This is the first real "lesson" in the domain name courses series. Lessons for
this course are being archived at:
http://www.linuxchix.org/content/courses/domains/
This lesson will discuss the pros and cons of "registering" (getting the right
to use) a domain name, as opposed to having email, web and other services
located in someone else's domain (often an ISP's). Keep in mind that I'm not an
evangelist: if the benefits of a domain name don't sound worth it to you,
you're probably right.
Throughout this lesson, I'll talk about owning "example.com". example.com isn't
actually available for registration, it's set aside specifically for use in
examples like these. Similarly, I'll use "example.net" to refer to an imaginary
ISP, and occasionally "example.org" as another example of a domain name.
Feel free to ask questions or discuss this lesson on the courses list. However,
since this post is long, *please* cut unnecessary quotes out of your reply.
Remember to make sure the string "[Domains]" is in the subject of any reply.
--- Pros ---
These are the most common reasons to consider owning a domain name. Not all of
these will apply to everyone, in particular points 4 and 5 apply more to
businesses:
1. Domain names let you have a "lifetime" URL and email address.
2. Domain names give your own namespace to choose your email address and
subdomains
3. Domain names are very personalisable
4. Domain names can be "scaled up" to allow common administration of a number
of email addresses and web pages
5. Domain names appear more professional
1. Domain names let you have a "lifetime" URL and email address.
One common approach to email and web hosting is to use your ISP's (normally
free) web space and email address associated with your account. In some cases
your "ISP" may be an employer or educational institution who gives you access.
Typically you'll end up with a URL like http://example.net/~username/ or
http://users.example.net/username/ and an email address like
username@example.net.
This email address will be associated with your Internet service. If you switch
ISPs (or employers!), you change email addresses, with all the associated
hassle of letting everyone know your new email address, changing mailing list
subscriptions and often, if you had a lot of correspondents, keeping your old
account open for six months or so to try and catch mails to your old address.
The same logic applies to your webpage. http://example.net/~username/ will be
normally be taken down when you cease paying example.net.
The entire idea of the domain name system is that your domain name can change
hosts, and do so transparently. If you change your domain name host, you can
set up your domain name on another host on the other side of the world and
keep your email address. The links to your website will not break. You can
often set things up so that users won't even notice the actual period of the
move.
2. Domain names give your own namespace to choose your email address and
subdomains
hotmail.com is the canonical example of a cluttered namespace. If you go and
sign up for a hotmail.com account today, there's a reasonably good chance
you'll end up with an address like somethingsomething_2034@hotmail.com because
simple @hotmail.com email addresses had all disappeared by about 1998. ISPs
tend to have less customers than Hotmail and don't suffer so badly, but it's
still pretty common that you end up as mary4@example.net or something of the
kind.
Once you own example.com, you are free to choose any @example.com address you
like (actually, by custom, a few like abuse@example.com and
postmaster@example.com have specific uses, but that's still a lot of freedom!)
3. Domain names are very personalisable
Once you own example.com, you can do things like set up a number of
something@example.com email addresses for different purposes, and a number of
something.example.com subdomains for different websites. I create a lot of
'junk' email addresses, for example, to give to people who I suspect may hand
my address on to spammers.
Similarly, once you have a domain name, you can create subdomains (domains
like subdomain.example.com and anothersubdomain.example.com and
yet.another.subdomain.example.com are all subdomains of example.com) at will.
The "www" that goes in front of many domain name's website domain is in fact a
subdomain like any other, although it's so universal that many people don't
realise that's it's just a convention.
4. Domain names can be "scaled up" to allow common administration of a number
of email addresses and web pages
ISPs generally set a limit on the number of email addresses and web spaces you
can associate with a given account -- that limit is often equal to 1, especially
for webspaces. Domain name hosts often will too, but you can increase this
limit arbitrarily by switching hosts.
Once you have a domain name, the possibility of a more or less unbounded
number of websites and email addresses opens up. If your company grows from 10
to 1000 employees, you can add email addresses for them as needed. If you
become addicted to web publishing, you can set up a new subdomain for every
new project. Moreover, you can host these email addresses and subdomains on a
common server and exert control over all of them from a single point.
