What's in a Name (Updated 2025)

What is a domain name? A very critical part of your addresses on the Internet. It is also the part you have no control of, unless you have your own domain name. It has reached the point where almost all businesses and organizations need to have one or more. Many savvy individuals and families would benefit from one too. Some common examples of domain names are: aol.com, hotmail.com, ibm.com, msn.com, and yahoo.com.

The most critical Internet address for most people is their email address. You probably have an email address from the entity that provides your Internet access. This might be your company, ISP, school, or some other group. These addresses are good for some purposes, however have a major drawback. They are subject to being changed at any time, perhaps without notice. (Ask the several hundred thousand who last their @home email addresses with little or no notice in 2001.) Notifying all your contacts after your email address has changed can be a long and difficult process. It can also require changes to business cards, stationary, and other written material. All the email addresses in a your domain are under your control for as long as you own the domain name. A potential solution would seem to be acquiring an email address from a major free provider. However, no matter how many times they say "lifetime", they don't necessarily mean yours. Countless "lifetime" services have folded, gone pay, or otherwise gone away. You can also lose your account for any number of reasons. I lost one long time address because a new employee at the company wanted it. Plus, if you are trying to do business, an address at your own domain projects a professional image that an address at any other provider can't. Although not as professional, addresses such as gmail and proton are generally acceptable. I personally think twice before doing business with people using a hotmail, yahoo, or similar as a business email address. There is also the issue with sites that may want to send a code to your email address to get in or recover your password, good luck is you no longer have access to that email.

Web address have their own issues. Domain name based addresses are simpler, shorter, more professional, and provide some branding. Also, if you are creating a site that will be linked to by other sites changing your web address becomes very difficult. You will have great difficulty getting some of the sites that link to you to change their links to your new location, costing you traffic. There are still active pages that link to my first site, at my first ISP's address, even though my site hasn't been there in over five years! A related article. The free hosting services have the same lack of control and image issues as free email addresses. Also, many free providers will add banners, pop-ups, and/or other intrusive advertising to your site.

Owning your own domain name used to be a costly undertaking. Registration costs were at least $100 with domain hosting normally adding hundreds of dollars more per year. Now registration is normally $35 or less per year and a number of inexpensive domain hosting options are available. I initially registered domains with Network Solutions (about $35/yr). There are any number bargain (< $20/yr) registration providers. They are generally the way to go, though I would tend to go with one that has been providing good service for years. Note that some of the new top level domains charge considerably more per year.

An important note on timing. There are a tremendous number of domains already taken and lots more are registered daily. I have found several interesting domains names over the years, that I thought might be right for future projects. Many of them had already been taken, when I returned to pursue those projects.  Now when I find a domain name I like, I'll normally snap it up right away, instead of kicking myself later.

Coming soon: How to choose a name and TLD. Until then, here is a helpful article on the subject. In my opinion, even with the many TLD choices available now, .com is still, by far, the most desirable, with .net and .org being the best of the rest.