Domain Name Research - Ideal TLD's and Whois lookup

If you have been considering setting up a website, one of the most essential facets to take into account is the domain name. A domain name is in essence a unique numeric IP address that stands behind a more memorable hostname. They are the primary part of a website URL that is conventionally associated to a website. Domain names are very important, as they are a key identity that should ideally reflect on the website linked to it. An example would be “www.oness.com” – and by entering this domain name in the URL box of a web browser, I can be directed straight to its respective website.

At one time or another, you would need to consider registering a domain name. You need not necessarily purchase a completely new domain, since you may find that your ideal domain has already been registered by someone else who is simply collecting to resell or just not using it. In this circumstance, a good way of obtaining a specific registered domain name would initially be to do a “whois” check-up on the domain of interest. There are many free-to-use ‘whois’ services online, one of which is whois.net – Once you arrive at the webpage, just enter a domain name and search it. Within a click of a button, the whois service will gather all the available information provided by the registrant. This would typically include date of domain name registration, date of expiry, name sever details and usually an address and contact number or email of the owner.

A simple ‘whois’ check-up provides valuable information on a domain name. This could help you to find contact details of the registrant, helpful if you are interested in obtaining the domain name or just require details from the registrant. Sometimes, it is helpful to do a whois check-up if you have purchased something from a website and yet never received your item or never been replied to, that is after attempting to search for contact details on the website itself.

If you are thinking of registering a domain name, a helpful tip would be to look out for one with a ‘Top Level Domain Name’ (TLDN), ending with “.com”, as it’s most commonly used, very respected by search engines and just more professional. Other second to best TLD’s would include “.net” and “.org”, although nowadays ICANN have introduced a plethora of others branching from generic domains with “.info”, “.biz” and “.name” as well as country code domains ending with “.us” and “.co.uk” etc. The main reason why a ‘.com’ domain extension is most preferable is because when people enter a domain without the extension (which is possible with most browsers) in their URL field, such as “oness”, your browser first searches for the name with a .com extension, followed by .net and finally .org. In the case of discovering a very suitable and memorable domain name with the ‘.net’ extension for example, it may be a good idea to consider a different domain name since you may as well be directing your search visitors to the website and domain with the most popular ‘.com’ domain extension. So the lesson of this article is to look out for the popular TLD’s with “.com” above anything, that is also suitable to the theme of your website/business and to carry out a simple “whois” look-up in order to search a domain name history or to find registrant contact details.