Friday, June 5, 2009

"I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away." Oscar Levant

What's in a name? A whole heck of a lot actually. A domain name is the phrase you type into the web browser to get you where you want to go like www.example.com. A lot of students ask about creating a website but very few ask about a domain which is one of the easiest and most essential parts of a site. It is after all the very first piece of info others will know about your site. When choosing a name always consider how long and the spelling because you may be telling people about your place on the net and if it is hard to spell it can become a real pain in the neck. I personally buy domains all the time if I think of something interesting I might do. I will usually buy it before I get to work on the site. The reasons are simple they are really cheap. No really I mean really cheap and if you don’t buy the domain someone else will eventually think of it and buy it. Even if you don’t think you are going to put up a personal site I would buy your name. I bought www.ShaneSher.com just to reserve it. The same thing goes for business names as well. OK fine you’re convinced you need one but how do you go about purchasing one. There are many Domain sellers out there but the one I have found easiest is GoDaddy.com. Now I do know some people freak out about the commercials but you must admit they do get the attention they want. Anyway you head over to the site and do a few searches for the name you want. Once you find one you click add and proceed to checkout. There are two tricks with this seller. Unless you want some of their extras like email or site hosting keep looking for the small proceed to checkout button. If all you want is a domain name then skip through all that extra junk. Also make sure it says the right amount of years you want to buy it for. The other trick is if you Google search GoDaddy coupons some page will come up with coupon codes. Those codes you enter at the end. I typically buy domains for about $7.00. With your purchase you can also forward your domain meaning when you type in the address it will automatically go somewhere else on the web. This means you can create your site anywhere and have your domain point to that other place. Now I know I went on at length here but I have one more recommendation. Real Deal is a Podcast I have mentioned here before. They are not always what I recommend to a person new to tech but they had a very frank discussion about domains. Listen to it here. When you are ready to grab your special name read everything and give it a try.

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