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Simply put, you register for a domain name
and it allows surfers to find your web site on the Internet
.
A domain name can be .com, .org, .net, .ws,
.tv, .cc
.com name refers to a company's web site
.org refers to an organizations web site
Net refers to a network
Ws is an excellent alternative to the popular .com web site
TV refers to a rich media, streaming video web site
Cc refers to a country code web site
There are fully qualified domain names and
subdomain names. A fully qualified domain name is a name
you paid for and registered. A sub domain is a domain name
you did not register. For example, a fully qualified domain
name would be webmajestic.com and a sub domain would be
a website on Geocities, Tripod, Net Firms or Hypermart web
site.
Picking out a domain name is very important.
Securing a domain name is the first thing a professional
website designer does. If you are are building a personal
website, the domain is not so important because you will
only be giving out the web address to friends and family
members. Although having your own domain name will make
it easier for friends and family to get to your website.
It's easier to type in www.maryrogers.com than www.geocities.com/webmajetic.
If your interest is to design sites for profit, how can
you expect customers to want you to design their web sites
if you don't have your own domain name? Having your own
domain name will make your business appear to be more professional.
When picking a domain name pick something short and to the
point, and something easy for your customers to remember.
Now, that you know what domain names are,
you need to know how to register them. There are about a
million places on the Internet to register your domain name.
The prices can range any where from $10 to $35 per year.
Where you register your domain name will depend on what
options that come with domain registration. I always say
the more free options the better. Look for domains that
come with url forwarding, masked pages, parked pages, free
transfers, etc. We recommend $10
Domain Name Registrations at Hoover Web Design.
Domain Name Registration Options
- Url Forwarding allows you to have your domain
point to a location of your choice. An example of url
forwarding would be that you have a business website
and you would like to use part of it as a personal website.
Your business domain name is www.mybusiness.org. You
can use part of it for a personal site by creating a
subdirectory on your business website called family.
So to access your personal website one would type in
www.mybusiness.org/personal. With URL forwarding you
can have your family members type in the name of your
choice such as www.familyweb.com to go to your family
web.
- Masked pages allow the actual domain that your
side resides on to be hidden. As an example, your website
might reside on: www.tennessee-college.edu/~thomas.
If your domain is masked and forwarded to www.tomsweb.com,
you can type in this short url to get to your website.
The address bar will also say www.tomsweb.com.
- Parked pages are useful when you have not started
building your website yet. They let visitors who might
stumble upon your website know that the domain has been
registered and that you have not started building your
site just yet. You can create a custom parked web page
letting visitors know that your site is not ready yet.
Using url forwarding with a masked page you can direct
visitors to a page that you created yourself to advise
when your site will be online. You can also get potential
customer email addresses by having a newsletter sign
up form on your page. You can email customers to let
them know that your site is up and running.
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