Owning a Web Site: Advantages, Choosing a Domain Name and More

The difference between an online enterpreneur with a Web site and one without could be illustrated this way: The former is like a landowner who has every right to do what he likes with his landed property. The latter, without a Web site of his own, is worse than being a tenant.

He is rather like a squatter with no say in the affairs of the house (Web site) in which he resides. His property and business could be thrown out anytime without notice or any query whatsoever.The owner of the landed property (Web site) could decide to shut the site down or close down the squarter´s site with tenable or intenable excuses.

In other words, the site owner is the king; while the other is a mere subject that has to dance to the tunes of the king-The affiliate owners of the program the particular squarter is promoting.

However, before anybody will decide to own a website, the logical thing to do is to buy a domain name. A domain name is like having patent right to a product; exclusive right that nobody can use within the specified period of registration.Without a domain name it is almost impossible to have a tenable Web site. Even if it is possible, it is a matter of time before the site will disappear, when a new person acquires the unregistered domain name.

Domain name is quite cheap. It could be free, provided the domain name is hosted in the same place where it was bought.Or as low as $4 and as high as $15 per year.

But caution should be taken in deciding where to buy a domain name as from experience most domain name registries that charge low have a catch. The most obvious is difficulty in transfering your hosting to another host. Imagine getting another host that provides better service and it becomes a herculian task lasting a whole year before you can transfer your hosting, that´s if it is possible at all! Or the domain name you bought $4 the prevous year all of a sudden jumps to $25, or even $100 - Just when your Web site business has just taken root!

There are other elements not considered, even by most professionals when buying their domain names, things like:

(1.) How many personalized email addresses can you create and forward to other email addresses?: A good one should be able to provide at least 100, that is before you build your Web site.

(2.) Web/Url Forwarding: Can you forward/frame/redirect your domain name to any other URL or website on the web? This is especially important for affiliates who have just bought their domain names -They should be able to forward or redirect their affiliate URLs through their domain names. This directly sends hits or traffic to their website, at the sametime to the affiliate urls.

For example,instead of promoting an obvious affiliate link which mostly is long,I can promote the same url,but profiting my site with hits and popularity at the same time by redirecting it to my domain name. In this case it will serve two purposes: (i.) Nobody will know it is an affiliate link, thereby improving my clickthrough, (ii) This will popularize my domain name at the same time.

Other things to consider are:

(3.) Can Your Registry host Your Website Free? In case there is shortage of fund, can your domain registry help in hosting your site free, or at reasonable price? Although I prefer hosting with a different host from my registry, when there is no fund, I will rather get my website going with the generousity of a free host provided by my registry than not having a website at all.

(4.) How Many Sub-domains Can You Create With Your Domain Name? This plays important role when setting up your ppc advertisement, especially Google and MSAdcenter.They favour full Web sites to URLs. A host that provides many sub-domains affords the client opportunity of turning URLs to a seemingly fully-fledged website with a sub-domain.

There are other things to consider,but most of the ones not mentioned here are provided by all domain registries.With the above elements complete in a domain registry,any ambitous affiliate stands a good chance of establishing his presence online, even before building his first site.