To have a home page on the Internet you need at least two things: a Web address and a computer to host your site. I covered the host computer back in June, so let’s talk about your domain name. A domain name is a Web address. Mine is susanives.com. How do you get a domain name? You buy it. More about that later. The Internet actually uses IP addresses to route information. An IP might look like 123.45.678.9. Most people can’t remember a random string of numbers, so they give it a nickname that is easier to recall. You don’t go to the supermarket and buy Lycopersicon esculentum: you buy tomatoes. Same principle. This is called the DNS (Domain Name System). The last two or three characters are called the TLD (Top Level Domain). The original TLD are .com (commercial), .org (an organization) and .net (having to do with the network.) These three domains are available to everyone: I’m a .com, even though I am just a person. Others are reserved for specific types of organizations: .mil for the military, .edu for educational institutions and .gov for government. I can’t be a .mil. A few years ago seven new TLDs were added: .biz (small business); .name (a personal site, which uses the format susan.ives.name); .pro (professional, such as doctor and lawyer) and .info (an information resource) are unsponsored domains. Three others, .coop (co-ops), .aero (aerospace) and .museum, are sponsored by interest groups and closely monitored by governing councils. More are in the works. Every country also has a two-character TLD. The United States is .us, Canada is .ca and Mexico is .mx. You can get a full list at checkdomain.com. These are sometimes called ccTLDs, for country code. I could be susanives.us if I wanted to. Some countries, like the United States, restrict registration to people and organizations that actually live in that country. Others have opened theirs up to anyone. Moldava, which has the TLD .md, has developed a tidy little business selling domain names to doctors – get it? Generally, domain names must be between 3 and 63 characters in length. Some TLDs allow you to have two character domain names but most require at least three. Some are more restrictive (.cc domains can have no more than 45, for example) and some browsers and e-mail programs can only recognize 26 characters, even if your domain is longer. The character count does not include the TLD extension (.com, .net, etc.) They can only contain letters (aAzZ etc.), numbers (0123 etc.) and a dash (-). No spaces are allowed and you cannot start or end a domain with a dash. It doesn’t make any difference whether the letters are upper or lower case, although the convention is to make domains all lower case. It’s less confusing. Every domain name has to be unique: I have susanives.com and you can’t have it. You could have susanives.net, if it’s available, though. The bit you are working on here is called the second level domain. The beginning part – www – reflects the protocol. WWW means World Wide Web, or a Web site. When you register a domain you are registering all of the protocols – e-mail, ftp, etc. Although some people complain that all the good domain names are taken, there are still plenty out there. If your creativity needs a spark, check out Name Boy. Enter in a word or two and it will come up with a few hundred possible available domain names. Another way to check if your preferred domain is available, use the search engine like the one at Network Solutions. The main criteria for a domain name are that it’s meaningful, memorable and easy to communicate, both in print and by word of mouth. Run it by some friends and colleagues to see what they think. Especially for a business, your domain name is as important as your company name, so spend some time developing a good one. The .com TLD is well known -- .net and .org are also in the public conscious. In other countries, their own domains, such as .au for Australia or .uk for United Kingdom -  are top-of-mind. In the United States, .us is less well known but still useable. I’d think twice before using one of the new domains. If you have a business, try to come up with a good .com name before you slide down the comfort scale to a .biz. Domain names have been deregulated, so they are now cheap. I often use a site called GoDaddy which sells domains for $8.95 a year. The suggested retail price is $35 a year, but you can get them as cheaply as $4.95. It is easier, if you are new at this, to have your domain registered and set up your Web hosting at the same time through the same company. However, you can register your domain now through any of the registrars and then have it transferred to your host site when you are ready. Make sure to keep all the information you need to accomplish this when you originally set up the domain. Print out a copy and put it in a folder. You can do all your ordering online, using a credit card or PayPal. You can register the domain for periods of 1 to 10 years. I recommend registering for at least two years. You will get a reminder two months before your domain expires that it is time to re-register. Some people recommend registering several different variants of your domain while you are at it, to make sure no one else gets a free ride on your good name. If you are registering susanives.com, grab .net, .org and .us while you are at it, and maybe even get susan-ives in all its variations. This is more important for a business than for an individual. You can have all of the variants flip over to the main site. This is called domain forwarding; most registrars offer it for free. If you want to learn more about domain names a good source is Domains Magazine. It’s geared to people who buy domain names for resale but has a lot off good advice for the Lazy Webmaster as well.