Domain Terminology

Bulk Registering

Most domain registrars will give you access to a special screen which allows you to purchase many domains at once, in bulk. You should expect to get a substantial discount if you can take advantage of this feature.

Masked URL Forwarding

This is URL forwarding, but the actual web address does not appear in the browser address bar. In standard URL forwarding, the domain name does not appear in the browser address box. For example, you have a domain called "me.net" and a site called "tom.net/mysite". With masked URL forwarding "me.net" would be shown in the address box. Without this feature, "tom.net/mysite" would be shown.

MX Record

The MX record is a special entry in a name server which tells the internet world where your email is routed. In general, this will be the address of your web host, although you can often change it to point to services such as Bigmailbox.com and Everyone.Net.

Most domain registrars will be able to change the MX record for you with an email or telephone request. I have not yet found this in any web management interface.

You should not expect to be charged for changing this record.

Name Servers

These are the machines that translate domain names to TCP/IP addresses. Whenever you register a domain, you are required to input two (or more) domain server names (and their TCP/IP addresses) into your domain definition. When a person surfs the web, the name server is queried to find out the address for the domain.

In general, use of a name server should be free from your domain registrar and/or web hosting company.

Transferring a Domain

The act of moving the domain information from one registrar to another. This is generally a reasonably complex operation requiring signed documents and such. Most registrars will do a transfer for free, if you purchase an additional year on the domain registration.

Transferring Ownership

Domain names are leased for a period of time (one year, two years and so on). The person who leases the domain is called the domain owner. Transferring ownership means giving (or selling) the domain to someone else.

Some registrars will allow you to change this directly from their web address. Others require signed legal documents.

Transferring ownership should be something that registrars will do for free.

URL Forwarding

This feature is useful if you are hosting your site somewhere that does not allow you access to a name server. For example, a GeoCities free site typically does not give you this feature. In this case, your domain registrar will allow you to enter your web site address in a form. Their name servers will intercept requests to your domain name and translate them to the actual web address.

URL forwarding is usually not incredibly useful if your site is hosted on a paid web host. In these instances, the paid host usually has it's own name servers, so URL forwarding would not be used.

WHOIS

The set of databases on the internet which contains all of the information about who owns domains. This was simple a few years ago, but with deregulation WHOIS servers are spread all over the planet. To learn more about WHOIS, see "Networks - WHOIS".