How valuable can an top domain name be?

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

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name usually consists of 2 parts - a Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few groups of Top-Level Domains that you should examine before you select the domain name you wish. Your pick should be based on the intention of your site and on its target visitors. Let's take a glance at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domain Names - these are the most common TLDs aimed to express a particular intention - .com (business organizations), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (corporations), .info (informative sites), .org (organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific region), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (particular walks of life), etc. As you can perceive, these Top-Level Domain Names encompass most realms of life, so you should select the one that would designate the purpose of your web page best. There is no restriction as to who can register such Top-Level Domains, but some of them contain additional steps to show that you qualify to keep such a TLD (.mobi and .pro, for instance).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domains, are country-specific Top-Level Domain Names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Choosing such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a specific country. Many folks would want to purchase goods or services from a local website, and if your goal is Canada, for instance, settling on a .ca Top-Level Domain could boost the visits to your site.

Domain Forwarding

You can register different domain names, which can forward your web site's visitors to a particular web site such as domain.com, for example. This would raise the traffic and reduce the risk of someone swiping your website visitors by registering the same Second-Level Domain with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each TLD has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, aka DNS records) indicate where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the web hosting distributor whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is utilizing at the moment. You can swap the name servers of your domain name at any time. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the hosting service itself from another. Hence, if you register your domain and encounter decent website hosting packages somewhere else at a later time, you can point your domain name to the present provider's DNSs straight away.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain uses a particular set of NSs, all its NS records will direct to the same web hosting supplier. Some site hosting vendors, however, allow you to edit specific DNS records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which discloses on which web server your web page is hosted, while the MX records specify which server tackles the mail address accounts associated with your domain name. For instance, if you hire a new web designer and he build an .ASP website that will be located on his private Windows server, you may desire to edit solely the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web server, but your e-mail address accounts or any sub-domain names such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux site hosting account. The .ASP environment is developed by Microsoft and requires a Windows server, although a Linux web hosting server would be far more secure.

Cut-Price Domain Names Provided by 'ProMaxHosting'

Just a small number of web hosting providers allow you to edit certain domain records and quite frequently this an additional paid service. With ProMaxHosting , you get a huge selection of TLDs to select from and you can edit all domain name records or forward the domain names through a redirection tool at no extra charge. Because of that, 'ProMaxHosting' would be your finest choice when it comes to administering your domain name and to creating a successful presence on the World Wide Web.