5. Domain names appear more professional
If you're running a business, particularly a computing business, a URL like
http://example.net/~businessname/ and an email address like
itsales_example_2004@hotmail.com can be off-putting for customers. They're not
very well branded, they're difficult to remember, and they're difficult to
dictate over the phone. It's a pain to associate an email address with a task
(compare itsales_example_2004@hotmail.com with sales@example.com)
Finally, Internet literate customers will be suspicious because ISP hosting or
free services like hotmail.com are:
- cheap options; and
- transient options.
Internet literate customers will most likely be familiar with the high level
of "rot" associated with ISP accounts and free accounts, and associate that
transientness with your business, especially now that it is becoming
positively rare to encounter a business online without its own domain name.
See, for example, Kirrily Robert's guide to hiring web people at
http://infotrope.net/opensource/doc/content/webhire/webhire.html , which
suggests that you avoid hiring:
Anyone who attempts to present themselves as a professional web
consultant but does not have a business card, letterhead, or their own
domain name and web server.[3]
3. A domain name is distinctive name, such as "mycompany.com" which
represents a business on the Internet. Companies usually have their own web
server located at an address like http://www.mycompany.com/. Any business
which does not do this is being incredibly cheap; the cost of a domain and
web server address can be as little as a couple of hundred dollars. Be
particularly wary of any web business that has a web page on GeoCities,
Angelfire, Xoom, or other free web hosting services.
[Note that "a couple of hundred dollars" is an over-estimate these days unless
you're running your own server in a colocation facility. See the "Cons" section
for more details.]
--- Cons ---
Here are some potential downsides to owning a domain name. Again, not all of
these will apply to everyone:
1. Domains names have ongoing registration costs
2. Hosting a domain name is normally more expensive than hosting a user
directory
3. The domain name namespace is quite cluttered
4. Domain names can be hard for some people to understand
5. When you first move to your domain name, you will have to go through the
pain of changing your email address and breaking links one last time.
1. Domains names have ongoing registration costs
Unless someone gives you a subdomain of their domain, you will normally need
to pay a domain registrar for your domain. This is not a once-off cost: they
generally require that you renew your domain on a yearly basis. Expect to pay
about US$15 per year per domain. Sometimes it's a bit cheaper per year if
you're prepared to register or renew a domain for a number of years upfront,
but the saving isn't dramatic.
2. Hosting a domain name is normally more expensive than hosting a user
directory
Many ISP accounts come with free webhosting and an email address, and there are
lots of free webmail providers around. However, most ISPs do not offer a free
"virtual hosting" web service (the ability to host your domain on their
machines), nor do they commonly offer a service allowing you to receive mail
for youremail@example.com in their mailboxes. Likewise, the free email
providers expect you to use their domain names.
There are many services that have fairly cheap domain hosting facilities (I
will mention some later in the course and others will have suggestions too),
and the occasional free service. However the free services will almost always
have restrictions on the number of subdomains and email addresses they will
host for you, and their business model tends to rely on inserting advertising
material into your site.
Domain name hosting is perceived as a service which users will pay for. As an
estimate, for reasonably unrestricted hosting for a low bandwidth (not very
popular) site expect to pay US$3 - US$10 a month, more if you host it in a
country where bandwidth is expensive (like Australia).
3. The domain name namespace is quite cluttered
Back when people were snapping up simple @hotmail.com addresses, many simple
domain names were vanishing too. It's nowadays quite an achievement to manage
to register a .com , .net or even .org address which has a single English word
as the second level part of it (the bit before the .). In fact, it was an
achievement back in 2000 when I registered puzzling.org
The problem is nowhere near as bad as it is for @hotmail.com addresses, but
you will probably have to do some hunting for a short, memorable, and
meaningful domain name.
4. Domain names can be hard for some people to understand
Many people are used to sending email entirely to @yahoo.com and @hotmail.com.
For a long time after I stopped using my hotmail.com address, my mother kept
trying to mail me at mary@example.com@hotmail.com
This is especially a problem if you don't get a .com address. ("I'm mary at
example dot org." "What?" "mary at example dot o-r-g" "Oh!
mary at example dot o-r-g dot com?"...)
This is less a problem on the web, as people will normally find your web page
by clicking on links or doing web searches.
5. When you first move to your domain name, you will have to go through the
pain of changing your email address and breaking links one last time.
This one should be fairly self-explanatory: moving from username@example.net to
anotherusername@example.com isn't made easier by the fact that you control
example.com.
-- Next lesson --
The next lesson will be posted on Saturday, and will cover factors that will
influence your choice of domain name. In the meantime, feel free to ask
questions or add more pros and cons.
