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Setting Up Your Own WebsiteRegister a Domain Name |
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Setting Up Your Own WebsiteRegister a Domain Name |
Your domain name (for example,"www.mystore.com") must be 32 letters or less, including the extension, which is the part following the dot. The most popular extensions are .com for commercial sites and .org for nonprofit sites. Many of the most appealing .com and .org names have been taken already. Consider these alternatives:
Of course, if you are in a country other than the USA, you can take that country's extension, for example, .ca for Canada. The nice thing about many country registrations, Canada for example, is that they demand proof that you're legally entitled to the name (for example, incorporation papers for "The Ajax Corp" if you're trying to register ajax.ca). That protects your right to an appropriate URL for your company. Here's the full list of country domain extensions.
If someone else is registering the name for you, make sure you are listed as the owner of your domain. Otherwise, if you choose to change your host or developer, you will be unable to access your record in order to change relevant information.
Some ready-made packages, such as Yahoo, are offered by domain registration companies, so registration is part of the deal. Other companies offering packages will help you with the process of registering.
If you're creating your own pages, you'll need to do your own registration. The oldest company in the business is Network Solutions. They're quite reputable. Also relatively expensive. There are other companies that will register your domain name for as little as $5 a year. Just check out the list on this page.
The process is simple. You fill in the name you want and click the button. They will tell you whether the name is available, or suggest others. Once you have a name that's not taken, you purchase it just as you would on any ecommerce site. (If you've never made an online purchase, you may want to consider using a professional web design company!)
Of course, if you are setting up on GeoCities or something like it (see Sharing thoughts), your address will be www.geocities.com/ThisIsThePartYouCanChange. Here, www.geocities.com is the domain name.
If you really don't find a name you like that's available, there are people who specialize in buying up domain names for resale. For example, dating-singles-personals has hundreds of names snapped up for resale to people who want to open a dating site. But remember, any name can succeed! Did Google originally try to register "search-engine.com"? Would they have been more successful if they had? For more on this question, read on.
