| | | Choosing a Domain Name | Domain names, like yahoo.com, give customers an easy way to
remember how to find you.
Yahoo! Site can automatically apply for, serve, do web hosting, and
forward email for .com, .net, .org, and .edu domain names.
Yahoo! Site also provides email forwarding for domain names
you register through your Site account.
Network Solutions
currently charges $70 to register a domain
name, and $35 per year after the second year. If you have your
own domain name, you will receive a separate bill from Network Solutions.
- What makes a good domain name?
- A good domain name should be easy to remember, easy to spell,
and preferably short.
The name of your company is always a good choice.
Someone looking for new tires is not going to try just going to
www.tires.com.
But that's an address that can be remembered if it's printed on a catalog,
or mentioned by a friend, or if a customer came across it while surfing but didn't
bookmark it.
- What characters are allowed?
- Only letters, numbers, and the hyphen. Warning:
some software works incorrectly for domain
names starting with a digit.
Names longer than 36 characters (including the .com) will be rejected by Network Solutions.
- What's the difference between http://foo.com and http://www.foo.com?
- Not a lot. We make both
work. You can advertise whichever one you like the best.
- Do I need to put the http:// on?
- Probably not. Most web sites just advertise www.foo.com.
The www. is a good enough clue to people that it's a web address,
so you don't need to say it.
All popular browsers let you simply type www.foo.com into the
URL window.
- Should I use a hyphen?
- Some do, some don't. dean-deluca.com does, but
internationalmale.com doesn't.
If either one makes sense, consider taking both (but only
publicize one!) It protects you against someone else taking the other
version and stealing viewership intended for your site, and people
will be able to find your site even if they misremember whether or not
it had a hyphen.
If there are multiple spellings for a word, consider taking them
too.
- Should I get a lot of domain names?
-
The only real reason to get multiple domains names is to cover alternate
spellings. If you have multiple domain names for any other reason, you are
probably just confusing your visitors.
|
|
