Why should I register a domain name?

Imagine you have NO name. How would your friends, relatives and business partners identify you although you are physically present? It's the same on web if you or your business would like to be identified uniquely on the web. All computers (or servers where your websites are hosted) are usually assigned a unique IP address by the ISPs. Since, it would be a sin to ask your customers, friends and relatives to remember the IP address (ex: 212.140.189.19), it is always a better idea to register a domain name (ex: www.tesco.co.uk) which will also grow your brand image. After all, it is usually a very inexpensive service costing you lesser than €10 per annum usually for most of the domain names in the world.

There are three big reasons for registering your own domain name NOW:

• Some search engines won't list you until you do
• Credibility - People are more likely to buy if you have your own domain name. For instance, http://www.geocities.com/jack-electricals doesn't look as credible as http://www.jack-electricals.co.uk
• Portability - You can change your web hosting provider without messing up all your Search Engine listings you had generated until then.

So it's never a bad idea to register your own domain name right now to promote your web presence.

How does a domain name work?

Domain names are simply host names that provide easy-to-remember names for numerical IP address. They also pave way to move your services (websites, emails or any other online services) to move to a different Internet location. Your customers, partners and others will never need to worry about such hassles if you provide them with a standard domain name. All these transfers will happen in the backend if you register and promote your domain name rather than a raw numerical IP address. You can use our simple Control Panel to indicate where your domain name must point on the Web. We are happy to do the rest on your behalf.

Err...what is the difference between a domain name, host name, web address, URL and an IP address?

Ok, let’s take an example www.qwikisoft.com

Domain Name : www.qwikisoft.com

Domain Names, as such, have no meaning. It is a stage when you have just registered a name with a domain name provider

Host Name :www.qwikisoft.com

Domain Name + IP address. It is a stage when your domain name is bound to a particular IP address

URL :http://www.qwikisoft.com/

It’s simple. Host Name + Protocol. To be much simpler, it’s the string that you see on your browser’s address bar. Typical protocols, which you might come across, include HTTP, HTTPS and FTP

Web Address :http://www.qwikisoft.com/

It’s exactly same an URL

IP Address :212.140.189.19

It’s a numerical representation of your website instead of a domain name. Warning: IP Addresses will NOT work as you wish on “Shared Hosting” services unless your website is the default website of your hosting provider.

What are the rules for a domain name?

It is important for you to know some of the fundamental rules and regulations when naming your domain name. Some of the important terminologies and rules governing domain names include:

1. Labels: Each string of letters, digits or hyphens between the dots is called a label in the context of Domain Name System (DNS)
2. Every domain name ends in a generic top-level domain name (gTLD), which is usually a small list of generic names (two or more characters like .uk, .com, .net etc)
3. All country code top level domain names (ccTLD) will have additional representations such as “.co.uk” where “co” is a representation of a commercial organization related to United Kingdom.
4. Each label in a domain name must be between 1 and 63 characters long (inclusive).
5. Labels usually start with a letter (A-Z and a-z) and end with a letter or a digit. The intervening characters may be letters, digits, or hyphens.
6. Domain Names are case-insensitive in nature. For instance, www.Qwikisoft.com, www.QWIKISOFT.com, www.qwikisoft.co.IN, www.qwikisoft.com and any such combination will all mean the same.