How vital can an affordable domain name be?
One of the most important preconditions for establishing a successful online presence is the domain. It is what visitors will notice first when they come across your web page and what they will associate you with. The domain should be easy to remember, but should also be something that informs your web site's visitors what the web page is about.
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)
A domain name usually consists of 2 fragments - 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 Domains that you should contemplate prior to selecting the domain you wish. Your pick should be based on the purpose of your web page and on its target visitors. Let's have a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic TLDs - these are the most common TLDs meant to denote a given intention - .com (business enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (companies), .info (informative web sites), .org (organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific region), .name (individuals or relatives), .pro (given walks of life), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domains cover most fields of life, so you should opt for the one that would describe the intention of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such TLDs, but some of them involve extra steps to show that you qualify to have such a domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).
Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)
The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Settling on such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a certain country. Many folks would like to purchase goods or services from a local web page, and if your aim is Canada, for example, choosing a .ca Top-Level Domain Name could increase the visits to your site.
Domain Redirects
You can register a bunch of TLDs, which can forward your web site's visitors to a given website like domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and decrease the chance of somebody pilfering your web page visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with a different TLD - if you are not availing of a trademark.
Name Servers (NSs)
Each and every Top-Level Domain Name has domain records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) specify where the domain is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting vendor whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing at present. You can replace the name servers of your domain name whenever you wish. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the web space hosting service itself from another. In this way, if you register your domain and stumble upon decent website hosting packages someplace else later, you can point your domain to the current provider's NSs straight away.
Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)
On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a specific pair of name servers, all its domain name server records will lead to the same web page hosting company. Some web page hosting suppliers, however, enable you to modify certain DNS records, including the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which details on which server your web page is situated, whereas the MX records exhibit which server handles the e-mail addresses associated with your domain name. For instance, if you engage a new site designer and he sets up an .ASP site that will be accommodated on his personal Windows server, you may desire to change only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. So, www.domain.com will point to the Windows server, but your email address accounts or any sub-domain names like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux site hosting account. The .ASP environment is created by Microsoft and calls for a Windows hosting server, even though a Linux server would be far more dependable.
Cut-Rate Domain Names Delivered by 'AlbHosting'
Just a small number of web hosting suppliers allow you to modify specific name server records and quite frequently this an extra paid service. With AlbHosting , you have a wide collection of Top-Level Domains to pick from and you can modify all NS records or forward the domain names via a forwarding tool at no additional charge. For that reason, 'AlbHosting' would be your best choice when it comes to administering your domain and to setting up a successful presence on the World Wide Web.