Domain names - what are they?

The Internet actually uses long and hard to remember numbers as a method of uniquely identifying web sites. To help make the Internet a lot more user friendly domain names are used as a way of tagging the identification numbers. By registering your domain name you can help people to find your site by using your trading name ie: www.yourcompany.com. Some search engines also rank web sites by the keywords within your domain name so it's important to find names that closely match (if not exactly match) your organisation's service or trading name.

As soon as your domain name is registered it cannot be copied by anyone else, but it is often prudent to register other suffixes such as .com, .net, .co.uk, .plc.uk and .ltd.uk as any suffix you don't own is free to be taken by other parties. Your domain name will remain yours so long as you continue to pay the small annual or biannual renewal fees.

Registering your domain name is obviously only the starting point to setting up your web site, Zoom-online can also help and advise you with your website design and site hosting requirements.