Why Do You Require a Domain?
This is an issue I broach because of the fact that one week ago my boss proposed the idea of launching a web site for our new project. That itself is not a problem, the problem is that he needs a web site, but has not made a decision yet about what it should look like, what it should encompass, etc. All that he told me was the name of the web site - its domain. Thus, we now have a web address for a yet-to-be-set-up web site and nothing more.
The Domain
Each web site is hosted on a physical machine. That physical machine has its own physical address, popular also as an IP address. Reaching a website by typing the IP of the physical machine in your browser, though, is not the best and most convenient thing to do, so that was how and why domain names came into being. Therefore, a domain corresponds to an IP on the Internet. After it has been registered, of course.
Registering a Domain Name
To register a cheap domain, you first have to find a domain registrar. NTCHosting offers an optimal solution for my current and prospective projects - they provide a Domain Manager plan, which can be effortlessly upgraded to a hosting plan later on - when my boss eventually determines what objective the site will serve.
So, to register a domain name, you have to select a name for your web site. Then, you need to select a top-level domain name - this is what comes after the dot. For example, in 'wiki.com', '.com' is the top-level domain name (TLD). Clearly, '.com' is short for 'company', '.net' is short for 'network', '.org' is short for 'organization', and so on and so forth.
After you've chosen your domain name and your future domain name registration provider, you need to determine whether the domain name you would like to register is free, because somebody else might have grabbed it before you, however unpleasant it might be. Each domain name registration company, including NTCHosting, has a functionality at their sign-up page, which checks the availability of a particular domain name. To go on with the registration of a domain name, you have to specify some domain registrant info - the personal name, the place of residence, the email and the telephone number of the registrant of the domain name.
You've Registered a Domain... Now What?
I registered .com, .net, .name and .eu domain names for our venture, according to the wish of my still-unsure-about-the-purpose-of-the-future-website boss. I tested the domain management interface NTCHosting is offering and found it extremely convenient - everything is logically organized and, from what I noticed in the web hosting CP demo at their website, once we upgrade to a budget web hosting plan, it will stay the same, but with many more functionalities. This, thank heavens, will spare me quite a lot of discomfort from having to administer my domain and web hosting user account separately. So, while waiting for the boss to reach a decision about at least what the website should contain, I was pleased to find that the domain name management interface contains DNS administration and domain name renewal options, and - a very convenient feature (!) - a parked domain template, which I resorted to in order to create a "Coming Soon" page for our domains.
Country-Specific Top-Level Domain Names
I was very pleased to discover that NTCHosting is offering numerous country-code top-level domain names, as the project the site is aimed for is multinational. Country-code Top-Level Domains are handed over to national registry operators, which allow domain registration providers to register cheap domain names, typically at prices that are cheaper than those offered to the end clients. There are a lot of country-specific top-level domain names: .co.uk for the United Kingdom, .me for Montenegro, .se for Sweden, .us for the USA, .ca for Canada, .com.au for Australia, etc. This, I suppose, will make my boss happy because we will be able to create a local version of the web site for each country where the project will be introduced.