The following is an excerpt from the Website Checklist: a quick guide to building, owning and maintaining a website.
To get the complete report, you can register at Cincinnati Webs.

    A domain name is the text name of your web site which people can type into their browser in order to find you. Domain names should be descriptive and easy to remember. Some examples are:

www.firstfarminn.com

www.CincinnatiWebs.com

www.BeaconOfLife.org

www.DrKarenGailLewis.com

www.UniqueRetreatsForWomen.com

www.NicholsonPersonalEnergyProfessionals.com and

www.HeartMindConnection.com.

Looking at these examples, can you get a general idea what each website is about?

Some times a good descriptive domain name is not so easy to remember, or maybe not so easy to spell. In those cases, it is common practice to have more than one domain name. For example, Dr. Karen Gail Lewis, who often does interviews over the internet, phone and radio, found that it was easier to tell people to go to www.drkgl.com rather than trying to have people remember (and spell) her whole name. Both domain names point to the same web site, so it doesn’t matter which one people use. Another example is www.NicholsonPersonalEnergyProfessionals.com. They decided that www.NicholsonPEP.com would be easier to remember, so they use both domain names for their website. Originally they wanted to shorten it to www.npep.com, but that was already taken by another web site.

This brings up another issue. You cannot register a domain name if it is currently registered to someone else. The website for National Preferred Employee Program has already secured www.npep.com, so my Nicholson friends cannot use that domain name unless and until the other website releases it – which may be next week, or in a few years, or never. So when trying to come up with a domain name, you may have to try several different names before you find one available.  Personal names are sometimes helpful… sometimes.  My name is Dana Kisor.  I thought Dana.com would be a great domain name, but the Dana Holding Corporation beat me to that.  I thought about using my last name, but almost nobody spells Kisor the way I do. Most people assume it is spelled Kaiser, Kaizer, or Kiser so that wouldn’t be a good fit either.

A couple of general rules in coming up with a domain name:

a) Short names are easier to remember.

b) Common, easy to spell words work best

c) The domain name should be descriptive of your website. Ideally the name will have a ‘keyword’ for your website in it (Keywords are defined in the Promotion section of this document.)

d) It must not already be taken (although sometimes the owner will ‘sell’ the name to you if you’re willing to pay for it.)

The extension ‘.com’ is typical for many domain names, but there are many others available.

      .com     -           is for commercial sites, although it is commonly used for all web sites

      .net       -           is for networking facilities, like internet service providers

      .org      -           is for organizations, typically non-profits

      .edu      -           is for educational institutions

      .gov      -           is for government facilities

Other extensions have recently been introduced:

      .aero    -           is for the aviation industry

      .biz       -           is for businesses (similar to .com)

      .coop   -           is for co-operatives

      .info      -           stands for information – it can be used for any type of web site

      .museum           is for museums

      .name   -           is for individuals

      .pro      -           is for licensed and credentialed business professionals

Still other domain extensions represent different countries:

      .fr (France)

      .jp (Japan)

      .ca (Canada)

      .uk (United Kingdom)

Now, here is the interesting thing.  Each domain extension must be registered (and paid for) separately.  So if you really wanted the domain www.Widgets.com but it was already taken, you might try for www.Widgets.info, www.Widgets.biz, www.Widgets.org, or www.Widgets.net  - but you can probably see how this can get confusing. To protect their domain name, the registrants of  www.BeaconOfLife.org also registered www.BeaconOfLife.com and www.BeaconOfLife.info.  All three domain names point to the same website.

To register a domain name: you need to find a registrar, go through their steps to select an available domain name and pay them money for each year you want to keep the domain registered to you (maximum of 10 years.) You can find a list of registrars at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) web site: http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/accredited-list.html.

Different registrars charge different fees. Some extensions cost more than others. If you search you may find a bargain, but generally you should find most prices around $10 to $15 per year. Some web site hosting companies provide discount prices for domain names when you host through them. If you are planning to create your own website, then you’ll save a few bucks registering the domain yourself.

However, if you are planning to have a professional design, create, host, maintain, and market your website, then please do them (and yourself) a favor and have them register the domain name for you. It’s less hassle when the time comes to assign the domain to the hosting server and to renew the registration.  It will cost a few bucks more for this service, but I believe it is well worth it.

 Our 2009 prices for acquiring each domain name for you (provided it is available) are: 

1 to 4 years:           $15 per year

5 to 9 years:           $14 per year

10 years:                $13 per year (10 years is the maximum allowed)