Domains Explained
One of the most important requirements for setting up a successful online presence is the domain name. It is what visitors will observe first when they come across your site and what they will associate you with. The domain name should be easy to memorize, but should also be something that informs your site's visitors what the web site is about.
Generic Top-Level Domain Names (gTLDs)
We offer more than 130 tlds
A domain name usually contains 2 components - a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). If you have domain.com, for example, ".com" is the Top-Level Domain and "domain" is the SLD. There are a few groups of Top-Level Domains that you should consider before you select the domain name you desire. Your decision should depend on the purpose of your web site and on its target visitors. Let's examine the gTLDs, or generic TLDs - these are the most typical Top-Level Domains aimed to designate a given purpose - .com (commercial establishments), .net (networks), .biz (corporations), .info (informational web pages), .org (non-profit organizations), .mobi (mobile devices), .asia (the Asia Pacific region), .name (individuals or families), .pro (specific walks of life), etc. As you can see, these TLDs cover most realms of life, so you should opt for the one that would show the intention of your site best. There is no restriction as to who can register such domain names, but some of them involve extra procedures to demonstrate that you qualify to possess such a domain (.mobi and .pro, for instance).
Country-code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)
The ccTLDs, or country-code TLDs, are country-specific domains. Each country has its own ccTLD. Opting for such a domain name is good if your target group of visitors is from a certain country. Many visitors would want to purchase goods or services from a local website, and if your aim is Canada, for example, settling on a .ca domain name could increase the visits to your web page.
Domain Redirection
You can register a bunch of Top-Level Domains, which can forward your website's visitors to a given web site like domain.com, for instance. This would increase the traffic and lower the risk of somebody pinching your site visitors by registering the same name with a different TLD - if you are not using a trademark.
Name Servers (NSs)
Each Top-Level Domain has domain name records. The name server records (NS records, a.k.a. DNS records) specify where the domain name is hosted, in other words they point to the hosting provider whose name servers (NSs, aka DNSs) it is using at the moment. You can alter the name servers of your domain name whenever you wish. You can have your domain registered with one provider and get the hosting service itself from another. Thus, if you register your domain and stumble upon decent website hosting plans somewhere else afterwards, you can point your domain name to the current company's NSs straight away.
Domain Name Server Records (NS Records)
In general, as long as your domain utilizes a certain pair of NSs, all its records will point to the same web hosting firm. Some hosting providers, however, enable you to edit specific domain records, such as the A records and the MX records of your domain name. The A record is an IP address, which discloses on which server your website is hosted, while the MX records specify which server handles the mail aliases related to your domain name. For instance, if you engage a new website designer and he build an .ASP website that will be located on his personal Windows server, you may want to change only the Internet Protocol address (the A record) but not the MX records of your domain. Hence, www.domain.com will point to the Windows hosting server, but your email mailboxes or any sub-domain names such as forum.domain.com or shop.domain.com will still be in your current Linux website hosting account. The .ASP platform is devised by Microsoft and demands a Windows server, even though a Linux server would be far more reliable.
Cut-Rate Top-Level Domain Names Brought by 'Host2net Limited'
Only a number of web hosting providers enable you to modify given records and quite often this an additional paid service. With us, you have a vast variety of Top-Level Domains to select from and you can modify all NS records or redirect the domains using a forwarding tool at no extra cost.