What are Domain Names

One of the most vital prerequisites for running a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what visitors will spot 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 web page's visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name typically has two constituents - 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 Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few groups of Top-Level Domains that you should consider prior to picking the domain name you want. Your choice should be based on the aim of your web page and on its target viewers. Let's have a glimpse at the gTLDs, or generic Top-Level Domains - these are the most common Top-Level Domain Names meant to express a particular purpose - .com (business entities), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (companies), .info (informative web pages), .org (organizations), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (persons or relatives), .pro (certain walks of life), and so on. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names cover most fields of life, so you should select the one that would designate the intention of your website best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them include additional procedures to prove that you are eligible to possess such a domain name (.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 Domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Picking such a domain name is good if your target group of website visitors is from a certain country. Many guys would want to buy commodities or services from a local web page, and if your target is Canada, for example, picking a .ca domain name could boost the visits to your site.

Domain Redirection

You can register several Top-Level Domain Names, which can send your site's visitors to a certain web page such as domain.com, for example. This would increase the traffic and decrease the risk of someone stealing your web page visitors by using the same SLD with another Top-Level Domain - if you are not availing of a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Each and every domain name 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 company whose name servers (NSs, a.k.a. DNSs) it is utilizing now. You can substitute the NSs of your domain whenever you wish. You can have your domain name registered with one provider and get the website hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain and encounter good website hosting solutions someplace else afterwards, you can point your domain name to the present company's NSs instantaneously.

Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)

In general, as long as your domain utilizes a particular set of NSs, all its DNS records will lead to the same website hosting distributor. Some web hosting providers, though, enable you to edit certain NS records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which specifies on which web hosting server your web page is hosted, whereas the MX records designate which hosting server tackles the email accounts associated with your domain name. For instance, if you engage a new web designer and he sets up an .ASP web site that will be hosted on his personal Windows web server, you may desire to change only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Hence, www.domain.com will point to the Windows web hosting server, but your electronic mail 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 platform is built by Microsoft and requires a Windows web server, although a Linux web hosting server would be far more stable.

Reasonably Priced Top-Level Domain Names Delivered by 'Visualis Web Hosting'

Only a few web hosting distributors enable you to modify given NS records and very often this an extra paid service. With us, you have a wide variety of Top-Level Domains to pick from and you can edit all NS records or redirect the domains using a redirection tool at no added charge.