How vital can an affordable domain name be?

One of the most essential requirements for building a successful online presence is the domain. It is what people will observe first when they discover your web site and what they will identify you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that informs your web site's visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name typically consists of two fragments - a Top-Level Domain (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. There are several categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should contemplate before you choose the domain you wish. Your selection should rest on the aim of your web page and on its target spectators. Let's investigate the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most common TLDs intended to indicate a specific purpose - .com (commercial entities), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (firms), .info (informative web sites), .org (organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (individuals or families), .pro (specific professions), etc. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domains cover most spheres of life, so you should go for the one that would show the objective of your web site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them contain extra steps to ascertain that you are eligible to possess such a TLD (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Registering such a Top-Level Domain Name is good if your target group of visitors is from a specific country. Many folks would rather buy goods or services from a local site, and if your target is Canada, for instance, settling on a .ca TLD could boost the visits to your web page.

URL Redirection

You can register different Top-Level Domain Names, which can redirect your visitors to a certain web page such as domain.com, for instance. This would increase the traffic and decrease the probability of somebody swiping your web page visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain Name with a different Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every domain has domain records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) specify where the domain is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting vendor whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is using at present. You can switch the DNSs of your domain name whenever you want. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the web space hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and find decent website hosting solutions somewhere else at a later time, you can point your domain name to the new company's DNSs straight off.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain uses a certain pair of NSs, all its NS records will direct to the same hosting firm. Some webspace hosting suppliers, though, allow you to edit given domain 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 server your site is hosted, whereas the MX records designate which web hosting server tackles the mail aliases associated with your domain name. For example, if you take on a new web designer and he build an .ASP web page that will be located on his personal Windows hosting server, you may wish to alter 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 server, but your e-mail boxes or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and demands a Windows server, although a Linux server would be far more secure.

Inexpensive TLDs Brought by 'Nautilus Design'

Only a number of web hosting vendors allow you to modify particular records and very frequently this an extra paid service. With Nautilus Design , you have a big selection of TLDs to select from and you can modify all domain records or forward the domain names via a redirection tool at no added cost. That is why, 'Nautilus Design' would be your finest pick when it comes to managing your domain and to building a successful presence on the World Wide Web.