How essential can an top domain be?

One of the most essential preconditions for having a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what visitors will see first when they discover your website and what they will associate you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that informs your site's visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name traditionally is composed of two components - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for instance, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the SLD. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domains that you should consider before you pick the domain name you want. Your selection should rest on the purpose of your website and on its target audience. Let's have a gaze at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most popular Top-Level Domain Names aimed to signify a particular function - .com (commercial entities), .net (networks), .biz (corporations), .info (informational sites), .org (not-for-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia-Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (given walks of life), etc. As you can perceive, these TLDs encompass most realms of life, so you should choose the one that would indicate the objective of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such TLDs, but some of them include extra steps to confirm that you qualify to have such a domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific Top-Level Domain Names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Selecting such a Top-Level Domain Name is good if your target group of web site visitors is from a particular country. Many folks would sooner purchase goods or services from a local web site, and if your target is Canada, for example, opting for a .ca domain could increase the visits to your web page.

URL Redirection

You can register a number of domain names, which can redirect your visitors to a particular site such as domain.com, for instance. This would boost the traffic and decrease the risk of someone swiping your website visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain Name with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every Top-Level Domain has domain records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) reveal where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the hosting vendor whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is utilizing now. You can substitute the NSs of your domain name whenever you wish. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the web page hosting service itself from another. In this way, if you register your domain name and discover decent website hosting solutions somewhere else later, you can point your domain to the new provider's NSs instantly.

Name Server Records (DNS Records)

In general, as long as your domain name uses a specific pair of name servers, all its domain records will point to the same website hosting provider. Some web hosting distributors, however, permit you to modify certain domain name server records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which demonstrates on which web hosting server your web page is situated, whereas the MX records display which web hosting server tackles the electronic mail accounts related to your domain name. For instance, if you engage a new web designer and he designs an .ASP web site that will be hosted on his private Windows web hosting server, you may want to edit only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web hosting server, but your electronic mails or any sub-domains such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux web hosting account. The .ASP platform is invented by Microsoft and requires a Windows web hosting server, even though a Linux web server would be far more dependable.

Low-Priced TLDs Distributed by 'First and Best Hosting'

Just a few web hosting companies allow you to edit certain domain name records and quite frequently this an additional paid service. With First and Best Hosting , you get a large collection of Top-Level Domains to select from and you can edit all records or forward the domain names via a forwarding tool at no extra charge. Therefore, 'First and Best Hosting' would be your finest pick when it comes to managing your domain and to creating a successful presence on the World Wide Web.