1. DOMAIN REGISTRATION AND HOSTING
Note: You will need to make independent business arrangements with other companies in order to
purchase your domain name(s) and web hosting.
Domain Name Registration
Your domain name will be your web site’s address. For instance, if your company’s name is Super
Widgets, you will probably want to purchase a domain name of superwidgets.com. The general rule of
thumb is that your domain name should either be the company name or something that will be so easy to
remember that if you gave your business card to someone and they lost it, they should still be able to find
the web site.
Domain names are typically registered for a year at a time and cost $10-$20 per year.
There are many companies on the internet that allow you to purchase domain names. www.dotster.com
and www.brinkster.com are two. However, your hosting company will probably offer domain registration
and it is generally simplest to register your domain name with them at the same time as you purchase
your web hosting. (More information about purchasing web hosting on the next page.)
Domain names are available with a variety of extensions, the most common of which are .com, .org, and
.net. .Org extensions generally indicate non-profit organizations and .net is generally used by
technological companies. Unless your company/organization falls into one of those two categories,
Cruxwire Web highly recommends that you choose a .com domain name. .Com is simply the most
recognizable extension and is automatically what people assume when trying to remember or enter a
domain name into their browser.
Many .com domain names have already been registered and you may run into this when seeing if your
preferred domain name is available. If your preferred domain name is taken, we encourage you to try
different versions of the domain name in order to get a .com. For instance, if www.cruxwire.com had
been taken, we would have tried, at minimum, www.cruxwireweb.com, www.cruxwirewebproduction.com,
and www.cruxwirewebdesign.com before considering a domain name with an alternative extension.
Once you purchase your domain name, please note that you have no legal right to versions of your
domain name with alternative extensions. If your owned domain name is www.superwidgets.com,
someone else can still purchase www.superwidgets.org, www.superwidgets.net, www.superwidgets.biz,
etc. You will need to decide if you are comfortable with this, and if not, register any other domain names
you want to own. Domain names are relatively cheap, so if you have strong feelings about this, go ahead
and register them.
Additional domain names can also be a good marketing tool. For instance, if your business name is
Hordunwitz Industries, you will probably choose to register www.hordunwitz.com or
www.hordunwitzindustries.com as your main domain name, and that would be a good choice. But both of
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2. DOMAIN REGISTRATION AND HOSTING
those domain names are hard to remember and spell, and don’t say anything about your product. If your
business, Hordunwitz Industries, manufactures specialty paper products, you might also consider
registering www.specialtypaperproducts.com. This will be easier for your customers to remember.
Cruxwire Web will make sure that anyone going to www.specialtypaperproducts.com is automatically
routed to www.hordunwitz.com, or whatever is equivalent for your company.
Hosting
All the code, images, files, etc. that will comprise your web site need to exist on a computer accessible by
the internet. This is what web hosting companies are for. Web hosting companies lease you space on
their computers, or servers, on which to save all the files for your web site.
There are lots and lots of companies out there that sell web hosting, and each one is different. Please let
us know what package you are considering before you purchase it, so that we can ensure your web host
will be providing all the technological capabilities for your unique site.
Cruxwire Web is happy to recommend hosting companies to you. If you would like a recommendation,
please contact us.
Copyright 2008 Cruxwire Web www.cruxwire.com