What’s a domain name? A domain name is the internet address of the website. For example the domain name for this site is “intelligeeks.com.” You’ll find this website by typing it into the address bar of your internet browsing window. so it would look like this for example:
http://www.intelligeeks.com
The “http://www.” that comes before the domain name simply communicates to the internet browser that you are entering a website address. So you will see different domain names in front of it. For example, if you want to go to domain name “google.com” you would type in the address bar:
http://www.google.com
We will discuss the technical reason behind this later since our focus is on the domain name. When you buy the domain name, you are actually registering the name for use for a period of time. In a way, you are actually leasing it. You would purchase domain names in yearly increments so you can buy them for one year, two years, three years, etc. The price normally is around $10-$12 a year. If you did not want to pay to renewal it, you may let it expire so someone else can buy it.
Why would you want to buy a domain name? If you want to create a personal blog or business website, you will want to own it so you can have total control. As long as you keep paying the registration fees before the expiration date, you can keep it as long as you want. Some people don’t want to pay so they opt for a free website from a company such as angelfire.lycos.com. However, they do not give you a real domain name. They created a webpage that is attached to their domain name so they can take away your website anytime since they are the host, which is a place where you keep your domain. Owning your domain allows you to find your own host so if you ever have a problem you can always change hosts like moving to a different home.
Where do you buy a domain. There are several different domain name register companies such as Godaddy.com, Namecheap.com, or Name.com. These companies will often have promotions where you can type a code into their shopping cart so you can get a discount on your domain registration. If you encounter any good deals, we will advertise them at our site so you can take advantage of the discounts.