Choosing a domain name

[mrslickwilly16]

Alirhgt, i'm only 16 and i need a little help choosing a domain name to house my dad's business web page. Can anybody help me find a free and easy domain name? i already have the html code :confused:

[pcthug]

Moved to Domain Names forum.

[Kor]

There is no free domain name. A domain name is like a phone number. You must check first if the domain is or not taken by somebody. If not, you must pay (for a certain period or according to the country's law) for it. Both operations are to be made through a national unique operator. Anyway, you need a host as well, that means a privat firm which will put your site on it's web server and will announce that national unique operator that the domain www.yourdomain.com will have a certain IP address through DNS. The hosting is usually to be paid as well. If paid, the host will usually do the other 2 jobs (domain reservation and the url notification) for you and keep you free for this bureaucratic jobs.

[stacywacy]

Alirhgt, i'm only 16 and i need a little help choosing a domain name to house my dad's business web page. Can anybody help me find a free and easy domain name? i already have the html code :confused:

Well, technically, you can sometimes get a free domain name when you sign a hosting plan with a hosting company. To have your own website you'll have to pay for a hosting provider, for instance my hosting provider is 1and1.com, and there are several others like godaddy.com. They are responsible for making sure your site is on the web.

Now, there are also free hosting providers, if that's what you want. I don't use free hosting, but I'm most familiar with Angelfire and Yahoo's Geocities. I have seen businesses use free hosting, and sometimes they'll host their data at a free site, but do a framed redirect to a domain name they own (I have no idea how that's done). But, if you're hosting a business, then using a free hosting provider is a little unprofessional because you'll usually have to have ads and pop-ups on your site which will annoy your visitors.

My advice for you is to do a little research on it. Assess your needs and do a comparative analysis. In other words: What will you need for your website to fully function? Server side scripting like php or asp? Frontpage extension? A shopping cart? Once you find out what your website will need, shop around and compare different hosting companies that offers those things, and read their contract carefully, because once you agree to it, you can't back out of it without facing the consequences.

Good luck, and when you're finished with your dad's site come back here and ask for a site review. :) Oh, fyi, it's better to have your domain name the same name as your business or something very similar. It's easy for visitors to remember when they type in the web address or need to find it using a search engine; try to make it as easy as possible for people to find and remember your site's domain name.

[Skilom_141]

dot.tk