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Domain Name
[choosing a domain name] [types
of domain name] [registering
a domain name]
Choosing a Domain Name
What will you call yourself on the web? The address of your web site is called
an URL. (Unlimited Resource locator). For example:
http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk
"gardenlaw.co.uk" is the Domain Name
portion of the address. What domain name will you choose? It makes sense to
choose something fairly obvious. So, if your school is, for example, Fred Blogg
Primary and is located in the UK, how about - fredbloggprimary.co.uk - ? People
often make a guess at the name of a web site without using the search engines to
find it. Many schools already do this for example:
Tuckswood
Community First School
http://www.tuckswoodfirst.norfolk.sch.uk/default.htm
Greenhead
College
http://www.greenhead.ac.uk/
Types of Domain Name
gardenlaw.co.uk
- The domain name has two parts separated by a
full stop (or period).
- The last part of the address eg. .co.uk
is called the "top level domain".
- The part to the left of the full stop eg. gardenlaw
is called the "second-level domain"
Here are the top level domain suffixes:
| .com |
Intended for commercial
organisations but anyone, anywhere can register them. |
| .co.uk |
Commercial and non-commercial
organisations in the UK |
| .net |
Originally intended for
businesses directly involved in Internet. However, increasingly it is
being used by businesses when the domain name under "com" is
already registered by another organisation. Today, anyone can register a
name in the .net domain. |
| .org |
Originally intended for
non-profit organisations. |
| .org.uk |
Originally intended for
non-profit organisations in the UK. |
| .ac.uk |
For schools, universities and
colleges in the UK. |
| .edu |
For universities/colleges
involved in higher education. |
| .gov |
For US federal government
bodies |
| .gov.uk |
For UK government bodies |
| .biz |
For businesses and intended as
a rival to the .com (coming soon) |
| .pro |
Professionals such as doctors,
lawyers, teachers can register .pros |
| .info |
Anyone can register a .info
(coming soon) |
Country
Codes |
For individual
countries based on the International Standards Organization. For example,
"ca" for Canada and "jp" for Japan. |
Registering a Domain Name
Before you can register your domain name you will need to find
out if it is still available. You can do this at:
http://www.register.com
http://www.uk2.net
You can also register your domain here or with
your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your ISP provides the space on its server
for your web site.
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