In computer news this week, 06/05/2001

The internet domain name game - part 3

Anybody interested in the internet, and possibly doing business on it, needs to understand the concept of internet domain names.

A domain name is the name of an address on the internet, or where a particular company is located. We're all used to people and businesses having names and street addresses, like KPBX, 2319 N. Monroe, Spokane, Wa 99205.

The internet address for KPBX is even simpler, just www.kpbx.org. The www means world wide web, which is at the beginning of all addresses; kpbx are the call letters of the station, and the .org means it is an organization. The .org suffix means it is a charitable or nonprofit organization, but this is not always the case.

The most popular domain suffix is the .com, meaning commercial or business enterprises, but most of these are used up. After that comes the .net, meaning network related enterprises but not strictly so, and those are picked over. So the .org can and might be used by a regular business if the other 2 suffixes for the name they want are already taken.

Suppose your business name is Acme Foods. There are hundreds of sites on the internet where you can do a domain name search. If you just type domain name registration in any search engine, like dogpile or yahoo, you'll find hundreds. You do a domain name search to see if that name - acmefoods.com - has been taken, and you find that it has been. You really want your site to be named acmefoods - so then you search to see if acmefoods.net is available - and as of today it is. So you could register the internet domain name of acmefoods.net. Now if acmefoods.net had been taken, you might have seen if acmefoods.org was available, and if it was, you could register that name, even though you aren't really an organization. If none of the three suffixes were available for acmefoods, then you'd probably look at modifying your company name slightly.

A domain name can be up to 67 characters, including the suffix, so theoretically if you really wanted a .com name your name could be

acmefoodspokanewashingtoninthevalley.com

But that would be hard to remember, and hard to type, and hard to fit on your business cards and letterhead.

So when you find acmefoods.net is available, you want to hurry up and register that domain name. Anyone can register a domain name. You can probably do it right on the site where you did your domain name search. At one time there was just one authorized registrar of domain names - a company named Network Solutions. It used to cost $ 70.00 to register your domain name for a two year period. But now there are dozens of registrars, and you will find some offering different pricing. And here is where you have to start being careful, when you play the internet domain name game ...

The standard period of domain name registration is two years, and the price has been $ 70. You will find many companies offering lower prices, but you may find they only offer a one year registration period. So you need to do an apples to apples comparison of the registration period.

Next week on Raw Bytes we'll continue our series on the internet domain name game, and I'll talk about other games you need to be aware of.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

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