-Mary
this course are being archived at:
http://www.linuxchix.org/content/courses/domains/
This lesson will discuss the pros and cons of "registering" (getting the right
to use) a domain name, as opposed to having email, web and other services
located in someone else's domain (often an ISP's). Keep in mind that I'm not an
evangelist: if the benefits of a domain name don't sound worth it to you,
you're probably right.
Throughout this lesson, I'll talk about owning "example.com". example.com isn't
actually available for registration, it's set aside specifically for use in
examples like these. Similarly, I'll use "example.net" to refer to an imaginary
ISP, and occasionally "example.org" as another example of a domain name.
Feel free to ask questions or discuss this lesson on the courses list. However,
since this post is long, *please* cut unnecessary quotes out of your reply.
Remember to make sure the string "[Domains]" is in the subject of any reply.
--- Pros ---
These are the most common reasons to consider owning a domain name. Not all of
these will apply to everyone, in particular points 4 and 5 apply more to
businesses:
1. Domain names let you have a "lifetime" URL and email address.
2. Domain names give your own namespace to choose your email address and
subdomains
3. Domain names are very personalisable
4. Domain names can be "scaled up" to allow common administration of a number
of email addresses and web pages
5. Domain names appear more professional
1. Domain names let you have a "lifetime" URL and email address.
One common approach to email and web hosting is to use your ISP's (normally
free) web space and email address associated with your account. In some cases
your "ISP" may be an employer or educational institution who gives you access.
Typically you'll end up with a URL like http://example.net/~username/ or
http://users.example.net/username/ and an email address like
username@example.net.
This email address will be associated with your Internet service. If you switch
ISPs (or employers!), you change email addresses, with all the associated
hassle of letting everyone know your new email address, changing mailing list
subscriptions and often, if you had a lot of correspondents, keeping your old
account open for six months or so to try and catch mails to your old address.
The same logic applies to your webpage. http://example.net/~username/ will be
normally be taken down when you cease paying example.net.
The entire idea of the domain name system is that your domain name can change
hosts, and do so transparently. If you change your domain name host, you can
set up your domain name on another host on the other side of the world and
keep your email address. The links to your website will not break. You can
often set things up so that users won't even notice the actual period of the
move.
2. Domain names give your own namespace to choose your email address and
subdomains
hotmail.com is the canonical example of a cluttered namespace. If you go and
sign up for a hotmail.com account today, there's a reasonably good chance
you'll end up with an address like somethingsomething_2034@hotmail.com because
simple @hotmail.com email addresses had all disappeared by about 1998. ISPs
tend to have less customers than Hotmail and don't suffer so badly, but it's
still pretty common that you end up as mary4@example.net or something of the
kind.
Once you own example.com, you are free to choose any @example.com address you
like (actually, by custom, a few like abuse@example.com and
postmaster@example.com have specific uses, but that's still a lot of freedom!)
3. Domain names are very personalisable
Once you own example.com, you can do things like set up a number of
something@example.com email addresses for different purposes, and a number of
something.example.com subdomains for different websites. I create a lot of
'junk' email addresses, for example, to give to people who I suspect may hand
my address on to spammers.
Similarly, once you have a domain name, you can create subdomains (domains
like subdomain.example.com and anothersubdomain.example.com and
yet.another.subdomain.example.com are all subdomains of example.com) at will.
The "www" that goes in front of many domain name's website domain is in fact a
subdomain like any other, although it's so universal that many people don't
realise that's it's just a convention.
4. Domain names can be "scaled up" to allow common administration of a number
of email addresses and web pages
ISPs generally set a limit on the number of email addresses and web spaces you
can associate with a given account -- that limit is often equal to 1, especially
for webspaces. Domain name hosts often will too, but you can increase this
limit arbitrarily by switching hosts.
Once you have a domain name, the possibility of a more or less unbounded
number of websites and email addresses opens up. If your company grows from 10
to 1000 employees, you can add email addresses for them as needed. If you
become addicted to web publishing, you can set up a new subdomain for every
new project. Moreover, you can host these email addresses and subdomains on a
common server and exert control over all of them from a single point.
