As discussed in a previous article the best way of having a lifetime email address is to register your own domain name. Here we are going to look in more detail at domain names and how to choose one.
Domain Names
A domain name is in effect an address. It can be the address of a web site and can also the address of a mailbox. The email address has the general form mailbox@domain2.domain1
mailbox name of mailbox e.g billg, billc
domain2 2nd level domain IBM, Microsoft, Dell
domain1 tld e.g com, mil, gov
When it comes to choosing a domain name then you are limited in the choice for the Top level domain (domain1) as they are pre-assigned by the Internet authorities. However you have complete choice over the second level (domain2) or third level domains; the only restriction is that no one else has already chosen it.
Choosing a Domain Name
Choosing a TLD
The first step is choosing a tld (top level domain). A complete list of available Tlds is given at http://www.techdictionary.com/domainlist.html, but the most common ones are.com,. org,.net,.info and.country (i.e. uk, de etc) The Internet authorities have already pre-assigned a domain name for use by individuals .name. Here we are going to concentrate on using the.name tld. However, just because the.name tld is specially meant for individuals it doesn't mean that an individual cannot use any of the other Tlds.
Choosing a second level domain name
Ok. Top level tld chosen .name. The next step is to choose the second level. The.name tld was previously (pre January 2004) only available as a third level domain. That is, you couldn't register cope.name but had to register steve.cope.name. Since January 2004 you can register either. You may find that some registrars still only allow third level registrations.
Choose second or third level domain name
Always when possible go for a second level domain name as it makes your address shorter and easier to use. Therefore, I would prefer to register cope.name rather than steve.cope.name. In the example given cope.name is actually already registered and so I can't use it, but currently steve.cope.name is available. What do I do? Well lets look at what my email addresses would look like in each case.
Email addresses
If I could register the second level name of cope.name then I could assign my own email addresses to my family members as follows:
mom@cope.name
dad@cope.name
firstchild@cope.name
If I registered the third level name of steve.cope.name then I could assign my own email addresses to may family members as follows:
mom@steve.cope.name
dad@steve.cope.name
firstchild@steve.cope.name
I think the above example makes it easy to see why cope.name is the best choice.
Which one?
In my case I don't like to use the third level of steve.cope.name and so I would look for an alternate second level variation of cope that was available like Scope,cope-uk, Tipton-Cope, Cope-kavas or Cope-family etc.
Part 3 will look at how to find a registrar and registering a domain name.
About the Author
Stephen Cope is a freelance trainer and the Webmaster at -
making a website and IncrediMail and Outlook Express Updates.