How to Register a Domain Name

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This guide will show you how to register a domain name online. All you have to do is follow the steps outlined in this series of articles and you will be able to register a domain name for your website.

Choose a Domain Registrar

There are thousands of websites online that sell domain names. Many of the companies that sell domains are approved resellers for larger domain name registrars.

My recommendation is to purchase your domain name from a large domain name company that has a good reputation for security, pricing, and customer support. It is better to purchase domains from a dedicated domain registrar than a website hosting company that is simply reselling domains.

Hover
Hover have a solid reputation for providing good support to customers.

You can see a list of good companies to use in my Domain Name Registrars page. Be sure to consider the cost of domain name privacy when you compare domain registrars. This will give you the true price of registering a domain with the company.

Select Your Domain Name

Everyone is trying to find the perfect domain name for their online project. This competitiveness can make finding the right domain name difficult.

If there is a specific domain name you want, you can check the availability of the domain using the domain search option from a domain registrar.

Alternatively, you can use a whois lookup tool. This tool will show you whether a domain is available and will display information about the owner of a domain if the domain is already registered. This is useful if you want to put in an offer for the domain.

DomainTools
DomainTools have a great whois tool that informs you of important information of a domain name.

The chances are that the domain you want to register has already been purchased and is not for sale because it is being used on an active website. Those of you who have been in this situation before will know it can be time-consuming finding the right domain.

To help you in this task, I recommend using one of the many Domain Name Suggestion Tools and Social Media Username Checking Tools that are available online. These tools can be extremely useful in finding a domain as they generate a range of available domains based on conditions you specific; such as keywords, number of domain characters, domain name extension etc.

Provide Contact and Host Information

Once you have selected a suitable domain name, you need to provide information to the domain registrar during the checkout phase.

The most important information to provide at this point is your contact information. This ensures that you are rightfully credited as the owner of the domain.

Once the domain has been registered, you can provide additional information when you are ready to use your domain.

Your hosting company will provide you with DNS Nameservers so that your domain points to your website hosting space.

If you want to redirect your domain to another domain and/or configure other aspects of your domain such as sub-domains, you will need to configure your domain records.

DNS Server Settings
An example of a DNS Nameserver modification screen.

Domain registrars have attempted to simplify the process of registering domains over the last few years, however they can still bamboozle customers with technical terms.

If you are unsure about any aspect of registering a domain name, please drop by Rise Forums and create a new thread about the issue and we will do our best to help you :)

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