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Website Domain Names -
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There are several choices you will have to make when deciding on your domain name. In order to understand these choices you need to understand the basic structure of a domain name.
Firstly a domain name consists of three elements separated by dots. The elements (using www.mywebsite.com) are:
The domain name is really : mywebsite.com and not www.mywebsite.com (The technical structure is explored in understanding domain names).
Therefore deciding on a domain name is a matter of:
When choosing a domain name you have to be aware that others may have already registered the domain name. Therefore part of the name selection process is eliminating those names that are already registered.
I use the 1and1 UK check tool (below). Using the tool doesn't mean you have to buy the domain name from them.
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Having chosen a domain name and verified that it is still available you may think that you are ready to register it.
However you should be aware the domain name is only one part of the website. The other part of the package is the website hosting and you should look, were possible, to do both together. See Website Hosting and Domain Names
However for those who have already done that, or want to proceed anyway, maybe to reserve the domain name. Then here, for illustrative purposes only, is the procedure I went through in registering a domain name for one my websites.
Make sure that the Web host will not hold you hostage to their service by exercising administrative control over your domain name.
Your domain name should always be registered in your name, not your web designer or hosting provider, and your Domain Name provider should only be listed as a technical contact.
Also remember that the domain is only leased and that you will have to renew the lease (usually yearly). This is normally done automatically by your name registrar, but make sure you check as you don't want to loose the name because you forgot to renew it.
Your choice of domain name registrar will be affected by your choice of TLD extension. Almost all domain name registrars can register .com extensions but not all can register .name or .uk extensions.
I use www.1and1.co.uk for this site as it is a .uk site.
If you are unhappy with your present domain name registrar or host you can always move. See Moving Host and Domain Name Registrars to see how I did it.
Once you have a domain you can use it to create other domain names using subdomains.
This technique is used by large sites like Google, The BBC, etc but can also be useful for smaller sites. See Understanding, creating and Using subdomains for more details.
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