How essential can an top domain be?

One of the most important requirements for building a successful web presence is the domain. It is what visitors will spot first when they visit your web site and what they will identify you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that informs your site's visitors what the web site is about.

Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)

A domain name traditionally is composed of 2 fragments - 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 and "domain" is the Second-Level Domain Name. There are a few sets of Top-Level Domain Names that you should contemplate prior to picking the domain you wish. Your decision should depend on the intention of your site and on its target audience. Let's check out the gTLDs, or generic TLDs - these are the most common Top-Level Domains intended to designate a particular purpose - .com (business enterprises), .net (network infrastructures), .biz (companies), .info (informative web pages), .org (organizations of a non-commercial character), .mobi (handheld devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific), .name (individuals or families), .pro (specific walks of life), and so on. As you can see, these Top-Level Domain Names cover most realms of life, so you should settle on the one that would show the objective of your website best. There is no restriction as to who can register such Top-Level Domain Names, but some of them contain extra requirements to ascertain that you are eligible to register such a Top-Level 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 Domain Names. Each country has its own ccTLD. Selecting such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a specific country. Many guys would want to buy commodities or services from a local web site, and if your target is Canada, for example, selecting a .ca Top-Level Domain could boost the visits to your website.

Domain Forwarding

You can register different domain names, which can redirect your site's visitors to a certain site like domain.com, for example. This would boost the traffic and decrease the possibility of somebody pilfering your site visitors by registering the same SLD with a different Top-Level Domain - if you are not utilizing a trademark.

Name Servers (NSs)

Every domain has domain records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) indicate where the domain is hosted, i.e. they point to the hosting company whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is using at the moment. You can swap the NSs of your domain whenever you wish. You can have your domain registered with one firm and get the web page hosting service itself from another. Therefore, if you register your domain name and find decent website hosting plans someplace else later, you can point your domain name to the new company's NSs at once.

Name Server Records (NS Records)

On the whole, as long as your domain uses a specific pair of name servers, all its DNS records will point to the same site hosting distributor. Some site hosting providers, though, permit you to modify given domain name records, like the A records and the MX records of your domain. The A record is an Internet Protocol address, which reveals on which server your site is situated, whereas the MX records exhibit which web hosting server tackles the email mailbox accounts associated with your domain name. For example, if you engage a new site designer and he develops an .ASP web page that will be situated on his personal Windows server, you may want to edit only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain name. So, www.domain.com will direct to the Windows server, but your email accounts or any sub-domains like forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux hosting account. The .ASP environment is built by Microsoft and necessitates a Windows web server, even though a Linux web hosting server would be far more reliable.

Budget TLDs Provided by 'MoonServers'

Just a few web hosting distributors enable you to modify specific NS records and quite often this an additional paid service. With MoonServers , you get a large array of Top-Level Domains to choose from and you can modify all domain name server records or redirect the domain names via a redirection tool at no added cost. Therefore, 'MoonServers' would be your best pick when it comes to administering your domain name and to establishing a successful presence on the web.