What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is the 'www.whatever.com ' that you type into your web browser (Internet Explorer / Firefox etc) which produces your website.  For example, you visited www.meoncreative.com to get to this website.

How do I get a Domain Name?
 
Not all domain names will be available as lots of them have already been snapped up by others.  There are many places to check whether your domain name is available.  I personally use 123-reg as their site is very simple to use.  Check to see if your domain name is available here.

Type the name part of the domain name www.'whatever'.com into the domain search box (as shown below) and click 'search'.

The website will then list the domain names that are currently available.  You will be able to pick from '.com', '.co.uk', .net' etc, etc...these are known as domain extensions. 

What Domain Extension should I use? (i.e. '.com' or '.biz' )

The definition and uses for the domain extensions vary - here is a basic list:

 

 

 

    .com      commercial
    .net        network
    .org        organization
    .edu       educational only
    .gov        government only
    .biz        a business
    .info       information service
    .name    individual/personal
    .mobi     geared to PDA and cellphone access

Country codes such as .co.uk for UK based companies and .uk for general United Kingdom and .ca for Canada are widely used top level domains.

 

 

 

Choosing a Domain Name

Ideally your domain name will either be your business name.  However, you may also want to consider including your keywords, for example, In8.com tells the visit less information than in8websitedesign.com.  Search engines also favour websites addresses that contain the keyword the site is focused on.  See our Search Engine guide for more details.