Understanding those dot.coms, dot.orgs, dot.nets, and all the others

While your ultimate goal is to establish a brand name for your online business, your immediate need is to understand the mechanics of naming a Web site, or creating a domain name. Your domain name, or www.yourbiz.com, is your Internet Web address. By using your domain name, anyone in the world connected to the Internet can come and visit your online business and purchase your products and services. Although most people are familiar with the dot com (.com) extension, or top level domain, there are currently quite a few others, including:

In addition to these more familiar top level domains, there are many others to indicate different countries, like (.co.uk) for the United Kingdom and (.co.nz.) for New Zealand. Usually, when you try to register a domain name, the registration service will provide appropriate alternatives if your first choice has already been taken.

Every Web address, or domain name, contains at least two separate piece parts that are separated by a "dot." For instance, if you wanted to create the yourbiz.com domain name, the key components are yourbiz dot com. In this Web address, the top level domain is "com" and "yourbiz" is the second level domain. As discussed above, other top level domains include "dot org" and "dot net." Although choices for a top level domain are limited, you can use the following rules to create a second level domain:

• Contains only letters, numbers, or a dash ("-")
• Doesn't use a dash at the beginning or end of the name
• Has no more than 26 characters
• Is not case sensitive

Finally, you should be aware of sub-domains. Sub-domains can be shown to the left of the second level domain, or followed by a "/" after the top level domain. For instance, if your business had a customer service center, then you might create the following sub-domain service.yourbiz.com, or you might use yourbiz.com/service. Unless you are registering for a "free" domain service, as described in a following section, then sub-domains will not be necessary until you begin the process of designing your Web site.

Visiting Network Solutions/InterNIC before you settle on a name

From 1993 until 1999, through a Cooperative Agreement with the National Science Foundation, Network Solutions/InterNIC acted as the "exclusive registrar for all domain names within the .com, .org and .net" extensions. That means that all of the dot coms, dot nets and dot orgs were registered in the Network Solutions database. Either by going directly to Network Solutions, or a third party registration service like Register.com, you could see what names had already been registered in their database.

Network Solutions has registered 5 million names in its database and believes that there is a potential to register 100 million names. However, in 1999 Network Solutions lost its monopoly on domain name registrations, and now there a are a few other licensed companies that provide this service, including: America Online, Register.com, Internet Council of Registrars, Oléane, and Melbourne IT.

Network Solutions Whois Search

One service available from the Network Solutions home page is the Whois directory. The Whois search provides a complete description of "Who" registered a dot.com, including mailing, phone, fax, and Web hosting information. Additionally, you can see when the domain name was registered and when it was last updated.