A beginner’s guide to website options, features, and services.

3. DECIDING ON A DOMAIN NAME

Choosing a domain name.

The name of your website is known as its domain name. A good domain name is catchy and easy to remember. It’s also usually relevant to the topic of your website. For example, if your site is about herb gardens, a name like “superherbs.com” would fit these criteria. However, a name like “green19378f.com” would not.

There’s an online tool called WHOIS that is used to tell if a domain name is already taken, and if it is, by whom. WHOIS is available at your registrar's website when you register your domain name. Crunch42 recommends moniker.com (popup) for registering domain names.

Registering a domain name.

Once you've found a domain name that you want that's available, you have to pay a company called a “Registrar” in order to secure your domain name. The fee ranges from free to $35 per year. At the end of the year you’ll get a renewal notice, and if you don’t pay the renewal fee, you’ll lose the right to use your domain name.

Crunch42 Web Services doesn't offer domain name registration. Why not? Because if you register your domain name yourself, it assures that you, not Crunch42, will own the name.

I recommend moniker.com (popup window) for domain name registration. It costs only $10 a year. Just be sure not to get suckered into buying any of the multitude of services they offer in addition to domain name registration.

Feel free to read my article that talks about domain names in depth.

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