International
Domain Names
Registration Companies

Beginners' Guide

Free Domain Names? Who sells them?
Should YOU take advantage of the offers?

Beginners' guide and information relating to the process of choosing the right domain name for your website is given in "Keyword Generators"  Assuming you have read through the details and have followed the necessary research process before choosing your domain name, you'll want to know from which international domain names registration companies to buy your domain name or names.  Or whether or not you should accept offers of "free" domain names.

You can buy domain names from a whole host of companies.  Although the domain name you choose will belong to you, you will need to continue to subscribe on a regular basis to ensure that your ownership to that domain name does not expire at the end of the period for which you have subscribed.

The larger the company, the more cheaply you will be able to buy domain names because the larger companies, a number of whom are web hosting companies, also, buy domain names in bulk and can, therefore, pass on the discount to their customers.


.COM, .NET, .ORG, .CO.UK, .INFO - WHICH OF THESE IS BEST?

You will, no doubt, have come across many articles that suggest that you should, whenever possible, buy a domain name with a ".com" suffix.  This ending or extension to a domain name carries more "clout" and it is international rather than national and so indicates that your business may be operating on a global scale or that your products or services are available worldwide rather than limited to your own country, even if they are not!

You can, of course, choose any other extension you like, particularly if your product or service is only available to customers in your own country rather than being available globally, and you wish to discourage enquiries from abroad.  In that case, you can select domain names that end with the appropriate country's extension.  One or two extensions such as ".org" are more appropriate for non-commercial organizations such as government department and charitable institutions.

If your resources permit you to do so, it might be prudent to buy the same domain name with different extensions (top level domain suffixes after the dot) to protect your brand name and avoid competition from other sites with identical domain names but a different extension.

As you may already know, if your domain name is not available in one form, for example, without hyphens, the hyphenated name may be available with the ".com" suffix.  For example, if your chosen domain name "whateverdomainname.com" is unavailable but you particularly want to use those words in your domain name, you might search to see if "what-ever-domain-name.com" is available.  In any event, whichever company you choose to buy your domain names from will usually list alternatives from which you can make your ultimate choice.

Irrespective of the suffixes chosen, you can buy your domain names from companies based in your own country or elsewhere.  Most of these international domain names registration companies will offer you discounts if you choose to subscribe for more than one year at a time.  They will also register your domain name for you as an inclusive part of their service.

Should you opt for a free domain name, if this is offered as an option with another service such as web hosting?

A high number of domain names registration companies will offer you a FREE domain name if you elect to host your website with them.  Whether or not you should accept this offer is entirely up to you.  However, should you choose this route, then do make sure, right from the outset, that if you decide to move your website elsewhere at some future date, you will be allowed to take your domain name with you!  If not, all the hard work that you put in to build up your brand and attract traffic to your site will be lost once you decide that the domain/website hosting company is just not serving your best interests any longer and a parting is inevitable!

For more on this, see information given on Web Hosts and Ready-to-Go Web Sites pages.

If you key in "domain names" or "domain name companies" in Google or any search engine, you will get millions of pages of websites offering this service.  I have used a number and have drawn up a minute shortlist of companies I like to do business with and whose prices are extremely reasonable and whose services are courteous and helpful.

For buying domain names that are reasonably priced, you will have difficulty finding a domain names registration company that is more competitive than GoDaddy.com from whom I have purchased dozens of domain names. If you buy more than three/four or five domain names at any one time, you may get offered a discount.  It is US-based and offers a variety of services.  I simply use them for buying domain names cheaply.   Among the services they offer, includes web hosting, e-mail services, etc. As an added incentive, the company offers attractive discounts if you purchase more than one service from them.

My personal philosophy is to keep my domain names registration companies quite separate from my web hosts.  In this way, I hope to avoid having all my eggs in one basket and the resulting problems that may ensue should one relationship or other break down!  But you may want to keep everything in one place, in which case, do your research carefully before you commit to one company for all the website services that you may need.  You need, also, to read the small print of the TOS (Terms of Service) before checking the box in agreement!  You'll save yourself many heartaches if you know the score before you commit to one company or another!

Another reputable and popular international domain names registration company that offers competitively priced domain names and registration services is 1&1.com.  They even do a comparison chart citing GoDaddy.com and Yahoo.com to drive home their message!  Whilst their prices are very good, indeed, search the domain names with the extensions on each of your short-listed domain registration companies' search facility to see which one of the companies offers the cheapest deal.

I have, also, used UK-based companies which offer reasonably priced domain names.  Namesco.co.uk and cheapdomainnames.co.uk (the latter, I discovered, is part of Namesco.co.uk) are two companies I have used in the past and will be happy to use again.  However, if you choose to buy from this organization, then do check the prices on each site for your domain name before choosing to buy from one or other of these two companies.  The latter company offers the cheaper options.  I purchase my domain names from cheapdomainnames.co.uk but I use Namesco.co.uk for my Account Administration of all my domain names purchased from both these two sites.  They send me timely reminders of renewal of registration and any new promotions they may be running.

Although the prices are not as competitive as those on GoDaddy.com, I have been prepared to pay slightly more for the domain names because they offer an excellent and personal customer service and they are extremely helpful when it comes to pointing one's domain name to the host's DNS or setting up e-mail accounts, etc.  Their technical support is great and they will, if required, even talk you through each step should you still want a little hand-holding!

Another company that is reputable and boasts that it has the lowest prices in the UK for ".co.uk" and similar domain name extensions is 1&1.co.uk.  They, like their US-based company, offer attractive incentives and discounts which include several FREE domain names for hosting your website with them.  But the domain name extensions may not include ".com" or any of the top level domain extensions!  So think carefully before rushing to take them up on their offer!