What’s In a Domain Name?

A domain name gives a Web site an alias for its computer addresses that customers can remember easily. It makes your site easy to find—easy to Google, in other words. In order to obtain a name, you pay a fee and ‘‘stake a claim’’ to it by registering it with a company that is an approved domain name registrar. (You’ll find a complete list of registrars at http://www.internic.net/alpha.html; Google Apps’ registrar, Go Daddy.com, is on the list.)

A domain name consists of two parts: the name itself, and the domain name suffix. In the domain name amanet.org, amanet is the domain name, and .org is the suffix. When you sign up for a Google Apps account, you either specify a domain name that you already own and want to transfer to Google Apps, or you buy a new one. If you choose the latter option, select a domain name that ends in one of five suffixes. Each one is intended to be used by entities that fall into a specific category; in reality, the suffixes are frequently ‘‘misused.’’ Many commercial organizations use the .org suffix, which was originally intended for nonprofit organizations, for instance. The five options are:
• .com for commercial organizations
• .net for network providers such as Internet Service Providers
• .org for nonprofits
• .info for general use by any type of organization
• .biz for commercial businesses

Many more types of domain names are available such as .edu for educational organizations, but these are only the five that you can register with Google Apps. If you are set on a name with a different domain name (such as .edu) you’ll have to find another Web hosting service. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names (ICANN, http://www.icann.org) maintains a complete set of domain name suffixes that are currently available.

With the exploding popularity of the Internet, catchy domain names (especially those with the .com suffix) are becoming scarce. The important thing is to pick a domain name for your business that customers can remember immediately without having to write it down and that fits your organization’s identity. Also keep it short (ideally, no more than 6–8 letters) and easy to spell. And be sure the name is clearly different than those of your competitors. If the only domain name that fits all of these criteria is in the .biz category, purchase it—as well as similar, alternate spellings that visitors might mistakenly enter. A short and easy to remember domain name ending in .biz is better than a long and complicated one that ends in .com. Also consider buying domain names with alternate suffixes so that competitors can’t purchase [your name].biz, [yourname].net, or [yourname].com and thus infringe on your identity. You can purchase them economically through GoDaddy and take advantage of this site’s discount coupons, too.