Your domain name is same as "www.yoursitename.com". It's also known as your URL or Website Address.

For example, www.webmastercourse.com is my site's domain name or my web address.

The domain name must be registered and approved before you can call it your own. The reason it works this way is because two websites having same domain name cannot reside online at same time. If someone types in www.webmastercourse.com, he/she will go to my website and no one else's.

Registering your domain name and awaiting approval gives registration company opportunity to check with every other company around world to be sure no one else has already applied for your domain name "first."

It normally takes 2 to 3 days to receive confirmation of your domain name.

If you haven't registered your own domain name yet, please take following tips into consideration before doing so.

Your domain name can affect number of repeat visitors to your website.

Here's How:

1. Visitors will only remember your domain name for a future visit if it is easy to remember.

Which of two domain names below would you more likely remember?

http://www.webmastercourse.com/ or http://www.web-designer-training-course-part-1-learn.com/

Don't think it can happen to you? It has already happened to many small and large businesses. They waited until last minute, business got so busy that they forgot altogether, or an error occurred with registrar company and before these businesses knew it, someone had come along and snatched up their domain name, right out from under them.

One business man had close to two weeks to re-register his domain name, so he went online to make a payment and renew domain for a few more years. However, something happened with his domain host that prevented him from making a payment online, so he called company and asked them to take care of it. He gave them all necessary information and paid with his credit card, by phone. Thinking problem was solved, he went about his daily business. A week later, his domain name "officially" expired and someone purchased it right out from under him! All that work, gone!

A work at home mom had a fairly successful online business, but for whatever reason, didn't get her domain registered before deadline. Know what happened to her site? A porn site snatched it up.

Others have lost their domain names due to harvesting software programs that now let others know second your domain name is vulnerable.

Talk about a WAKE UP CALL! If you have a domain name, register it at least a few months in advance of it's expiration date. That way, if anything does go hay wire, you have time to fix it before you lose your domain name.