Domain names - how to choose and buy your domain name

This page is part of Ron Mertens' web page guides.

The domain name is the name of your web site. Obviously it's quite important. There are always stories about companies buying their domain for millions of dollars. I think it's a good idea to start the web page guide with domain names.

IP Addresses, domains and DNS

Each computer on the internet has a numeric address, called an IP address. It looks like 4 numbers, like 66.122.1.99. That's how computers find each others, using this address. For us humans, it's not so convenient to use those long numbers, so we have a alpha-numeric name for each address (like yahoo.com).

There are special servers called DNS (Domain Name Servers) which have the sole purpose of translating from the name to the address. So when you type www.yahoo.com in your browser, first it will send a request to the DNS (what is the address of Yahoo.com?). The DNS server will return the address, and from now on your computer will use the numeric address to communicate.

Do I need a domain?

As you'll see in our hosting guide, there are free hosting services, and you can open your site without a domain name. This means that you'll get some directory inside a free-hosting (For example www.GeoCities.com/MySite, instead of www. mysite.com).

I personally think that you should get a domain - it is so cheap, that there's really no excuse. You can get a .com one for around 9$ a year, and a .info domain costs as little as 3$ a year!

How to choose a domain name?

They say that domain names are not as important today as they used to be - everybody uses search and links anyway, so they won't type it from memory. I don't agree with that. Having a good domain makes a good impression, and it might help your search engine position (if the keywords are part of the domain). I certainly think it's a worthwhile investment.

Choosing a domain is difficult. It seems like all the good ones are taken, and remember that you must take care with copyright issue (i.e. using a trademark in the name is a no-no).
Usually a .com is the best, and also the cheapest of them all. Case makes no change (MySite.com is the same as mysite.com). Dashes (Hyphens) and numbers are okay, but should be used with care. Make sure that there are no close domains that people might get confused (so if you want to buy "my-site.com", it's not a good idea because people will get confused with "mysite.com".

There are sites that can help you pick a domain. One such site is NameBoy. Try it out. But they are quite expensive to actually buy your domain from, so I won't recommend them for it.

How to buy a domain

Buying the domain name is probably the easiest part of your web-site building experience. The company that you buy your domain from is called the "Domain Registrar". All the companies give you basically the same service - they hold the domain for you, and transfer it to your hosting (more on this later).

There are "expensive" registrars, and cheap ones. Like I said before, the service is basically the same. The expensive ones (Register.com for example) sell a domain for around 30$ a year. The cheap ones usually sell for less than 10$.

I mainly use NameCheap.com, and totally recommends them. The main player in the cheap-domain field is probably GoDaddy - but I sometimes hear bad things about their support.

Israeli domains

An Israeli domain name (.co.il, for example) is more expensive. It costs 260 NIS for 2 year (almost 30$), but after that it gets cheaper. You can get your domain here.

Host & Domain in the same place?

A lot of hosting companies would like you to register your domain name through them. They will make it cheaper for you, and also it will seem 'easier'. But I don't think that is a good idea. Although you will always be able to transfer your domain, it's still putting all your eggs in one basket.
I really advice you not to go that route.
And it's not really easier. See the next section...

DNS setup

So let's say you bought your domain name. Now after you bought your hosting service, you must 'connect' these two. Nothing could be easier. Your hosting company will give you their NameServer address, and you'll simply give that address to your registrar (in some simply web form), wait a few hours, and you are ready to go.

Usually the registrar will also enable you to do some simple forwarding (for example, forward all requests to MySite.com to yahoo.com), and basic e-mail too. So if you have a free hosting for example, you can still have your domain name forward to that free service.

Transferring a domain

The domain name is your property, not the registrar's. This means that they must allow you to transfer your domain to a different company (usually with a small fee, paid to the new company). So you can always change your mind and move to a different registrar who offers better services (or, more likely, a cheaper price).

Summary

Domain names are easy. All you need to do is -

What's next?

Check out next guide about web hosting.