aimed to indicate a specific purpose - .com (business organizations), .net (networks), .biz (companies), .info (informational sites), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (given professions), and so on. As you can see, these Top-Level Domains encompass most realms of life, so you should pick the one that would express the aim of your web site best. There is no limitation as to who can register such Top-Level Domains, but some of them contain extra procedures to verify that you are eligible to possess such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific domain names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Settling on such a domain name is good if your target group of site visitors is from a certain country. Many folks would like to buy commodities or services from a local site, and if your target is Canada, for example, getting a .ca domain could increase the visits to your website.

URL Redirection

You can register a bunch of TLDs, which can send your visitors to a particular site such as domain.com, for instance. This would boost the traffic and lower the risk of somebody pilfering your web page visitors by registering the same SLD with a different Top-Level Domain - if you are not availing of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every domain name has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) disclose where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can switch the DNSs of your domain whenever you wish. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the web space hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain name and come across decent website hosting services somewhere else later, you can point your domain to the present provider's name servers immediately.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain uses a certain pair of NSs, all its records will lead to the same web space hosting company. Some web page hosting distributors, however, enable you to modify specific domain name server records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which exhibits on which hosting server your web site is located, whereas the MX records designate which web server handles the email accounts associated with your domain name. For instance, if you appoint a new site designer and he devises an .ASP web page that will be situated on his personal Windows hosting server, you may wish to change just 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 hosting server, but your e-mail accounts or any sub-domain names such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux web hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and demands a Windows web server, even though a Linux hosting server would be way more stable.

Cut-Price TLDs Furnished by 'Free Hostia'

Just a number of web hosting vendors permit you to edit particular name server records and very frequently this an extra paid service. With Free Hostia , you have an extensive assortment of Top-Level Domains to choose from and you can edit all NS records or forward the domain names through a forwarding tool at no additional cost. Therefore, 'Free Hostia' would be your finest choice when it comes to handling your domain name and to building a successful presence on the Internet.