How to Choose and Register
a Domain Name

A domain name is simply the name of a website (a.k.a. www.yourwebsite.com)

RunTheWeb.com is the domain name of the website you are now on

If you want to get your own domain name, you'll have to register it at through a domain name registrar or have your web designer or web hosting company do it for you. There are tons of registrars out there that can do this for you at about $10 to $15 USD / year. My favorite one is GoDaddy.com

What makes a good domain name?

Good domain names are getting harder and harder to get these days, however it's not impossible. Domain names can end in a .com, .net, .org, .biz as well as some other choices. If you are outside of the US and register a domain name in your country you will have a name ending in a country code, such as .ca for Canada.

Choose a .com whenever possible

The last thing you want is to have a website ending in .net when your competitor has the same name but ending in .com - They will get a significant portion of people looking for your site. Now if you want to protect your name, then by all means register the .net and .org versions, but only if you own the .com first

A good domain is easy to remember and spell

Shorter names are better, but not necessary. Having a keyword that relates to your website as part of your domain name is a good idea. For instance if you sell shoe strings a good domain name would be www.shoestrings.com or www.shoe-strings.com, and yes hyphens are acceptable as search engines can read a domain name with a hyphen to help it decide if what your website is about (but this is only one of the criteria for that.

Whether you register your domain name yourself or have someone else register it for you (like your web host), make sure you get listed as the administrative contact.

This gives you the rights to the domain name and will allow you to transfer it to another web host's server if you like.  Some web hosting companies have been known to list themselves as the administrative contact when registering domain names on behalf of their clients. This could arise in a dispute over who owns the name.

Name Servers

In order to register a domain name yourself, you need to know the primary and secondary web name servers your website will reside at. You can easily get this information from your web host.

What if you don't have a web host yet?

Most domain registrars will let you "park" a domain name on their servers for no charge when you register a domain name through them so it is not essential that you have a web host yet.

Many domain registrars also offer web hosting. but you do not have to use their hosting service unless you want to, but you will have to transfer your domain name to whatever web host you eventually decide to go with.  This can take some time to complete the transfer (usually only a few days to complete the transfer). By the way GoDaddy.com has very reliable hosting

Where to register your domain name:

I have been through many different registrars and I highly recommend GoDaddy.com They do have a lengthy sign-up process as they will suggest many optional services along the sign-up process, which you can accept or deny.

You can also use GoDaddy to search if the domain name you want is available. And if it's not they will offer suggestions of similar names that are available. Sometimes it can be hard to find a good name that is not already taken, so this feature is is very useful and is offered at no charge.