Website Hosting and Domain Registration Process

It is a common misconception that website hosting and registration of a domain is one and the same thing. Whereas domain name registration allows the buyer to use a particular domain, website hosting provides the services related to the services. The services that are encompassed in website hosting usually includes the handling of the emails and queries, and the compilation of traffic data for the website. The lack of understanding of the difference between the two can often be detrimental to your business if you are a website owner.

When you buy a domain, you do not gain exclusive rights to the domain forever. In order to continue using the domain, a certain fee has to be paid on a regular basis. Once registered for a domain, the owner can publish his website himself or hire a web designer to do the task for him. Thus, the costs associated with websites can be pretty huge at times.The maintenance of a website involves another aspect of the virtual world known as website hosting.This involves all the aspect associated with a website that is integral to its efficient functioning.Services which specialize in website hosting provide a multitude of services such as the filtering of external threats, while efficiently handling traffic. Other aspects involved with hosting are the maintenance of servers and soft wares that automate the entire procedure of maintaining a website. While it may sound simple, website hosting is a complex process that is intricately connected to the complex virtual world. An excessive inflow of traffic often leads to the website crashing. This occurs due to the inability of the servers to handle such a large amount of traffic.

Domain registration is another complex process that involves the assignment of a specific IP address and name to a website. This naming has to often comply with the set protocols that are associated with website names. Also, due to the limited availability of certain names, services that offer domain registration often charge a higher rate for certain rates.

While in most cases it is usual to be registered under the same service for domain registration and web hosting, it is often not advisable. The virtual world is a very intricately woven web of complex entities. A failure of one will often lead to a domino effect. As such if a domain registration website fails, you are bound to feel the ripple effects of the fall. This often presents itself through a website's downtime. And since the web hosting service is also undertaken by the service provider, this results in the total downfall of the website. If this is the main source of revenue for the website owner, it often leads to a complete loss of capital investment.

While web hosting and domain registration are two services that are necessary for the efficient set up and execution of an internet business, it is often necessary to scout out the best service providers. This not only protects you from the losses that are associated with server crashes, it is also inherent to the profitability and revenues of the internet business.

Article Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/1504844/website-hosting-and-the-domain-registration-process.htm  By will smithbwit

Tips for Domain Names Search

Every successful online business venture today starts with a thorough domain names search. A domain name helps represents a company, small business or freelance professional. A domain name also helps bring more traffic to your site and represents your brand. The domain name also serves as a signpost on a busy alley and the name that you want your customers to remember for them to come back to your business. Choosing a business name is one of the most important business decisions that will affect your company for a long time. Here are three easy tips to help you find the right domain name for your business.

Domain Names Search Tip #1: Draft a short and simple domain name.

A domain name that is filled with too many words or one with overly creative word spellings will do little for your business since potential clients will not be able to remember your website address. The shorter your chosen domain name, the easier it will be for your clients to recall and remember. In this highly technological and internet savvy world, it is crucial that you make it easy for people to refer your company site. Get a domain name that sticks to people's heads and very easy to remember.

Domain Names Search Tip #2: Incorporate keywords in your domain name.

A keyword rich domain name makes your site more search engine-friendly. Search engines like Yahoo!, Bing and Google are awesome place to advertise your business. An online marketing plan begins with a keyword search. Try to incorporate 3 keywords into your domain name. There are free online tools today to help you with the search such as Google Adwords Tool. Many experts recommend that you don't go beyond the 4 word phrase. You don't want your domain name to be too long nor too short.

Domain Names Search Tip #3: Get a relevant domain name.

Draft a domain name that is relevant to your industry or the services/product you are selling. At this time, you need to think what people may need from your store. For instance, if you are planning to be a distributor for mobile phone accessories, you can have a domain name that is spelled as mobilephoneaccessories.com. Make sure you check the competition as well. You don't want to compete with big businesses that are using the keywords that you intend to us, especially the ones with thousands of back-links anymore.

Shop around for the best domain registrars with great deals. Make sure you check and review the company before signing up for a deal. Selecting a domain name is a crucial part in your marketing strategy and is something that shouldn't be taken lightly. Always remember the 3 S in getting a domain name- short, SEO friendly and significant. Choose a domain name that represents your business, brand and image. This is a good foundation for future sales. The future success of your online marketing strategy will depend on a good domain names search.

