What is a domain name

A domain name is like your address or telephone number on the world wide web that browsers or visitors use to find your website on the internet.  You can only register domain names that have not been registered yet.  You can check domain name availability by clicking one of the links above.  If your name that you had in mind has already been used, you can always go for one of the other alternatives, like .co.za, .com, .biz, .info and many more.  

Your domain name is a key to your business, so it is wise to choose a name that has either your business name, main business activity or service, or your products in it.  That way you will get a small head start to people finding your site on the internet and seach engines favour this as well in tems of search words or phrases and is easier for people to remember when they see your web site domain name advertised.  It also gives your business that professional look which is needed to attract business. 

Domain names are not only for businesses.  You can get one for yourself, family, hobby, a club, or anything else you need it for.

Your domain name can also be used in your email adress,   which also looks very professional, for example:
"johndoe@mybusiness.co.za" instead of: "johndoe@myispaccount.co.za"

What Can I Do With a Domain Name

Parking is for when you want to reserve a domain name for future use, it lives on the server with no website or email. All that is required is the annual renewal to keep it reserved for future use, this is a free service.
Pointing is when you have two or more domain names and you want them to re-direct visitors to one particular hosted domain, eg.trout.co.za can redirect visitors to fishing.co.za, this is a free service if we are hosting the website that the other domains will point or re-direct to.

Domain Extensions

.co.za South African country specific domains but most businesses also try to reserve the .com equivalent to protect their name.

.com or "commercial," the original and most commonly used international domain extension. There are no restrictions on using this extension – provided the name is still available.

.biz or "business" is restricted for businesses. Being a newer extension you have a better chance of securing a domain name you really want.

.net or "network" is generally used by internet companies. It is unrestricted so anyone can register a .net domain.

.org or "organization" is generally used by non-profit organisations but is also unrestricted and can be registered by anyone.

.info or "information" indicates a site that provides informational content or advice about a particular subject and is also unrestricted.

How to choose a domain name

Tips:

• Domains can be up to 26 characters in length with no special characters or spaces, only numbers, lower case letters and hyphens "-" are accepted, it is better to register a non hyphenated domain name.
• Try keep your domain name as short as possible and make sure your main business activity or products are in it, antiquefurniture.co.za is a much better option than stanfordandsons.co.za.
• Register as soon as possible, it increases your chance of getting a good keyword rich domain name.

For more in-depth information on domain names, contact us.