Hosting News

 Windows NT/2000 and UNIX packages for all your Internet hosting needs. 

Web Site News

MicroSites are here

Domain name registration

Domain names are an integral part of Internet addressing.  They are the internet equivalent of City, State, Zip code and telephone number rolled into one.  

Once a Web site has been created and saved to a web server, it has to have an "address" that people can call up from their browsers.  The technical name for it is a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), but to the rest of us it is a Domain Name.

Domain Names are kept by companies such as Network Solutions, Inc. who have been granted the right to act as Registrars.  Every domain name is registered with a registrar somewhere in the world.

The top Level domains are in the form www.domainname.com. The dot com is known as the extension.  Other extensions are dot gov, dot edu, dot net and dot org.  Dot com is used for companies. Dot edu is for colleges and schools.  Dot org is typically used by professional organizations such as accounting associations, and dot gov belongs to the government.

Registrars in other countries use different formats such as www.pinkpossum.com.au (Australia), www.pinkpossum.ca (Canada), or www.pinkpossum.tv (Tobago).

New extensions were recently approved by the controlling body, but these are not yet commonly available.

Rules for Domain name selection

A domain name can be almost any combination of the letters of the alphabet plus the numbers 0 through 9, and the hyphen.  All other characters and symbols will not work.

The most important issue is that it is not possible to register a name that is already in use.  Most common names and abbreviations are already registered.

The domain name cannot be the trademark of another company.

To find if a name is available, log on to Network Solutions Website and look up their "whois" database.  Your EMD-IS account manager can do this for you.  Just remember to give them a few choices to see if one is available. 

Sub-Domains

EMD-IS offers Sub-Domains for smaller web sites, through the MicroSite program..  With a Sub-Domain, the web site address would be in the form www.yourname.emd-is.net.  There is a much higher probability that the chosen Sub-Domain name is available and there is no cost for registering an EMD-IS Sub Domain name.  

Registration

When we set up a new account for a client we offer to register their new domain name with an authorized registrar for $70 for two years registration. 

Transfer

If you already have a domain name registered, we can assist you to transfer hosting from another company to EMD-IS.