Article Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/1033650/3-easy-tips-for-a-domain-names-search.htm

Choosing a Domain Name

Domain names are the first step in implementing your Internet marketing business plan. Domain name represents your brand. Many people know very well the importance of brand in the “offline” but even those can make mistakes in their Internet brand management. Domain name is the first step in successful Internet brand management.

It is not easy to register a good domain name (especially dot com), these days. According to domain name statistics on the most popular web site for whois searches Whois Source there are more than 57 million active generic top level domains registered as of September, 2005. Majority of these domain names are .com names. You can view this statistics if you visit http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/

It is sure that you can’t register a classy one-word domain name but with a little knowledge and appropriate services you can find a decent one, especially if you are not interested only in .com names. Useful site for finding decent domains is above mentioned Whois Source - http://www.whois.sc There you will find a free service that will give you 20 domain suggestions based on your keyword. Also, on the Internet you can find software that focus on domain names. Using free software Domain Name Analyzer you can make a list of domain names and this software will check availability of all included domains so you won’t have to check one-by-one which is time-consuming. Also this program will give you useful suggestions.

Another useful thing in find decent domain names is using expired domain name or back-ordering services. Using the first service you will get the list of expired domain names where you can find some really nice names with a little luck. However, it is not easy because many people use those services and some companies have special infrastructure that check availability of certain domain names every second and register them. You will have better chance to get your desired domain using back-ordering services. These services will monitor for domains you want to register and once they expire they will make register them on your behalf. Popular services are SnapNames.com and Pool.com.

It is recommended that your domain name be short, catchy, brandable and most important – easy to remember! You can register a domain name that has no obvious connections with your business but that is cool. Then you will have to invest more money in branding. With good domain name you will save thousand and thousand dollars in advertising, especially in TV advertising. If you are an email marketer domains are also very important because getting email subscribers without well designed web site is not recommended. It is recommended that the name of your domain be the same like your email newsletter name. You can make “teaser” articles in your email newsletter so that your readers will have to visit your web site in order to read complete articles and vice-versa. You can put “teaser” articles on your web site and require that people subscribe to your email newsletter to read complete articles.

Also, in order to find out popularity of certain keyword combinations you can use keyword suggestion services. We can recommend you these services:

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox

Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

You can use Google, enter your keyword combination and see how much results you will get.

If you are in process of registering a domain name we can suggest you these two great companies:

Go Daddy – http://www.godaddy.com

Namecheap – http://www.namecheap.com

Internet brand management

We will take our company Infacta, Ltd. as an example. Infacta is Ireland-based company so it is logical that we registered http://www.infacta.ie. However, although we are Ireland-based company we focus globally. This can prove the fact that we have clients in more than 130 countries world-wide. So, it is also logical that we have a domain name in .com extension, too. Dot com domain name is considered as a global domain name for companies. Many people think that it is enough to have 2 domain names. For successful Internet brand management it is not enough. Beside, .ie and .com domains, Infacta owns domains in all major generic top level domain extensions (gtld) like .net, .org and .info. This is to prevent people or companies to use other Infacta name in other extensions that can confuse our customers and make harm to our brand. Beside that, we registered domain names for our products GroupMail and GroupMetrics in different domain extensions. Other famous companies have literally hundred and even thousand domains in their portfolio for each country where they have a presence and for their services. That is called a professional brand management.

There is also one more thing that can show how serious one company is regarding their domain names and Internet presence, in general. That is domain expiration date. Domain names expire. After that (preferably before that) date domain owners have to renew them. When you make whois inquiry about certain domain name, for example at http://www.whois.sc , beside registrant info you will see an expiration date. Imagine that you want to see an expiration date of your email marketing software company and you see that the expiration date is the next year or even this year. This doesn’t sound promising if you want a reliable business partner that will be in the business in the next 10 years, too, that you can count on. It is not only important because of whois searches and credibility, it is important because of search engines. Google gives better placement for companies that have domains registered for longer period. It is a sure indicator that it is a stable business and that they won’t go anywhere. Infacta domain name http://www.infacta.com expires in 2011.

