The first step during the creation of a website is to think of a domain name. This is the name with which your site will be recognized. For e.g: 'www.name.com'. The domain name is what people type in their browser's address bar to reach your website and is also displayed at the top of all pages of your site. It is quite natural that it has to be a good and memorable name so that the Internet users can remember it and resemble to it.

Not Just Dot Com
Many people are not aware but there are numerous alternatives to Dot Com addresses. Dot Com is generally used for a company's website, as 'com' is the short form for commercial.

The other alternatives are:
* .org : It is used for organization's websites.
* .net : It is used by Internet Service Providers.
* .edu : It is used by Educational Institutions.
* .gov : It is used by the various government departments.

Domains such as .edu and .gov are not available for the common people. Mostly, Dot Com should be used if you are a company which sell physical goods, .org for non-profit organizations and .net in case you work only on the web. However, Dot Com has more prestige and recognition attached with it.

Other additions to this list have also been made recently, such as .name for Individual's sites and .biz for companies. There are a few fake domains too such as .shop and .free. But they are not accessible by most of the people.

Also, each country has its own code, which can be further divided. For example, United Kingdom has its own .uk code, which has been divided further into .co.uk for companies and .me.uk for individuals. India has its own domain .in. These domains help in the identification of the place from where you belong.

Choose a Name
It has become very difficult to come up with a unique domain name for your website as millions of sites have already been registered.

Some tips to chose the domain name are:

A single word that is there in the dictionary must be given up immediately as there are people who monitor them and buy them the moment they become available. Also, anything under four letters is not worth trying for especially for the Dot Com domain.

One of the best ways is to think of any three words that describe your website the best. Also, while you register a business site, always remember to include something that distinguishes it from other businesses with the same name.

For achieving a higher search engine ranking, consider what your potential customers would be searching for and include that in your domain name.

Finding a Registrar
After making a list of domain you would like to have, the next step is to find a registrar. Some of the registrars who offer the cheapest domains are namecheap.com and registerfly.com.

When you type your potential domain names in the registrar's search box, it tells you about the price and availability of each domain name. Always put in genuine contact details and remember the username and password that you make use of.