An Internet domain is like having a virtual home/business on the World Wide Web (www). A domain allows interested parties to access information contained in HTML pages on your domain. A domain further allows you to receive e-mail in a specific format which is usually linked to your domain name. An Internet domain can serve various purposes form a marketing tool, advertising to a fully-fledged e-commerce site.

In layman’s terms, a domain name is a unique name on the Internet that points to your domain. For example, our domain name is nethabitat.co.za Usually this name would be descriptive of your company, club, NGO, etc. You can register any name on the Internet. For example, if your company's name is Acme Explosives, you could register a domain name as acme.co.za, acme-explosives.co.za, or whatever you want, as long as it has not already been registered by someone else.

You will notice a .co.za after your descriptive name. This is called a Domain Name System (DNS). There are several to choose from. In South Africa, we have our own DNS types.

Examples:
.co.za A company in South Africa
.ac.za An academic institution in South Africa
.gov.za A governmental institution
.org.za Organisations.

You are however not limited to a local DNS. You may even register an international DNS like .com, .net or .org.

There are no technical advantages or disadvantages for choosing a certain DNS.

Registering your own domain has several benefits.

• The main reason for registering a domain is to obtain your own professional name on the Internet. It adds to the image and professionalism of your company especially when advertising and using your own domain information.
• Domain names function as trademarks and will help people to allocate your company on the Internet.
• By listing your company on search engines (this can be done by NEThabitat) will allow interested parties to find your web site. Your domain name though is a direct pointer to your site.
• Several professional hosting and designing options are available.
• By having your own domain does not mean you have to make use of our Internet Access options. You are free to use any Internet Dial-up Service Provider, even sticking with your current provider. Your domain name will always stay the same. Changing to a different Internet Service Provider will not affect your e-mail addresses or web pages.

Once a domain is registered it can be used both as an Internet web page address, as well as an e-mail address.
For example if you register a domain mygreatcompany.com:

• you can publish web pages which will be accessed under www.mygreatcompany.com.
• you can receive e-mail using your domain name, for example info@mygreatcompany.com
• When hosting at NEThabitat, you will receive unlimited e-mail addresses in your domain format.

Once you have a domain registered you will need to host it…