Custom Domain Names

How to Register your own Custom Domain Name

A custom domain name can be a tremendous asset to your website. Instead of long, complex URLs, people need only remember a relatively short name to access your site. For instance, instead of being stuck with a typical URL like:

http://www.BigISP.com/users/YourWebSite/

you can register your own domain name through InterNIC:

www.YourWebSite.com

A web surfer can merely type "YourWebSite" into Netscape's location field, and the browser will take them to:

http://www.YourWebSite.com/

A custom domain name clearly adds prestige and simplifies access. With a modest up front registration fee of only $10, to $35/year, you can literally own a name on the internet.

Hints for selecting an effective domain name:

Use only alphabetic characters (A-Z, a-z), numerals (0-9) and the hyphen (-)

Case does not matter - "YourWebSite", "YOURWEBSITE" and "yourwebsite" will all work interchangeably

Keep the name short (no more than 20 characters, plus ".com", ".org", etc.)

Whenever possible, simple words with unequivocal spellings are best - when the name is spoken, is it obvious how to write it exactly?

Check for possible trademark/copyright violations

The domain name should begin with an alphabetic character

Check the search engines - AltaVista is excellent - for possible conflicts

Check with InterNIC - http://rs.internic.net/