A novice website creator is among the first to ask what a domain is, why it is needed, where to get it and how to choose it. It is present on absolutely any resource, you just have to raise your eyes to the address bar of the browser. The domain name is the name of the site.
Why is it needed?
As a rule, any World Wide Web site is located on the servers of various hosting companies. These servers, like any computer, have their own unique IP address, which consists of numbers in a certain sequence. To search for a site, you need to know this combination of numbers.
The problem is that there can be a thousand sites on one IP address (server), and it is very difficult to find the right one. For easy navigation on the World Wide Web, they came up with a unique name for each resource. Each site is assigned a unique domain name. This greatly facilitates the search for the required resource.
Rules for creating a domain name
A domain name is a combination of characters. There are certain rules for creating it:
- The length must be between two and sixty-three characters.
- The site's domain name cancontain numbers from 0 to 9.
- It may contain a hyphen, but not at the beginning or end.
- It must not contain spaces.
Any name consists of several parts separated by dots. Each part is domains of different levels. As a rule, three domain levels are used for a site.
Domain levels
They are determined by how many dotted words the name contains. First you need to decide on the audience of the resource and choose a name based on this.
For the first level, they can be divided into two types:
- Domains that represent a geographic location. They show which country they belong to. For example, the.ru domain means that the site belongs to Russia,.ua to Ukraine,.au to Australia,.cz to the Czech Republic, and so on.
- Determining the type of activity. The.org domain indicates that the site is non-commercial,.info is informational,.com is created for commerce.
It is worth noting that this classification is rather conditional, anyone can register in the domain zone. For example, a site ending in.cz might have nothing to do with the Czech Republic, while a site ending in.com might not do business.
Second level domain is the unique name of the site. For example, a.ru site is owned by an organization or individual. By the way, since the names should not be repeated, it is necessary to check the domain name in a certain zone during registration.
Third level - defines a resource within a second-level domain. Basically arefree, but not very popular with professional webmasters.
What level to choose a domain
If the project is long-term and designed to make a profit, then you should choose a second-level domain. Yes, it is paid, but it does not cost that much and eliminates the disadvantages that a third-party domain has. Despite the fact that it is free, it has a number of disadvantages:
- Name gets longer and therefore harder to remember.
- As a rule, it is tied to a specific hosting, if you change the latter, you will also have to change the domain.
- Since all services are free, you cannot demand anything from host owners. Anything can happen to the site, and there will even be no one to present claims to.
The third level of the domain can be chosen if the resource is created in order to try your hand and gain experience.
Also, when choosing, it is worth considering what audience the site is aimed at. If it is Russian-speaking, then you should choose the.ru domain zone. For international or multilingual projects, the best option would be.com.
How to choose a name
A domain name is the business card of a site, so you shouldn't approach the choice carelessly.
Firstly, the more concise the name, the better. The name should be memorable and not too long. The name can indicate the type of activity, for example avto.com, and it will immediately be clear what information the user will find on the page. But ivan.ru does not reveal much about the subject of the site, only if it is not Ivan's personal blog. If thisonline store, then the domain must contain its name. A name that contains the keyword works well.
Secondly, the name in the domain is mainly written in Latin, so you need to make sure that it is displayed correctly and is readable. You should not assume that all users know English, so there may be problems with writing letters that are not in a foreign alphabet (h, u, u, z).
Third, before using words borrowed in English, you need to check their spelling.
Fourthly, it will not be superfluous to check the domain name to see if there are similar names in other zones. It's okay if there are any, but when it is a competitor resource, the user may mistakenly go to someone else's page.
Domain name registration
You only need to register a domain with reliable partners. You should carefully read the documentation and the capabilities of the seller. You don't need to save money, otherwise troubles may arise later. Domain registration, which costs 99 rubles, looks very suspicious, and in the end, after buying it, you can find that, for example, the administration panel is missing. Or for resale, you will need to provide a pile of documents and perform many actions. As a result, a lot of nerves and strength will go away.
