Domain Name

The Internet is made up, primarily, of a variety of websites. These websites have a name with which one can recognize them. For example this website has the name of www.buzzle.com. This is also known as the website’s address. And in very technical terms it is called the Domain Name.

Thus, one can define a Domain Name as the address of a website on the Internet.

A domain name is also often used interchangeably with the term URL (Uniform Resource Locator). There is one slight difference, however, between a domain name and a URL. An example should help explain this effectively.

Where www.yourdomainname.com is the domain name, www.yourdomainname.com/awebpage.html is the URL.

So you want to register a domain name?

This is something most people would have to do, in case they want to have a domain name of their own. But first, one must know if the domain name is available. For that you must do a domain name search. Once you find out that the domain name is available, you can purchase it via a domain name registration service provider. Let us look at these steps in a little detail.

If you search for domain name registrars or domain name registration service providers on the Internet, you will find several such providers. If you go to their site, they will often provide a domain name search facility online, for free. All you have to do is type in the domain name that you want and search for it. If it is not available, the site will let you know right away. This means, you can type an alternative domain name and search again. This process can go on till you find a domain name that is available.

You can then move on to the next step – which is purchasing the domain name from the domain registrar. A domain registrar is a company which registers the domain names on the Internet for a fee. These domain registrars have to be registered with the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Ideally, before proceeding with the registration process, you should check if the domain registrar is in fact registered with the ICANN. You can double check this on ICANN’s website as well.

Then you can begin the domain name registration formalities. This involves providing your details such as your name, address and contact details for technical and other purposes. These details become a part of a database known as the WHOIS directory.

Another thing one can do while doing a domain search, is looking up the owners of the domain names you want but are not available on the WHOIS directory. This is freely accessible on the Internet. And if someone else has bought your domain name with the idea of re-selling it later, his / her details would be available on the WHOIS directory domain name search. You can choose to also purchase the domain name from that person, in case the costs work out to your advantage.

Once your financial transactions with the domain re-seller have been completed to your mutual satisfaction, he / she will then begin the domain transfer formalities. This means that he / she will transfer the ownership of the domain name from himself / herself to you.

Domain name transfers are also available for people who already have purchased a domain from a domain name registrar, and want to transfer the domain name registration to another registrar. This can happen for a variety of reasons. It may be the case that the domain name registrar may be providing other add-on services such as web hosting services which have different features that you may be looking for. Or it could be because you found a cheaper domain name registration service provider. Or it could be because you are unhappy with your current domain registrar. No matter what your reasons may be domain name transfers are allowed by law, and usually take some time. So, ideally, one must begin these procedures at least a month or two before the domain name registration expires.

Apart from having a domain name, one must also have server space to store the data and the web pages which one wants to display on the website. For that, one must have a website hosting service. Often different domain registrars also provide a variety of web hosting service plans and packages.

So, now armed with all this information, you can go ahead and purchase a domain name of your choice from a domain registrar of your choice and a web hosting service plan. Go ahead and create your own web presence on the Internet!