How important can an affordable domain be?

One of the most crucial prerequisites for creating a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will note first when they stumble upon your web site and what they will link you with. The domain should be easy to remember, but should also be something that notifies your web site's visitors what the website is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain usually has two components - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are several sets of TLDs that you should contemplate before you pick the domain name you want. Your choice should depend on the goal of your website and on its target visitors. Let's have a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic TLDs - these are the most popular Top-Level Domains intended to denote a given intention - .com (commercial entities), .net (networks), .biz (companies), .info (informational web pages), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (certain walks of life), etc. As you can perceive, these TLDs encompass most spheres of life, so you should pick the one that would denote the aim of your web page best. There is no limitation as to who can register such Top-Level Domain Names, but some of them include additional procedures to confirm that you are eligible to have such a domain name (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Opting for such a Top-Level Domain Name is good if your target group of site visitors is from a particular country. Many people would sooner purchase commodities or services from a local web site, and if your target is Canada, for example, opting for a .ca Top-Level Domain Name could increase the visits to your web page.

Domain Redirection

You can register different TLDs, which can send your visitors to a certain web site such as domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and decrease the chance of someone snatching your site 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 Top-Level Domain Name has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) indicate where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the web hosting distributor whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is using now. You can alter the DNSs of your domain name whenever you want. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the web page hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain name and encounter good website hosting solutions somewhere else later, you can point your domain to the present provider's name servers at once.

Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain utilizes a specific pair of name servers, all its domain records will direct to the same hosting distributor. Some web site hosting vendors, though, permit you to edit given domain name server records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which demonstrates on which hosting server your web page is located, whereas the MX records designate which server tackles the email addresses related to your domain name. For example, if you appoint a new web designer and he develops an .ASP web site that will be accommodated on his personal Windows web server, you may desire to alter only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Thus, www.domain.com will point to the Windows server, but your e-mailbox accounts or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and requires a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux server would be way more stable.

Affordable TLDs Offered by 'Host Mates'

Only a few web hosting companies enable you to edit particular name server records and quite often this an additional paid service. With Host Mates , you get a wide variety of TLDs to select from and you can edit all name server records or forward the domains via a redirection tool at no added cost. That is why, 'Host Mates' would be your best choice when it comes to handling your domain and to building a successful presence on the Internet.