Domain Registration - how to setup domain with DNS, IP Address, web host

Written by Mufad


This article shows how to setup your domain and explains DNS, Nameservers, IP Address, Forwarding, domain registration and trouble shooting.

Introduction and scope
Almost Everyone who knows aboutrepparttar internet knows what a domain name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server. When you send an email to someone@domain.com,repparttar 108290 domain.com formsrepparttar 108291 domain name. When you type in http://domain.com inrepparttar 108292 address bar of your browser,repparttar 108293 domain.com isrepparttar 108294 domain name ofrepparttar 108295 website you are going to see.

But how doesrepparttar 108296 computer know which page to show when there are almost infinite number of domain names possible ? How does it know where to fetchrepparttar 108297 webpage from ? This article answers these question and explains what you need to do to register and setup your domain and tell allrepparttar 108298 computers inrepparttar 108299 world that yourdomain.com should show your web page.

How to choose a domain name ?
There are many top level domains (TLDs)repparttar 108300 most popular arerepparttar 108301 .com, .net and .org – Countries have their own like .us, .in, .ca, .au etc and then there isrepparttar 108302 new breed of domains like .tv, .info, .ws and so o­n butrepparttar 108303 most powerful king of all isrepparttar 108304 .com Why ? Because it came first ? Inrepparttar 108305 domain market, single word domains sell for thousands of dollars and .com costs around 10 times more thanrepparttar 108306 others and is as difficult to get a new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens (dashes) are better for search engine rankings, I think there may be some truth in that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost more thanrepparttar 108307 o­nes with dashes. The best way to register a domain is to determinerepparttar 108308 keywords you are going to target by usingrepparttar 108309 free trial of keyword popularity and competition analysis from wordtracker.com and get a domain with those keywords in it. Another school of thought abandons this approach and advocates brand name domains like yahoo.com instead of everything-portal.com google.com instead of the-only-search-engine.com and ebay.com instead of o­nline-junk-acutions.com - you getrepparttar 108310 picture.

Name Servers Explained
Every computer connected torepparttar 108311 internet has an ip address that looks like 123.234.123.234
An ip address consists of 4 numbers separated by dots, each number ranging from 1 to 255. What this numbers mean is not important for us, all we need to understand is that each computer o­nrepparttar 108312 internet has a unique ip address and ifrepparttar 108313 GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2 o­nrepparttar 108314 internet, it has to knowrepparttar 108315 IP address of R2D2 (name borrowed fromrepparttar 108316 movie Star Wars).
But Wait a minute, does that mean that there are o­nly 256*256*256*256 number of computers that can connect torepparttar 108317 internet, technically yes. But that number is large enough for now until they start connecting ever microwave and freezer torepparttar 108318 internet (imagine your freezer automatically placing an order for 2 liters of milk torepparttar 108319 grocery store when it detects that your milk stock is diminishing!)

OK, now you must be thinking allrepparttar 108320 ip address stuff is fine, but how does it relate to domain names ? Remember that I said "ifrepparttar 108321 GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2, it has to knowrepparttar 108322 IP address of R2D2 " - but all you give to your computer isrepparttar 108323 Domain Name ofrepparttar 108324 website you want to visit, so how can it getrepparttar 108325 ip address ? Enterrepparttar 108326 NameServer.

The job of a nameserver is to resolve a domain name to an ip address. Simple.

A nameserver is similar to a telephone directory except that instead of mapping person names to phone numbers, it maps domain names to ip addresses.

Imagine having just o­ne telephone directory for allrepparttar 108327 people inrepparttar 108328 world ! Inrepparttar 108329 same way, if they had just o­ne nameserver for all domains, it would be unmanageably huge and allrepparttar 108330 computers would have to contact that o­ne nameserver to getrepparttar 108331 domains resolved to ip addresses ! Even a super-duper-mega-monster-computer would not be able to handle such a load !

So we have many nameservers. When you register a domain, you specify which name server to use.

Now lets take our example
GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2
It will have to follow these steps
1> Look atrepparttar 108332 registrar entry for R2D2 to determine which nameserver to use
2> Connect to that nameserver and ask it forrepparttar 108333 ip address of R2D2
3> Connect to R2D2 using this IP address

In reality it is a bit more complicated due nameserver cacheing, and chained recursive lookups leading to authoritative and non authoritative responses but our example illustratesrepparttar 108334 basic concept and is sufficient knowledge to setup your domain.

One misconception that I would like to clarify, some people think that each domain name maps to a unique ip address, not true. Just as many people in a house can share a single telephone number, many domain names can share a single ip address. The NameServer will returnrepparttar 108335 same ip address for all of these domains and whenrepparttar 108336 browser connects to that ip address, it says I am trying to reach suchandsuch.com domain,repparttar 108337 webserver then returnsrepparttar 108338 correct page forrepparttar 108339 domain requested. Obtaining a unique ip address (known as dedicated ip) for your website is usually more expensive than sharingrepparttar 108340 ip address.


