What's in a domain? Understanding how domain names work

A domain name is like your Internet street address. It's where people go on the web to find your website. Your domain name is the simplest and one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of your website.

Technically speaking, your domain name stands for your IP address. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is the series of numbers that says where a computer is located on the Internet. Since a long sequence is much more difficult to remember than, say, voipreview.org, people use domain names to navigate around the web.

How can I get a domain name? Domain Registration.

You "get" a domain name by registering the domain with any one of the accredited domain registration companies. For a period of time, as short as one month to as long as ten years, the domain will be registered under your name or to your company. Many web hosts offer domain name registration as a part of their plan as an added convenience.

If you trust the web host, you can go ahead and use their registry service. They should register the domain in your name.

The danger in allowing the web host to register your domain for you is that disreputable web hosts will register it in their name. That means when the time comes to transfer service (or if your hosting service expires before your domain registration expires), you won't be able to keep your domain name. You can protect yourself by visiting a domain registry and checking who the contact person is for your domain name. It should be you.

Domain registration services are regulated and accredited by ICANN, a non-profit corporation that regulates the Internet for the US government. Whois.net is an excellent domain name research service. Use it to double-check who owns a domain.

Is a dot.com important? Top-level domain and second-level domains

It depends on what your website is about. Technically, top-level domains (that's the technical name for dot.com, dot.net, and all the others) are supposed to stand for what type of site it is. Dot.com (.com) means that site is commercially-based, but it has become the standard designation for most sites.

A dot.com domain name is one of the most valuable assets for any personal or business site. It gets you exposure without even trying: Dot.com tends to be the default top-level domain searched by browsers when someone searches for your second-level domain name in the address bar.

Dot.org and dot.net are other important top-level domains. As the Internet grows, more and more top-level domains become available. Consider registering with different top-level domains to capture all the possible traffic for your site.

Other important top-level domains and second-level domains are country-specific. For example, dot.de means that the website you are looking at is based specifically in Germany. Dot.co.uk means the website is a business site from the United Kingdom.

The actual "name" part of your domain name is called the second-level domain name. We have more information in the next section on what should go into your actual domain name.

How can I get a good domain name? Building a second-level domain name

There are two good and fast rules when it comes to building your domain name:

1. It should be easy to remember.
2. It should say what you want it to say.

For example, consider voipreview.org. It's easy to remember and to the point: if you want reviews of VoIP, you can go to our website. If you want to tell someone else about it, you can tell them, "I was on VoIP Review today and saw great reviews for that company." You don't have to worry about anything else to tell them about it. (You should have said, "VoIP review.org," but we'll let it slide for now.)

Your domain name should be the same as your website's name and your business's name. Or, if it's a personal website, it should probably be your name. Our website wouldn't have as many reviews if it was named connect-u.com — people would probably think it was a dating site. Even reviewvoip.org wouldn't be as good.

Some other things to remember: Miscellaneous domain name tips

You may want to consider registering a domain for each of your brand names. It means that people can't poach your legitimate traffic by registering a similar domain and spamming your visitors with ads.

You should also try to consider the possible lights in which your domain can be misinterpreted. For decency's sake, we won't mention these gaffes here. But domains that have inadvertent anagrams in them tend to generate traffic the owner doesn't want or anticipate.

Avoid hyphens. Unless the brand-name domain you want is already taken (and the buyer won't sell), a hyphenated name has the potential to confuse searchers more than help them. Hyphens do help search engines identify spaces easier, but you'll need to make sure you market your website with the hyphen in place.