How vital can an affordable domain be?

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

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain as a rule is composed of two constituents - 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 and "domain" is the SLD. There are a few groups of Top-Level Domains that you should contemplate before you select the domain name you want. Your decision should depend on the intention of your web page and on its target spectators. Let's take a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most widespread Top-Level Domain Names meant to designate a particular purpose - .com (business entities), .net (networks), .biz (companies), .info (informative web pages), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific region), .name (individuals or relatives), .pro (particular walks of life), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domains encompass most fields of life, so you should pick the one that would denote the purpose of your web site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such TLDs, but some of them include extra procedures to show that you qualify to keep such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific domain names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Selecting such a Top-Level Domain is good if your target group of site visitors is from a certain country. Many visitors would sooner purchase goods or services from a local site, and if your goal is Canada, for example, picking a .ca Top-Level Domain could boost the visits to your web site.

URL Redirects

You can register several domain names, which can forward your site's visitors to a given website such as domain.com, for instance. This would increase the traffic and lower the probability of someone snatching your web page visitors by registering the same SLD with a different Top-Level Domain Name - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each and every domain has domain records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) specify where the domain is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is using at present. You can substitute the name servers of your domain name whenever you want. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the web hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain and come across good website hosting services someplace else at a later time, you can point your domain name to the current provider's NSs instantaneously.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name uses a particular set of name servers, all its domain name records will lead to the same web site hosting supplier. Some web hosting companies, though, enable you to modify specific records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which reveals on which hosting server your site is located, while the MX records specify which web server tackles the email addresses associated with your domain name. For example, if you hire a new web site designer and he develops an .ASP site that will be hosted on his own Windows server, you may desire to change just the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows server, but your email mailbox accounts or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux site hosting account. The .ASP platform is created by Microsoft and requests a Windows web server, although a Linux hosting server would be far more reliable.

Inexpensive Domain Names Supplied by 'AWC Web Services'

Only a number of web hosting vendors permit you to edit given DNS records and quite frequently this an additional paid service. With AWC Web Services , you have an extensive collection of TLDs to pick from and you can modify all domain records or forward the domain names using a redirection tool at no added charge. Because of that, 'AWC Web Services' would be your finest choice when it comes to managing your domain name and to building a successful presence on the web.