How to Register a New Domain NamePosted by Nick Niesen on November 1st, 2010 By Bruce Hearder Registering a domain name is seen by many newcomers to the web as a really complicated, highly technical task that the average mortal cannot do. Nothing could be further from the truth. You only need to bits of information on hand when you register your domain name: - What you are going to call this domain - and your web hosting DNS values, these are give to you by your hosting company and look something like: They are almost always provided to you in pairs. So first go to a reputable domain name registrar. These may not be the cheapest registrars currently on the web but their service, and reliability are incredible. I generally work on the principle "You get what you pay for", and never a truer thing can be said about domain name registrars. OK, lets walk through the process of registering a domain name: Using your web browser, visit a domain registrar. Usually on the front page there is a search option to check if the domain name you want is available. Lets say for example, that you are trying to register a domain name for your Dog Training website. So you type in dogtraining.com press enter, and it comes back that that domain is already take. betterdogtraining.com You could also try placing dashes "-" in your domain names to separate words. Lets say, that you find dogtraininganswers.com is available. Next the system will ask you for how long you want to register your domain for, the minimum period is 1 year and the maximum I have seen is 10 years. Most people go for the 1 year period, only because it costs the least. Please set your name servers now (using the name server values given to you by your hosting company), otherwise if you have to come back and change the default name servers at a later date. the problem is that it generally takes a long time for the name servers to propagate around the net and you could wait several days for this to happen. But if you set them now, they should propagate within a few minutes, maybe half an hour at the most. Once you have keyed in *both* name servers values, you then move onto the payment screen where you key in your credit card details. Here you may see an option called "Auto Renew". Check this box! Once you press the "submit" button, it will take just a few seconds for that new domain name to be yours. Like it? Share it!More by this author |