As part of your web identity, it’s good to have your own domain name, like davehuffington.com or frogresearch.org: one that you control, that you can keep as you go from job to job, and that can be the basis of a permanent personal email address. If you start a new project or set up a company you’ll need a domain name too. It’s not unusual for net-savvy folks to have half a dozen.

If you want a domain name, you need to use a registrar. These are businesses from which you rent the right to use a particular domain name, on a yearly basis. You don’t own domain names: you rent them year-to-year, and when you stop someone else can snap them up. How much does it cost? Usually about US$10 a year; some unpopular domains, like anything.info, can be dirt cheap, while .nz domains are usually more (no surprise there).

What sort of domain should you get?

• .com is a good choice, because it’s the default domain for most web browsers
• .org might be better for a non-profit organisation
• .net used to be just for internet service providers, but now it’s often used for metaphorical ‘networks ‘
• .info is little-used but good for informational sites (like this one)
• .co.nz, .org.nz really imply that the site only relates to New Zealanders, plus they’re pricier. For more information on NZ domains, see our Domain Names Commission site.

Once you’ve figured out a possible domain name, go to a registrar and see if it’s available. GoDaddy is one of the biggest, and fine to use, though they do try to sell you lots of extra stuff you don’t need; I’ve found Hover much friendlier but slightly more expensive. If you want a New Zealand domain, there are registrars like iServe, Enlighten, or Freeparking. As always when evaluating competing websites, look for professional design and good Help pages.

At this stage, all you need is the domain name. The next stage is to point it at something: a free blog or your own hosted website. Some registrars will try to get you to add web hosting and all sorts of other services, but there’s no need at this stage; just secure your domain names and figure out the next step in your own time.

(One thing I would suggest: many registrars offer a free service where you can create a single email address using your new domain name—like dave@frogresearch.org—and have it redirect mail to an address of your choice, like davehuffington@gmail.com. This is a useful temporary fix until you set up web hosting, which will give you all the email addresses you could want. But more on that in a separate posting.)