Mouse Will Play
Skipton Web Design & Development
Planning a Website
Choosing a Domain Name
In order to get your website 'live' on the internet, you need two things:
- A domain name - an address for your site, e.g. mousewillplay.co.uk.
- Hosting - some physical space on a special computer (called a server) to store your web pages and images. See Choosing Hosting.
We're always happy to help purchase domain names your behalf (registering them in your name). All our packages include a domain name and hosting for one year. You will then need to renew them on a yearly basis.
If you want to know a bit more, here are a few points you should consider when choosing a domain name:
Keywords
It is likely that keywords (words used to search) contained in a domain have a positive factor on search engine ratings. So 'www.singing-lessons-leeds.com' is likely to perform better than 'www.brian-mason.com'. That said, if you have a strong, unique brand name, you will naturally want to use that, e.g. www.mousewillplay.co.uk
Localisation
If you are targeting a specific country, use a local domain name, e.g. .co.uk for the UK or .nl for The Netherlands. If you want to reach a worldwide audience, .com or .net is better.
Memorability
Try to choose a domain name that is memorable therefore making it easier for customers to remember you and to locate you.
Allowed characters
Domain names can only contain letters, numbers, and hyphens. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. Domain names are not case sensitive.
Domain registrar
Choose a reputable company that is accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) or by a national country code top-level domain (ccTLD) authority - Nominet for the UK. We use Web-Hug.net for our domain registrations and hosting.
What if your domain isn't available?
This is a big problem. Try variations such as mousewillplay, mouse-will-play, mousewillplayuk. You can check who owns the domain you want (here) and contact the owner to see if they will sell it to you. Some domain registrars allow you to Backorder Domains for a fee. That is, if this name expires or is cancelled by the registrant they'll try to grab it as soon as it becomes available. No guarantees though.
If you have a dispute over the registration and use of a domain name, you should contact the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
