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Setting Up Your Own WebsiteRegister a Domain Name |
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Setting Up Your Own WebsiteRegister a Domain Name |
Your domain name (for example,"www.mystore.com") must be 32 letters or less, including the extension, which is the part following the dot. The most popular extensions are .com for commercial sites and .org for nonprofit sites. Many of the most appealing .com and .org names have been taken already. Consider these alternatives:
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Check the availability of a domain name
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Of course, if you are in a country other than the USA, you can take that country's extension, for example, .ca for Canada. The nice thing about many country registrations, Canada for example, is that they demand proof that you're legally entitled to the name (for example, incorporation papers for "The Ajax Corp" if you're trying to register ajax.ca). That protects your right to an appropriate URL for your company. Here's the full list of country domain extensions.
If someone else is registering the name for you, make sure you are listed as the owner of your domain. Otherwise, if you choose to change your hosting company, you will be unable to access your record in order to point your URL to the new location.
Some ready-made packages, such as Yahoo, are offered by domain registration companies, so registration
is part of the deal. Network Solutions offers a free Domain with an annual hosting plan.
Other companies offering packages will help you with the process
of registering.
If you're creating your own pages, you'll need to do your own registration. The oldest
company in the business is Network Solutions
. They're quite reputable. Also
a little more expensive than www.GoDaddy.com
.
There are other companies that will register your domain name for as little as $5 a year. GoDaddy.com charges about $10, and throws in a free small website.
Just check out the list on this page.
The process is simple. You go to the registrar's website. You fill in the name you want and click the button. The registrar will tell you whether the name is available, or suggest others. Once you have a name that's not taken, you purchase it just as you would on any ecommerce site.
If you really don't find a name you like that's available, GoDaddy lets you . Also, there are people who specialize in buying up domain names for resale. For example, BuyDomains.com has thousands of names up for resale. But remember, any name can succeed! Did Google originally try to register "search-engine.com"? Would they have been more successful if they had? For more on this question, read on.