What Domain Extension

Posted by Average Joe on January 25, 2009 under Domains | Be the First to Comment

When getting ready to setup a website, one of the more important things that you need to do is register a domain name. Ordinarily this should be a fairly simple task of finding a name that is available and registering it. However you do happen to have some choices, on what should come after your name (eg www.yourname.***) Specifically the ‘***” in the example.

For the most part this is defined as the country code or what identifies the country the domain is registered in. However this is not always the case, for example a .com domain can be registered by anyone. Where as a .com.au domain can only be registered by a business in Australia. So choosing the correct domain can be important from a business stand point, however from a personal point of view maybe not so much.

.COM

.com is by far the most popular domain extension, as such there is getting an ever decreasing available range of name available, unless you like getting a long name. This is not to say that your name or business name is not available it is always worth checking. For personal or business sites, this can be a good option for their domain.

.NET

While not as popular as .com, it is another option, as long as you do your marketing right the difference between .com and .net should be negligible.

.COM.**

There are many country independent domain names such as .com.au, .co.uk, .co.nz, etc. These are designed often for business specific use within the country designated and as such often carry rules and such defining who and how they area used. If you are operating a business within one country then this could be your best option as it is often a way locals can differentiate a local or international business.

OTHERS

There are many other domain name extensions, all with varying degree’s of usability, some are specific to a type of content eg .mobi, for mobile content, or .tv for TV content. But at the end of the day most of these are not going to even in consideration for you at the start.

WHERE TO START

The best place for you to start is to see if your preferred domain is available in .com or .net it is usually the easiest and generally most affordable. On occasion you can find some of the less common domain extensions, like .info on sale for as little as $1 – $2 and this could also be a good way to get a taste for the world of creating your own website. Really it comes down to if you don’t try it you will never know what you could be missing out on.