Session #_____ “Your Address part B; How to get a website Domain Name”
CLAIM YOUR WEBSITE ADDRESS
Back in those early pioneer days lots of people went west and took hold of new land and territory however now instead of physicalland…….it’s time to take hold of your digital land and digital space. If you haven’t already done so you should really think about claiming your space especially if you want to name your website after your birth name or a variation of it. If you have a common name like John Smith and wanted to grab the website www.johnsmith.com I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that it is already taken. And even if it hasn’t been purchased for the use of a viable website,chances are somebody bought it just knowing that poor john would one day come along looking for it only to discover that it’s been held random to the tune of some ridiculous amount for purchase. Nowadays the digital territory is going very fast at least for the more popular website extensions; such as .com; .org; .net.A WEB ADDRESS IS SOMEWHAT LIKE A HOME ADDRESS
Let’s say that you purchased a house for only you to dwell in and the address is 1234 Country Lane, in Any city and Any state USA. No one else can claim this address as theirs, just move in on you and have all of their mail come to that address….why? Because you purchased that property and the address attached to the property is yours. However the other individual might consider moving into the address 1234 Country Lane, in Any City and Another state USA . Notice in this example that the “state” names are different. So provided that the property in that particular location is up for sale that individual is welcome to try to purchase that land. Image the website www.example.com; you wanted this website domain name but it was already taken. While you may not be able to get www.example.com maybe you can get www.example.net or .org or chose from a number of other extensions. To help explain a little better let’s take a look at some of a few terms.- Domain names
- URL’s
- Domain Name Registries
Structure of the Domain Name
The right-most label conveys the top–level domain or TLD; for example, in the domain name www.example.com. The com is the top- level domain. The hierarchy of domains descends from the right to the left label in the name; each label to the left specifies a subdivision, or subdomain of the domain to the right. For example: in the website www.example.com the word example is a subdomain to the com and www is a label that is the subdomain to example.com.
How the domain names are assigned
Having a little understanding about the structure of the domain name helped me to understand just how the domain names are assigned; who assigns them and why I had to pay for it. Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or (ICANN) manages the top-level development (ie like the dot com’s). ICANN authorizes domain name registrars, through which domain names may be registered and reassigned. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Domain_nameWhat are URL’s
A uniform resource locator (abbreviated URL; also known as a web address, particularly when used with HTTP) is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to a resource. Most web browsers display the URL of a web page above the page in an address bar. A typical URL might look like: http://www.yourwebsitename.com So by typing and entering your website name preceding by http:// or just www. in the address bar your website people will land on your website page.Domain Name Fees
As stated earlier Domain names are controlled by a handful of companies, known as registrars, appointed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), and domain names are held in a master database. You obtain a domain name by applying for it through a registrar and paying a fee. Once a year you will have to pay a fee in order to keep the domain name that you registered for.Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain(gTLD) registry and/or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. Of the registrars who initially entered the market, many have continued to grow and outpace rivals, as of the time of this podcast Go Daddy is one of the if not the largest registrar. Other successful registrars include eNom, Tucows, Hover and Melbourne IT.] An end user (such as yourself) selects a registrar to provide the registration service, and that registrar becomes the designated registrar for the domain chosen by the user. Only the designated registrar may modify or delete information about domain names in a central registry database. It is not unusual for an end user to switch registrars, invoking a transfer process between the registrars involved, that is governed by specific domain name transfer policies. I’ve done this several times before; where I switched my web hosting company and these companies were the ones, in my case who were the registrar for my domain name. I used to have a website with the host called “Homestead”. When I switched from Homestead to HostGator the registrar for that particular domain was transferred to HostGator. When a registrar registers a domain for an end-user, it must pay a maximum annual fee of somewhere (per wiki) in the ball park of a US $7.85 to a company called VeriSign the registry operator for com, and a US $0.18 annual administration fee to ICANN. So I guess we can’t complain about the yearly fee that we have to pay because the registrars are passing what they are charged by VeriSign and ICANN to the end user. Somebody has to get paid to man the massive data bases in order to ensure that nobody else can take your home…..I mean your home website address.- http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Domain_name_registrar
- http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Domain_name_registrar#/citenote5
- http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Verisign
Connecting your website name to your brand
You can name your site whatever you want but there are those who find that if you name your site so that it relates to your brand, product(s) and or services it makes it easier to remember and find for people who are looking for what you have to offer. For example; if you are in the children’s clothing business you might want to put key words and phrases like “children’s clothing“; “Kids Clothing“; Children’s Designs”; “Fashions”; “Couture”; or “specialty” in her website name. So if your brand is making children’s clothing maybe you can tie your brand into your website name.Top level Domain
Another way to connect your website name to your brand is by the choice of the “Top Level Domain” or what I like to call the end extension or label or part; in the domain name. As per the definitions above; the URL points you to where you want to go and the Domain name would be the name of your website. The domain name has an order and parts or levels to it. There are gTLDs or Generic Top-level domains, such as the prominent domains or more common ones; .Com, .Info, .Net, .Edu and .Org and ccTLDs Country Code Top-Level domains such as .us, .uk, .il, .au; .de, .fi, .fr .jp etc.New Generic Top-Level extensions
Most people want to secure a Generic Top-Level domain because they have been around for a while and seem to carry more clout however as of February 2014 ; ICANN decided to add hundreds of additional extensions/labels. There are now extensions like: Academy; Attorney; audio; Media; Church; photography; rocks; business; cab; camera; dentist; engineer; finance; holiday; investments; kitchen; pizza; rentals; rodeo; services; supply; surgery; toys; trade; tools; town; training; university; vacations; website; xzy and on and on and on! http://qz.com/165238/the-biggest-land-rush-in-the-history-of-the-internet-begins-on-february-4/ Let’s say that in Suzie’s example if the extension .com is taken then maybe she could check out some of the new extensions such as: .clothing. So with the new extension Suzie could have a website address that reads; www.suzieschildrensdesigns.clothing. I noticed that as of the time of this blog; while this extension was currently available, the extensions for kid, kids and design were listed as “coming soon” on Godaddys website so I am assuming that they are rolling the extensions out slowly or that Godaddy is offering them bit by bit; not really sure what that means but you can always contact your selected registrar to find out what extension are available. Yes it’s true these new extensions offer a great new way that you can associate your brand with your website but remember that they come at greater cost; some double and yet others nearly triple the more common gTLD generic top level domains like .com and .net. Bummer! It is also important to note that per Godaddy While there will be over 700 new domains that will be available to you, there will be another 600 or so that are trademarked names – .FORD, .GUCCI, .DUPONT – and, although the owners could open them to the general public, they’ll most likely reserve them for internal use. https://www.godaddy.com/tlds/gtld.aspx?ci=90236- http://www.ehow.com/facts_5152320_differences-between-domain-names-urls.html
- http:// http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Generic_top-level_domain
- wikiwand.com/en/Country_code_top-level_domain
- Compare the GTLD extension prices
- Get as much detail as you can as to how to go about transferring the name to a new registrar if needed
- How is there customer service? Can you find answers to your questions?
- Hostgator
- Dream Host
- Go Daddy
- Hover
