How essential can an affordable domain name be?

One of the most important prerequisites for setting up a successful web presence is the domain name. It is what people will notice first when they visit your website and what they will identify you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that informs your site's visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name traditionally is composed of 2 fragments - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few groups of TLDs that you should consider prior to choosing the domain you desire. Your decision should depend on the intention of your web site and on its target audience. Let's examine the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most popular Top-Level Domains aimed to denote a particular purpose - .com (business establishments), .net (networks), .biz (firms), .info (informative sites), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (persons or families), .pro (qualified professionals), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names cover most fields of life, so you should opt for the one that would signify the intention of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domains, but some of them contain additional steps to prove that you qualify to register such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Settling on such a domain name is good if your target group of web page visitors is from a given country. Many people would elect to purchase goods or services from a local website, and if your aim is Canada, for example, selecting a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your web page.

URL Redirection

You can register different Top-Level Domain Names, which can forward your site's visitors to a particular web page such as domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and decrease the risk of somebody snatching your visitors by registering the same SLD with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every Top-Level Domain has domain records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) disclose where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can alter the DNSs of your domain at any time. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the web site hosting service itself from another. So, if you register your domain name and discover decent website hosting packages somewhere else at a later time, you can point your domain to the current company's NSs instantaneously.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a particular set of name servers, all its DNS records will lead to the same web site hosting distributor. Some web space hosting firms, however, enable you to modify given domain name server records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which demonstrates on which server your website is located, whereas the MX records show which hosting server handles the e-mail aliases related to your domain name. For example, if you take on a new web page designer and he creates an .ASP site that will be hosted on his personal Windows server, you may wish to change only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. So, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows web hosting server, but your email box accounts or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux web hosting account. The .ASP platform is created by Microsoft and calls for a Windows server, even though a Linux web server would be way more dependable.

Low-cost Domain Names Delivered by 'Apt Web Hosting'

Only a small number of web hosting vendors allow you to edit particular NS records and very often this an extra paid service. With Apt Web Hosting , you have an enormous collection of TLDs to select from and you can edit all records or redirect the domain names using a redirection tool at no additional charge. For that reason, 'Apt Web Hosting' would be your best choice when it comes to managing your domain name and to establishing a successful presence on the web.