How valuable can an affordable domain name be?

One of the most essential prerequisites for running a successful online presence is the domain. It is what visitors will note first when they stumble upon your site and what they will identify you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that notifies your visitors what the site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name usually has 2 parts - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the TLD and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domains that you should examine prior to choosing the domain you desire. Your decision should depend on the purpose of your site and on its target audience. Let's investigate the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most common Top-Level Domain Names meant to designate a particular function - .com (business entities), .net (networks), .biz (companies), .info (informational websites), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific region), .name (persons or families), .pro (given walks of life), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most realms of life, so you should opt for the one that would express the aim of your web page best. There is no limitation as to who can register such TLDs, but some of them contain extra procedures to prove that you qualify to own such a TLD (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific TLDs. Each country has its own ccTLD. Picking such a domain name is good if your target group of web page visitors is from a specific country. Many individuals would rather purchase goods or services from a local web page, and if your aim is Canada, for instance, settling on a .ca TLD could increase the visits to your site.

Domain Forwarding

You can register a bunch of Top-Level Domain Names, which can forward your website's visitors to a specific website such as domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and decrease the likelihood of somebody stealing your website visitors by using the same Second-Level Domain with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not availing of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each and every TLD has domain records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) demonstrate where the domain is hosted, in other words they point to the hosting company whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing at present. You can swap the name servers of your domain at all times. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the website hosting service itself from another. In this way, if you register your domain name and discover good website hosting services someplace else afterwards, you can point your domain to the present provider's DNSs straight off.

Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain uses a particular set of NSs, all its NS records will lead to the same web page hosting provider. Some website hosting suppliers, though, allow you to edit certain name server records, among them the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which exhibits on which web hosting server your web site is situated, while the MX records indicate which web hosting server handles the email aliases related to your domain name. For example, if you engage a new web site designer and he creates an .ASP website that will be accommodated on his personal Windows web hosting server, you may wish to edit just the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Thus, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows web hosting server, but your e-mailbox accounts or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux webspace hosting account. The .ASP platform is designed by Microsoft and calls for a Windows server, although a Linux web server would be far more reliable.

Budget TLDs Brought by 'Smartest Media'

Only a small number of web hosting suppliers allow you to modify particular DNS records and very frequently this an extra paid service. With Smartest Media , you have a huge selection of Top-Level Domains to select from and you can modify all records or forward the domain names via a forwarding tool at no extra charge. Because of that, 'Smartest Media' would be your best choice when it comes to administering your domain name and to setting up a successful presence on the Internet.