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How to Link a Domain Name to Your Web Host (or Website)

by Sai Arunachalam | Follow him on Twitter here
Pointing Domain Names
Pointing Domain Names

Point a Domain Name

You have a domain name.

You have web hosting.

You want to “connect” or point your domain name to your web hosting account. And then start building your website.

Neat.

We’ll see how to do that in this article.

Just one small digression though. I sometimes see beginners asking on forums whether they need web hosting in order to create a website. Some of them tend to think that a domain name is all that is needed for a website. Let’s clear the confusion before we venture ahead.

Well, you do need web hosting. Your website is in reality a collection of web pages (or files). In order to keep these website files and make them accessible to anyone on the internet, you need space on a web server. A web server is a powerful computer that is connected to the internet 24×7 often through high bandwidth infrastructure. This space on a web server is provided to you by web hosting companies.

A domain name is just a name, nothing more.

However, there are free blogging and other services like wordpress.com, Tumblr and Blogger that allow you to create a blog or a site on their own web servers.… ...Continue Reading

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How to Register a Domain Name

by Sai Arunachalam | Follow him on Twitter here
Domain Registration
Domain Registration

Registering a Domain Name

Getting a domain name is the first step in launching a website. It plays a central part – it’s what visitors use to reach your website. It has to be unique (and hopefully easy to remember) and once you start a website, you won’t usually change it’s domain name for the website’s lifetime.

The most popular domain name extension (the ending of a domain name) is .com (“dot com”). There are a whole lot of other domain extensions like .net, .org, .co.uk and so on. Formally, these domain extensions are called Top Level Domains (TLD).

Each of these domain extensions carries a meaning: .com stands for ‘company’ or ‘commercial’, .net stands for ‘network’ and .org stands for ‘organisation’. There are also extensions which represent country or geographical regions. For example, .co.uk represents UK, .com.au stands for Australia, .de stands for Germany, co.in stands for India and so on. These country/region specific TLDs are called ccTLDs (“country code top level domains”).

You should decide on what extension you want before you register a domain name. For example, abc.com is a different domain from abc.net or abc.co.uk and hence each of these domain names could lead to different websites and could be owned by different people.… ...Continue Reading

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The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Domain Name

by Sai Arunachalam | Follow him on Twitter here
Choosing a Domain Name
Choosing a Domain Name

The Domain Name Dilemma

…for your business, personal website or your cat’s online journal.

The domain name is an important aspect of any website. It’s like a person’s name. Once made official, you’re pretty much stuck with it for life (or the website’s life). Changing it in the midst is possible, but comes with a truckload of issues.

That makes it only reasonable that you put in some diligent thought in choosing a good domain name for your website.

This article, I hope, will help you do that.

One point though. There are no hard rules or laws that determine the goodness of a domain name. There is no science behind it. There are only guidelines, or more correctly, opinions. This article has mine. Ultimately it’s what you make it to be.

Things evolve over time. The world of domain names has changed a lot in the past decade and it will in the next one as well. New trends will emerge. Rules will change.

That said, I do believe that these factors have the potential to give an initial edge to your website and to make a positive difference to it’s success.

Sometimes, the importance of a guideline also varies depending upon the type of website you want to create.… ...Continue Reading

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Posted in Opinion

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About

I help non-techie beginners, solopreneurs and small-businesses to create their own websites.

My name is Sai. I graduated with a bachelors in computer science and engineering in 2004. Leaving an offer from Microsoft on the table, I joined a tech software company... Read more