How to setup your domain name
Formrepparttar 108341 discussion we just had, you would be able to appreciate that in order for you to get your domain to point to your webpage, you need to dorepparttar 108342 following in theory

1> Obtainrepparttar 108343 ip address forrepparttar 108344 web host where your WebPages reside - this isrepparttar 108345 webserver ip
2> Make an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve your domain name to this ip address.
3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver

Most ofrepparttar 108346 time, step 2 will be transparent to you as most webservers provide nameservers in which they makerepparttar 108347 DNS entry for you when you purchase webspace from them. Also, many good domain registrars provide their own nameservers that you can use.

While registering a domain or after registering a domain, you will need to set it up to use two or more nameservers. It is common to use multiple nameservers so that if o­ne of them is downrepparttar 108348 others may be used.

You have three options to setrepparttar 108349 nameservers

  • 1> nameserver provided by your web host
    Your webhost will usually have

Free eBook: Business Domain Names

Written by Steve Baba


Since every website needs a name, Dr. Steve Baba has written a free ebook that will help you obtain a brandable, memorable domain name at a reasonable cost, which will contribute to your brand equity and profits. The ebook, downloadable from Seemly.com, explains how to select and buy an elite domain name. You will be able to obtain a better name than your competitors have.

There are at least 10,000 words in a dictionary that would make great domain names plus at least 10,000 proper names and 10,000 great short coined-words. With a supply of 30,000 great names and millions of good names, obtaining a good name is easy.

There is no need to pay more than a few thousand dollars for a great one-word domain name, and many good domain names are available for free. This book provides you withrepparttar information needed to beat domain name speculators at their games.

Both naming methodology to identify great domain names and negotiating/purchasing methods to obtain great domain names at low prices are covered. After a couple of introductory sections,repparttar 108289 book starts with domain naming goals orrepparttar 108290 criteria for choosing a great domain name: image, memorability, trademark-legal, and price. Then quality domain naming strategies are discussed. Inferior domain naming styles, which you want to avoid, are then discussed. The second half of this book explains how to buy a great domain name. Auctions, expired domains, speculators, and other sources are discussed. Finally, many other topics are expanded on.

Steve Baba has a Ph.D. in Economics and ebusiness experience. The ebook on domain names is available at www.seemly.com, for free. No registration is required. The ebook is a PDF file of approximately 250K. The free ebook is advertising supported. The following paragraphs are book excerpts. Generic names, arbitrary dictionary words, coined or made-up words, modified generic names (generic plus) and unrelated two-word names are quality domain naming strategies. But, each quality strategy has strengths and weaknesses. There is no such thing as a perfect name. Generic names are highly controversial and expensive. Examples of generic names are Hotels.com, Shoes.com and Furniture.com. The generic name strategy was always controversial and peaked duringrepparttar 108291 dotcom bubble. The generic naming strategy is virtually never used offline, but a very few small stores do business under generic names such asrepparttar 108292 “Mattress Store” in Annapolis, Maryland. Offline, anyone can userepparttar 108293 same generic name and open a store name “Mattress Store.” Online, ownership ofrepparttar 108294 domain name MattressStore.com can only prevent competitors from usingrepparttar 108295 same exact domain name. Since, generic names cannot be trademarked, competitors can use Hotels.NET, Rooms.com, Hotelrooms.com, Motels.com, Hotel.com (singular), Inns.com Hotels.us, and so on. Often, there are a half dozen simple generic names for each industry not to mention generic names with a prefix (e, i) or suffix such as eHotels.com. Since competitors can use similar generic names, developing a distinct, memorable brand is difficult. Memorability orrepparttar 108296 need to spend less on advertising is often an argument for high domain name prices – but this argument is only half true. Atrepparttar 108297 same time, with only a few first-rate generic names in each industry,repparttar 108298 generic domain names may be unavailable or overpriced, and are rarely bargain-priced. A generic name also hampers brand extension beyondrepparttar 108299 generic category – Hotels.com selling plane tickets? Another quality strategy is unrelated, arbitrary dictionary words. Examples of unrelated dictionary word names include Amazon.com Yahoo.com, Google.com, Target and Staples. Bothrepparttar 108300 words yahoo and google are inrepparttar 108301 Oxford dictionary, but were rarely used prior to becoming famous brands. Compared to generic names, it was not immediately obvious what business Amazon, Yahoo or Google was in. Onrepparttar 108302 other hand, Yahoo can legally prevent competitors from using similar names such as FreeHoo via trademark laws. SearchEngine.com would berepparttar 108303 generic name for Google. “Fast” and “All The Web” are used as trademarks by another search engine. But “fast” and “allrepparttar 108304 web” are not unrelated or arbitrary. Other search engines can also claim to be fast, speedy, quick,repparttar 108305 entire web, or something similar.

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