Web Text Assignment

Setting up a Domain

When you purchase a domain name, what you are really purchasing is an alias that will be automatically forwarded to your physical server.
The first step in setting up a web site is buying the domain name from a domain name provider. Two popular, reliable, and easy-to-use providers are:

http://www.domaindirect.com
http://www.register.com

Here, we’ll look at the process of purchasing a domain name from domaindirect.com. First, enter the domain name in the search field. If the domain name isn’t yet assigned, a screen showing its availability appears. Click on the name, which then brings up a screen that allows you to choose a level of service.
If all you need for the moment is to reserve the name for your future use, choose “Domain Parking.” A full-service account that includes domain forwarding and email is called a “Personal Identity Account.” Other, more expensive, levels of service might include web site hosting, additional email accounts, and online HTML editors geared to beginners.
Regardless of which level you choose, make sure it includes a sufficient quantity of both sub-domain and email address forwards for your current use. You can upgrade to accounts with additional features at any time.
Another available feature for domain forwarding is URL hiding. Enabling URL hiding effectively obscures the site’s physical URL from visitors, instead substituting your virtual URL alias.
Although URL hiding can make your site appear more professional, there are several potential “gotchas”:

Any external pages opened from your site will appear to be from your URL.
Any bookmarks a visitor saves for your site will refer back to your home page.
Security issues and incompatibility with some web hosting sites.

As mentioned earlier, you might want to set up forwarding for email accounts as well. This way you can route emails by name or by function.
You might want to consider purchasing similar names or frequent misspellings to your chosen domain name. After all, potential visitors might be bad spellers.
All the discussion so far has been on purchasing a domain name that isn’t currently owned by anyone. But what if you discover that the domain name you want is already spoken for?
If your intended domain name is already owned, you don’t have to abandon that URL. If the URL is owned but not in use, the owners may have abandoned the site. You can either:

Wait for the domain name to expire
Contact the owners to see if they want to sell it.

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