Domain Name Registration
What is a domain name? A domain name is also known universally as a "web address" and is the unique identifier that a searcher types into the web browser address bar in order to load that particular website. In technical terms, a domain name is the unique name that starts with a www. and is issued to a website owner or publisher by the domain names registrar. Another name is universal resource locator (URL).
Webmasters and hosting companies also refer to this name as the hostname and is the actual unique url of the website. No two domain names can link to the same root website unless one domain is used to redirect to another.
Anyone creating and publishing a website needs to register a domain name. The domain name owner is also said to be the legal owner of the website. Domain names are inexpensive today unless there is a bid on a very popular domain. Companies like register.com, godaddy.com, yahoo.com all sell domains cheaply to encourage more people to buy them and set up websites.
Selecting a domain name used to be thoughtless and whatever name that suited your company or yourself was okay. But with the number of websites that sell or showcase the same information increasing daily and competition among wesites becoming more and more fierce, webmasters are realizing that they have to select domain names that are competitive or less lose their edge to other web owners. Google, the top search engine that determines whether a site will make it on the world wide web, actually does regard differences in domain names when indexing websites. Google actually gives priority to websites whose domain names are also the keywords to the product they are offering rather than the name of the company. For example, a company selling bowling shoes and is called Alfred's Bowling Shoes Inc. and is based in Florida should choose a domain name like floridabestbowling.com instead of alfredsbowling.com. Thus the importance of selecting the correct domain name.
Domain names expire after one year and must be renewed. This can be risky especially for companies that are extremely popular like Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and the like because if someone else was to purchase this domain he or she could turn around and ask for millions of dollars to resell it back to these companies. Today, hosting companies like godaddy offer the autorenew option so that the domain is automatically renewed upon expiration.
Domains which deal with business and related information are mostly .coms while those operated solely for non-profit are .org. Governmen domains are predominantly .gov.
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How do domain names work? A domain name is very similar to an address forwarding service. The domain name is the address people type in their browser to get to your Web site. The domain name points to the "real" address of the server that contains your Web site content. The "real" address is called the IP address and is a series of numbers, such as 123.23.234.45. This IP address then points to the location on the server where your Web site files are located. Domain names are used instead of IP addresses because most people find it much easier to remember a name rather than a series of numbers. So, your domain name points to your IP address, which is the location of your Web site files on a server, and allows users all across the Internet to view your Web pages.