Domain Names

You already have a family name and, if in business, a business name and probably an Australian ABN.  This uniquely identifes your family or business in written materials such as telephone directories, business listings and all types of print media.  Your business or family name is associated with an address and telephone contact numbers.

On the internet (or World Wide Web - WWW), your family or business is identified by an address called a DOMAIN NAME.

Domains are registered for a specific amount of time (years), after a certain date they will 'expire' in which they will become available for other people and/or companies to register. Owning a domain name is not a one-off payment.

A domain name consists of 2 parts:

1. the name - this is most likely a version of your business name (eg persystcomputing)
2. the extension - this is the type of domain (eg .com.au or .com) 

You can choose any domain name you like, but it must be unique as someone else may have already registered it. The extension conforms to a naming standard.  Some of these extension are explained below:

.com	This is the most common extension for domain names.
.com.au	Australian businesses can register a domain name using this extension.  To register a .com.au domain, an ABN or ACN must be provided.  The advantage of using a .com.au domain name is very obvious when searching the web.  Most search engines have an option to "search for pages from Australia".  If a customer is searching for an Australian business, etc., and selects this option, only .au websites will be included in the results.   It is important to realise that .com websites will be excluded from these searches.

You can check if your choice is available by clicking here.

The name must be  and not crude.

lesson to be continued  . . .   check back later

Ready for the next lesson?  Click here.