What's in a name? Domain Name Registration - the facts

The Domain Name you choose can make a tremendous difference to your website's performance, so it is important that you understand the process that's involved.

First some conventions apply, though they are often ignored! Let's start with the suffix - for example .com or .co.uk. Do you know what they mean? Here are some popular examples:

.com - short for "commercial organisation" - usually used by US or International Companies
.co.uk - similar to .com but applies to UK based companies
.org - generally used for not-for-profit organisations e.g. charities
.gov - the suffix for government information sites e.g. .gov.uk for the UK Government
.net - originally identified for NETwork Organisations e.g. InterNET Service Providers, now in general use

There are many others - and they are increased occasionally as demand for domain names continues to outstrip supply.

The actual domain name is used as a label, pointing to a location on a computer server where the website is hosted. You may be familiar with the Internet Protocal (or IP) Address which is four numbers separated by dots. The inventors of the internet protocols quickly worked out that remembering all of these numbers would be impossible, and so domain names were the answer.

Our recommendation is to use a domain name that is easy to associate with your company, and also offers a description of your products, services and geography. We also recommend using the .co.uk suffix wherever possible. If your trade is based in the UK, then your clients will be confident that they are dealing with a UK company when they find you on-line.

If you would like to see if a domain name is available, please use our domain name checking tool on our homepage.