What you need to know about Domain Names

                 Every business needs a name. That's simple isn't it? Your online business
                 is no exception. A website is accessed over the internet by an address
                 called a domain name. It's how people find you.

                 Once you've decided to build a website the next step (and this is a crutial
                 one) will be deciding on your domain name and having it registered so that
                 no one else but you own it. If you did a search and tried to register the name
'                GlobalWealthbuilder' for example, you'd be told 'sorry, that name is unavailable'.
                 That's because I have it registered and pay a yearly fee (around $19.95) to
                 keep it.

                 Let's look in more detail at a domain name. ".com" is the top domain under
                 which most domain names are registered. Two other international top
                 domains, .net and .org, place a distant 2nd and 3rd place in popularity.
                 There are dozens of different top domains out there, from commercial
                 (.com) to non-profit (.org), and country-specific top domains such as
                 France (.fr) and Italy (.it).

                 No two domain names are alike. You can relax in the knowledge
                 that there is nobody else who can register the domain name you
                 choose. All domain names are recorded in a central database, and
                 each record in the database must be unique. This is why the companies
                 that sell domain names are called "registrars."

                 Start brain-storming for the best domain name for your business. Your
                 domain name should be fairly short if you want people to be able to
                 remember it easily and a domain name with around one to three important
                 keywords should help you as well.

                Although it is true (or so we have heard) that virtually every word in the
                English language is already owned by someone else, there are many clever
                ways around the problem of finding a good domain name. For example, if you
                are a travel agency and can't get travel.com (reserved in 1992), you might
                be able to reserve something like RWS-travel.com. You can also reserve a
                name with a .net, .org, or many other extensions, but the "dot com" is still
                the most well-known and accepted extension for business domain names.

                Most domain name registrars (companies selling domain names) will allow
                you to set up your new domain name on their name servers, at least until
                you want to "move" it somewhere else. That is called "parking your domain."
                It means you're just going to let the name sit there until you decide which
                web site hosting company you want to put your web site on. (more about
                this in another article). My Global Wealthbuilder website is hosted here.

                If you move a domain name, you are basically transferring the right to
                maintain the association between that domain name and its IP address to a
                different name server. This is often necessary, for instance, when changing
                web hosting companies. The technical support staff at your web hosting
                company will be able to help you on this issue.

               Summing Up: Why Have Your Own Domain Name?

              1. Domain names can be used to establish a unique identity in cyberspace.

               2. Domain names can be resold, leased and bartered. An entire industry
                   has been built around the resale of domain names, with domain brokers
                   acting as middlemen in the sales process. The profits from a successful sale
                   can be enormous; however, there are many more sellers than buyers.

               3. Domain names can be used to give yourself a unique, permanent email
                   address. Many registrars will set you up with email forwarding, where
                   messages sent to any_name@yourdomain.com will be redirected to your
                   existing mailbox provided by your ISP. This lets you choose a truly unique
                   email address and keep the same email address regardless of which ISP
                   you use to access the Internet.

              4. Domain names can be used to improve a site's ranking in certain search
                  engines. Although the rules by which search engines "rank" sites when
                  returning search results change often, some search engines tend to favor
                  sites with their own domain names over sites that do not have a domain name
                  of their own. Some search engines even give increased relevancy to domain
                  names that contain "keywords" that people search for. For example, a search
                  engine might rate a site with the name "freestuffguide.com" higher than a site
                  with the name "freebieguide.com" for the search of "free stuff."

               5. Domain names build credibility on the Web - If you are trying to do
                   business on the Web, a domain name is essential. With registrations for
                   under $20 a year depending on the registrar, this is a very small price to
                   pay for increased credibility in the eyes of potential customers. Think of
                   a domain name as an unavoidable cost of doing business online.

              6. Domain names are portable - As we have already seen, a domain name
                  is just like a sign pointing to your site. You can move the underlying site
                  (change web hosts) and with a very minor technical adjustment the domain
                  name will point to your "new" home. This way, you are free to change hosting
                  services to find a better deal. The important thing is that none of your visitors'
                  bookmarks will need to change, nor will the move break any links to your
                  site. This is impossible without a domain name.

               7. Domain names are professional. This topic goes hand-in-hand with the
                   credibility produced by a domain name. Right or wrong, there is a perception
                   that sites hosted under their own domain names are more professional than
                   other sites. While you CAN be successful with a free site or an ISP-hosted
                   site, you can be MORE successful with your "own" site.