How important can an affordable domain be?

One of the most important prerequisites for setting up a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what people will perceive first when they chance upon your website and what they will relate you with. The domain name should be easy to remember, but should also be something that informs your web page's visitors what the web page is about.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

A domain name usually has 2 components - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain Name (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain Name and "domain" is the SLD. There are a few categories of Top-Level Domains that you should examine before you pick the domain name you wish. Your selection should depend on the intention of your site and on its target audience. Let's examine the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most popular Top-Level Domains intended to designate a specific purpose - .com (business organizations), .net (networks), .biz (firms), .info (informational web pages), .org (organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or families), .pro (specific professions), and so on. As you can see, these Top-Level Domains cover most fields of life, so you should settle on the one that would describe the aim of your website best. There is no restriction as to who can register such Top-Level Domains, but some of them contain extra procedures to ascertain that you are eligible to own such a TLD (.mobi and .pro, for example).

Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)

The ccTLDs, or country-code Top-Level Domain Names, are country-specific Top-Level Domain Names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Registering such a domain name is good if your target group of site visitors is from a certain country. Many people would rather purchase commodities or services from a local web page, and if your target is Canada, for example, picking a .ca TLD could boost the visits to your web site.

URL Redirects

You can register a bunch of TLDs, which can redirect your web site's visitors to a particular web site such as domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and decrease the possibility of someone pinching your website visitors by using the same Second-Level Domain Name with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not using a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each and every domain name has domain records. The name server records (NS records, also known as DNS records) reveal where the domain name is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting company whose name servers (NSs, also known as DNSs) it is using at present. You can swap the name servers of your domain name whenever you want. You can have your domain name registered with one firm and get the web hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain name and stumble upon decent website hosting services somewhere else at a later time, you can point your domain name to the current provider's DNSs instantaneously.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain name uses a particular pair of name servers, all its name server records will point to the same web page hosting distributor. Some web site hosting providers, though, permit you to modify specific domain name server records, including the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an IP address, which reveals on which web hosting server your web site is located, while the MX records display which hosting server tackles the e-mail aliases associated with your domain name. For example, if you take on a new website designer and he designs an .ASP website that will be accommodated on his own Windows hosting server, you may wish to modify only the IP address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. In this way, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows web server, but your email accounts or any sub-domain names such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your present Linux webspace hosting account. The .ASP environment is invented by Microsoft and requires a Windows web hosting server, although a Linux web server would be far more stable.

Moderately Priced Domain Names Distributed by 'Volcano Servers'

Only a few web hosting distributors allow you to modify given name server records and very often this an extra paid service. With Volcano Servers , you have a huge assortment of Top-Level Domain Names to choose from and you can modify all name server records or forward the domains via a redirection tool at no additional cost. That is why, 'Volcano Servers' would be your best choice when it comes to handling your domain and to creating a successful presence on the web.