Freeola's Website Guide: Part 4: Web Addresses & Domains

After uploading your website to your webspace, have you been wondering what visitors are going to type into the web address bar to see your site? Well worry not. Here we'll tell you everything you need to know about domain names, web addresses and any other bits and bobs you may need to know!

Domain Names

Unless you want visitors to have to type something like 72.14.221.104 into their browser address bar to see your site, you're going to need a domain name. Domain names are what gives your web site a nice, friendly address on the internet (such as freeola.com, or bbc.co.uk) rather than the standard IP addresses (complicated, unique numbers that computers on the internet use to talk to each other).

You can buy domain names at a fairly low cost these days, and register all sorts of different types of domains that relate to different countries. The most popular domains for worldwide web sites usually end in .com, while in the UK you might find a lot of websites end in .co.uk or .uk. It doesn't really matter which type of domain name you choose, but if your web site is aimed at viewers from the UK, then we recommend one of these 2 types.

Domain names are usually registered from periods ranging upwards of 1 year, and once this period is close to ending, you'll get first refusal on 'renewing' your domain name for another period. While you'll never be able to guarantee that you own a domain name forever, as long as you renew your domain name every time it is close to 'expiring' you shouldn't have any problems. This is the same case no matter how large or popular your website or company is.

You can register all kinds of domain types from GetDotted.com. Why not head over, try a couple of ideas and see what suggestions our domain generator provides? You never know, you might be able to find a rare dictionary word domain that hasn't yet been registered!