A domain is your identity online. It separates you from everyone else and once you buy it, as long as you keep renewing it, no one else may register it.

There are two parts to a domain – the domain name itself, and the TLD (top level domain) extension, like .com .net or .org.

The most popular TLD is the .com extension – it is synonymous with online business. But due to its popularity, getting a good domain name with '.com' is hard - most have been bought and are not available.

Most TLDs have a meaning behind them - .EDUs are used by educational institutes, and .ORGs are supposed to be used by non-profit organizations. A domain with a TLD of '.ca' is very likely based in Canada. There are other TLDs too, such as .info, .ws, and .biz. These are all associated with either a company or with a country.

A few things to watch for when registering a domain name.

1. Never register a domain name of a copyrighted or trademarked name. eg. Microsoft.bz The portion of the name before the TLD is subject to all laws relating to copyright and trademark. The owner of the name can easily locate you and demand a surrender of the name or ensue with legal actions.

2. Make sure to inquire if the registered domain name is being registered to you. Some hosts will register the name with thier name at the top of the domain record. This give you very limited control over makng changes and transferring the domain name.

3. The information you supply when you purchase a name is publically available, you must provide real information when registering a name. If you do not you do stand a chance of losing your domain name.

4. You will also need to select the term of your domain name in years. If you are unsure about keeping the name a one year registration should do just fine, but there are many companies and services that will provide services to those that want your domain name. If you should forget to renew or make a late payment, you could easily lose your domain name. One last thing about term, registering a doman name for 10+ years does raise a red flag at registrars to look for fraud, make sure your contact information is correct in case they do contact you for verification purposes.

The information you supply when you purchase a name is publically available, you must provide real information when registering a name.

However there are services like Domain By Proxy that will mask your information for a annual fee. They provide you with an anonymous email address among other things. Also when you register names with GoDaddy they provide you with this option.

Domain parking lets you buy a domain and then have a 'coming soon' page on it. This is usually a good thing to have as it does allow for some traffic to build to your site as users type in searches.

Most domain registrars provide this by default.

Consider subdomains as an extension of your domain. For example, your site is www.xyz.com. A subdomain would be abc.xyz.com.

A sub domain is useful when you want to seperate content from your site for other purposes.

Subdomains are usually treated as separate sites from the main domain site.

The maximum length of a domain is 63 signs/characters, excluding the ending (as in ".com"). You can choose all alphabetical letters, numbers as well as the hyphen "-", also sometimes referred to as the "dash" or "minus" sign. The "WWW" you often see on the front of domain names is not part of the domain and special characters (e.g. §,$,%,&,?,=) are not allowed.

WHOIS databases contain contact and registration information for every domain registered with a particular registrar. WHOIS databases are maintained by individual registrars and not by the central registry. For this reason some information may not be up to date or may be misleading. Furthermore, registrars update their databases every 20-48 hours, so registration information regarding a domain name may be misleading.

When a domain is on hold it means that the registration has officially expired, but the domain has not been released for new registration. There are a couple of reasons why the domain may be on hold. Some registrars hold domains for indefinite amounts of times, and there is no way of knowing when the domain will "drop" or become available again for registration. Sometimes registrars allow the former owner some leeway to re-register the domain after the official expiration date. Every registrar operates differently, and it is therefore somewhat of a game figuring out when an expired domain name will be availabe for registration again.

No, domain names are not case sensitive. WWW.DomainName.com is the same as www.domainname.com is the same as www.DOMAINNAME.com - they can never point to different websites.

Top Level Domain. The part of the domain name after the very last period "." Top Level Domains are divided into two categories: gTLDs: General TLDs such as .com, .org, .net and .info, which are not associated with a particular country or region and ccTLDs: TLDs such as .us, .de, .co.uk, .ie, .ca, etc. These TLDs were assigned to geographic locations, however, some, as in the TLD .tv, were sold by their owners (in this case the island of Tuvalu) to corporations to market and sell outside of the country. The TLD .tv has now come to stand for "television" in the Internet.

Yes

Most domain name extensions require a minimum of 2 characters for a domain name, although a few countries have set higher minimums for names registered under their extension.

Most domain name registrars charge from $9-25 per domain name registration for .com, .net and .org names (one year registration period). Many of the more expensive services bundle domain name registrations with other services, such as email forwarding, website pointing and URL redirection, and Under Construction pages. Also, you will frequently find that the more established registrars charge a little more than newer competitors.

Some registrars offer "name only" services, where they do nothing more than register the domain name for you. Others offer a wide variety of other services (but they may charge a higher registration price to reflect these additional services). The most common such services include:-

• email forwarding: email sent to you@yourdomain.com is forwarded to your current email address. This is a very cheap and easy way of having your own "custom" email address
• website forwarding : This comes in two flavours: pointing your website at a given IP address, and pointing your website at a directory. The latter is great for anyone hosting a site on an ISP's site, as you will not need to move the site. The name will automatically be resolved to point to the correct directory.
• under construction page : depending on your personal preference, you may prefer to have www.YOURNEWNAME.com point at a standard "under construction" page rather than not point at anything at all.
• sample page : some registrars allow a single free "sample" page so that visitors to the site www.YOURNEWNAME.com would see your company name and address and maybe a phone number or a simple description of the services your company provides.

You can offer to buy the name off its current owner, or look for an alternative domain name. If your company holds a trademark on the terms in the domain name, it may be worth seeking legal advice about the possibility of recovering your domain name.

Under the current Domain Name Service Agreement that all accredited Registrars operate under, all sales are final. If you want to register a different domain name, you'll have to pay again.

While this tactic may get you some "free" traffic, it's also a great recipe for a lawsuit. If the .com domain is trademarked, it's better to steer clear of trouble. If the .com domain is "generic" (that is, it is a dictionary word which is not trademarked) then you're safer. Ultimately, it's your decision.

This is commonly known as "typosquatting" i.e. buying a domain name with the expectation of siphoning traffic off of the legitimate site by snaring people who can't spell well. There have been a number of court cases as a result of this kind of behavior - most were decided in favor of the site owner. Ultimately, it's your decision.

Make sure that the registrar you buy the domain name through offers "website forwarding" - i.e. a service that will automatically redirect visitors from your new domain name to your existing URL.

It's important to remember that a domain name is only "yours" for as long as you keep paying the renewal fee. If you keep a domain name for 5 years, you'll have to pay 5 separate fees (although some registrars will let you purchase names for several years up front, sometimes at a substantial discount).

Try and think of domain names associated with current or future growth areas, or topics that are always popular such as golf and finance. Think of domain names that specifically relate to YOUR industry or line of business. A good way to brainstorm is to sit down with a clean piece of paper, let your mind wander, and write down every idea you get as a result... sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised at what your unconscious throws up!

Although the information returned by a Whois search is only updated once or twice a day, domain names that have been purchased are essentially "locked" instantly so that they cannot accidentally be sold to two separate parties. In other words, even if somebody beat you to a domain name by just 1 second, you're out of luck - and in a day or so you'll be able to see their ownership details through the Whois tool.

Many people make up interesting-sounding company names to fill this field; however, it is usually better to simply repeat your full name again there as it avoids billing and invoicing confusion later.