There are some services that can help you in Internet brand management, to monitor that someone else is not using your trademarked names. One of those companies that offer brand monitoring services is NameProtect, Inc. at http://www.nameprotect.com Also, it is highly recommended that before you register your domain name to visit http://www.uspto.gov to check if your name that you want to register has been trademarked to avoid possible problem and law suits later. USPTO is official web site of the United States Government for patents and trademarks. Here you can also register your patent, trademark or service mark.

If your company’s name has a good, generic name and you want to register a domain, it is most likely that the .com domain will be taken. Sometimes, it is good choice to buy it from the actual owner. Also, you can buy domain names that are highly connected with your products and services and that will help you in Internet marketing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/85319 By Dejan Bizinger 

Domain Name Registration Process

It might be your first time to grab a domain name so your are looking for domain name registration process guide. It's a good thing that you made it here because today, I'll be providing those steps on how to do that. Well, domain name registration might be a bit intimidating at first but it is actually simple and easy. The process might differ a bit from one domain name store to the other but all have the same processes in general. I personally bought my domain names from godaddy so the steps I'm showing you here is the steps being done there. I also tried buying a domain name once from name cheap and the stesp are almost the same anyway. Godaddy just have more complicated ways by offering a lot of products from them but you don't have to worry about those things if you only plan to buy a domain name.

Steps on Registering a Domain Name at Godaddy

1. Choose a Rich Keyword or Domain Name that You Can Brand

I know that I don't have to say this because I'm sure that you already have a domain name in your mind that you wanted to buy. I just want to remind it however because once you bought a domain name, you cannot undo it and choose another one again. So before going there, make up you mind and do the final decision.

2. Search for the Available Domain Name

In the godaddy home page, you can see a blank provided for you to type the desired domain name you wanted to register. Just type it in there and then click search. It will then tell you if the domain name is available or not. If the .com is not available then try .org or .net. You can even grab other domain name extensions such as .info, .biz, etc. It is however hard to rank well in google if you get those as extensions. So if the .com, .org, or .net are no longer available for the domain name you wanted, try researching for other terms of try adding a character or a word to it. In fact, godaddy is even suggesting domain names in case the one you are searching is not available anymore.

3. Add and Continue

Once you had a desired domain name already which is available, just hit add and then continue to registration. Godaddy is great but they keep on offering you stuffs but you don't have to take them all for now. They will offer you bulk registration but if you only planned to buy a single domain name then just click continue to registration again.

4. Fill Up Contact Information

The next step then is for you to fill up your contact information for you to sign up at godaddy. You will just need to do this though if it's your first time to buy a domain name from them. Feel free to spend some time for it now then and the next time you buy a domain name from them, you just have to log in to your account.

5. Length of Registration

After signing up, you then need to choose the length of registration of your domain. You can choose from 1 - 10 years. I normally just choose one year but you can go higher if you have more budget.

6. Ignore Privacy Options and Click "next"

Again, they will offer you privacy options here but just leave it as it is and click "next."

7. Skip Other Offers

They will then offer you email accounts and hosting and what not but you just have to ignore those things for now unless you wanted to host your website at godaddy (I suggest you host it at Hostgator however).

8. Buy it

Finally, here you are in the "cashier." Just double check your payment information such as credit card number (I use paypal though so that's not a concern for me). Just click the check box for "I have read and agree to the terms and condition" then click place order now. There you have it!

9. DNS Settings

There is one last thing you still have to do though. If you purchased the hosting plan at Hostgator as I suggested, they will send you an email that contains the DNS settings for your site. Once you received that, go back to godaddy and click "my account" menu. In there, you can see the domain name you just bought. Click the "manage domain name" and click the DNS settings. Enter the DNS you got from Hostgator in the 2 DNS fields.

I know that the steps look like too long and it's a bit confusing at first but don't panic. It is actually simple once you do it. I hope you now learned the steps on how to register a domain name. Wishing your website a success with the domain name you are planning to start with.

Article Source: http://www.streetarticles.com/web-hosting/domain-name-registration-process-guide By chamberlane altatis