Domains Explained

One of the most important prerequisites for running a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will note first when they discover your site and what they will link you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that tells your site's visitors what the site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name traditionally contains 2 constituents - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domain Names that you should examine before you choose the domain name you desire. Your choice should be based on the aim of your website and on its target visitors. Let's take a peek at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most common Top-Level Domains meant to signify a given function - .com (commercial enterprises), .net (networks), .biz (businesses), .info (informative resources), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific region), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (certain professions), etc. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most realms of life, so you should settle on the one that would indicate the purpose of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them contain extra requirements to show that you qualify to own such a TLD (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Registering such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a specific country. Many guys would like to purchase commodities or services from a local website, and if your goal is Canada, for instance, getting a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your web page.

Domain Forwarding

You can register a number of domain names, which can send your site's visitors to a given web page like domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and decrease the possibility of somebody snatching your visitors by using the same SLD with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each domain name has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) display where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting company whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing now. You can substitute the DNSs of your domain at all times. You can have your domain registered with one company and get the website hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain and come across decent website hosting plans somewhere else later, you can point your domain name to the current company's DNSs immediately.

Domain Name Server Records (DNS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain utilizes a certain pair of DNSs, all its DNS records will direct to the same web hosting company. Some web hosting vendors, however, enable you to edit certain records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which displays on which web server your web site is situated, while the MX records show which web hosting server tackles the electronic mail accounts related to your domain name. For example, if you take on a new web site designer and he sets up an .ASP web site that will be situated on his private Windows server, you may desire to alter solely the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. Hence, 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 website hosting account. The .ASP environment is invented by Microsoft and necessitates a Windows hosting server, although a Linux web server would be far more dependable.

Budget Domain Names Offered by 'intellifi'

Just a small number of web hosting providers allow you to edit specific name server records and quite often this an extra paid service. With us, you get a huge selection of TLDs to select from and you can modify all domain name server records or forward the domain names through a forwarding tool at no added cost.