Domain Names Defined
One of the most crucial requirements for having a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will observe first when they stumble upon your web site and what they will link you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that tells your visitors what the web page is about.
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)
A domain name traditionally is composed of 2 constituents - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the SLD. There are a couple of groups of Top-Level Domain Names that you should consider prior to picking the domain name you want. Your pick should depend on the intention of your web page and on its target audience. Let's analyze the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most common TLDs aimed to indicate a given intention - .com (business establishments), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (firms), .info (informative resources), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (given professions), etc. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domain Names cover most realms of life, so you should choose the one that would depict the purpose of your web page best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domain names, but some of them include additional steps to confirm that you qualify to have such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).
Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)
The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Picking such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a particular country. Many guys would rather buy goods or services from a local site, and if your target is Canada, for example, picking a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your web page.
Domain Name Redirects
You can register different Top-Level Domains, which can redirect your visitors to a particular web page like domain.com, for instance. This would boost the traffic and lower the chance of somebody stealing your web page visitors by using the same SLD with another TLD - if you are not using a trademark.
Name Servers (NSs)
Each and every Top-Level Domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) indicate where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting supplier whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is utilizing at present. You can alter the name servers of your domain whenever you want. You can have your domain name registered with one firm and get the website hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain name and stumble upon good website hosting services somewhere else later, you can point your domain name to the current provider's name servers instantaneously.
Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)
On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a particular pair of DNSs, all its DNS records will lead to the same web hosting company. Some web hosting firms, however, permit you to edit given domain records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which specifies on which web server your web page is situated, while the MX records display which web hosting server tackles the e-mail accounts related to your domain name. For example, if you appoint a new web designer and he sets up an .ASP site that will be located on his private Windows server, you may want to alter only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web server, but your email mailboxes or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux hosting account. The .ASP platform is invented by Microsoft and requires a Windows web hosting server, although a Linux web hosting server would be far more stable.
Low-cost Top-Level Domain Names Supplied by 'marianahost'
Just a number of web hosting companies permit you to edit certain records and very often this an additional paid service. With us, you have a huge array of Top-Level Domains to select from and you can modify all DNS records or redirect the domain names via a forwarding tool at no additional charge.