What are Domains

One of the most essential requirements for establishing a successful web presence is the domain. It is what visitors will observe first when they stumble upon your web page and what they will relate you with. The domain should be easy to remember, but should also be something that notifies your visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain as a rule is composed of two constituents - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are a couple of categories of TLDs that you should consider before you pick the domain you desire. Your pick should rest on the goal of your web page and on its target visitors. Let's have a look at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most typical TLDs intended to express a specific intention - .com (business enterprises), .net (networks), .biz (businesses), .info (informative sites), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (individuals or families), .pro (given walks of life), and so on. As you can see, these TLDs encompass most realms of life, so you should go for the one that would show the objective of your web site best. There is no limitation as to who can register such domains, but some of them involve extra procedures to verify that you qualify to keep such a Top-Level Domain (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific Top-Level Domain Names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Registering such a domain is good if your target group of site visitors is from a particular country. Many persons would rather purchase commodities or services from a local website, and if your aim is Canada, for example, registering a .ca domain could increase the visits to your web site.

Domain Forwarding

You can register a number of Top-Level Domain Names, which can send your web page's visitors to a specific web page such as domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and decrease the risk of someone stealing your web site visitors by using the same Second-Level Domain Name with another TLD - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each domain name has domain records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) show where the domain is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is utilizing now. You can modify the name servers of your domain whenever you want. You can have your domain name registered with one company and get the website hosting service itself from another. So, if you register your domain and find decent website hosting plans someplace else later, you can point your domain to the present company's DNSs instantly.

Domain Server Records (DNS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain name utilizes a certain set of name servers, all its NS records will direct to the same web hosting firm. Some web hosting suppliers, however, enable you to modify specific DNS records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which displays on which server your web page is hosted, while the MX records display which hosting server handles the email box accounts related to your domain name. For example, if you appoint a new site designer and he devises an .ASP web site that will be hosted on his own Windows server, you may want to edit just the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Thus, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web server, but your e-mail address accounts 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 developed by Microsoft and requests a Windows server, although a Linux web server would be way more stable.

Moderately Priced TLDs Courtesy of 'MarkTel Corporation'

Just a small number of web hosting vendors allow you to modify specific name server records and quite often this an additional paid service. With us, you have an extensive assortment of TLDs to select from and you can edit all NS records or redirect the domain names via a redirection tool at no extra cost.