5. Domain names appear more professional
If you're running a business, particularly a computing business, a URL like
http://example.net/~businessname/ and an email address like
itsales_example_2004@hotmail.com can be off-putting for customers. They're not
very well branded, they're difficult to remember, and they're difficult to
dictate over the phone. It's a pain to associate an email address with a task
(compare itsales_example_2004@hotmail.com with sales@example.com)
Finally, Internet literate customers will be suspicious because ISP hosting or
free services like hotmail.com are:
- cheap options; and
- transient options.
Internet literate customers will most likely be familiar with the high level
of "rot" associated with ISP accounts and free accounts, and associate that
transientness with your business, especially now that it is becoming
positively rare to encounter a business online without its own domain name.
See, for example, Kirrily Robert's guide to hiring web people at
http://infotrope.net/opensource/doc/content/webhire/webhire.html , which
suggests that you avoid hiring:
Anyone who attempts to present themselves as a professional web
consultant but does not have a business card, letterhead, or their own
domain name and web server.[3]
3. A domain name is distinctive name, such as "mycompany.com" which
represents a business on the Internet. Companies usually have their own web
server located at an address like http://www.mycompany.com/. Any business
which does not do this is being incredibly cheap; the cost of a domain and
web server address can be as little as a couple of hundred dollars. Be
particularly wary of any web business that has a web page on GeoCities,
Angelfire, Xoom, or other free web hosting services.
[Note that "a couple of hundred dollars" is an over-estimate these days unless
you're running your own server in a colocation facility. See the "Cons" section
for more details.]
--- Cons ---
Here are some potential downsides to owning a domain name. Again, not all of
these will apply to everyone:
1. Domains names have ongoing registration costs
2. Hosting a domain name is normally more expensive than hosting a user
directory
3. The domain name namespace is quite cluttered
4. Domain names can be hard for some people to understand
5. When you first move to your domain name, you will have to go through the
pain of changing your email address and breaking links one last time.
1. Domains names have ongoing registration costs
Unless someone gives you a subdomain of their domain, you will normally need
to pay a domain registrar for your domain. This is not a once-off cost: they
generally require that you renew your domain on a yearly basis. Expect to pay
about US$15 per year per domain. Sometimes it's a bit cheaper per year if
you're prepared to register or renew a domain for a number of years upfront,
but the saving isn't dramatic.
2. Hosting a domain name is normally more expensive than hosting a user
directory
Many ISP accounts come with free webhosting and an email address, and there are
lots of free webmail providers around. However, most ISPs do not offer a free
"virtual hosting" web service (the ability to host your domain on their
machines), nor do they commonly offer a service allowing you to receive mail
for youremail@example.com in their mailboxes. Likewise, the free email
providers expect you to use their domain names.
There are many services that have fairly cheap domain hosting facilities (I
will mention some later in the course and others will have suggestions too),
and the occasional free service. However the free services will almost always
have restrictions on the number of subdomains and email addresses they will
host for you, and their business model tends to rely on inserting advertising
material into your site.
Domain name hosting is perceived as a service which users will pay for. As an
estimate, for reasonably unrestricted hosting for a low bandwidth (not very
popular) site expect to pay US$3 - US$10 a month, more if you host it in a
country where bandwidth is expensive (like Australia).
3. The domain name namespace is quite cluttered
Back when people were snapping up simple @hotmail.com addresses, many simple
domain names were vanishing too. It's nowadays quite an achievement to manage
to register a .com , .net or even .org address which has a single English word
as the second level part of it (the bit before the .). In fact, it was an
achievement back in 2000 when I registered puzzling.org
The problem is nowhere near as bad as it is for @hotmail.com addresses, but
you will probably have to do some hunting for a short, memorable, and
meaningful domain name.
4. Domain names can be hard for some people to understand
Many people are used to sending email entirely to @yahoo.com and @hotmail.com.
For a long time after I stopped using my hotmail.com address, my mother kept
trying to mail me at mary@example.com@hotmail.com
This is especially a problem if you don't get a .com address. ("I'm mary at
example dot org." "What?" "mary at example dot o-r-g" "Oh!
mary at example dot o-r-g dot com?"...)
This is less a problem on the web, as people will normally find your web page
by clicking on links or doing web searches.
5. When you first move to your domain name, you will have to go through the
pain of changing your email address and breaking links one last time.
This one should be fairly self-explanatory: moving from username@example.net to
anotherusername@example.com isn't made easier by the fact that you control
example.com.
-- Next lesson --
The next lesson will be posted on Saturday, and will cover factors that will
influence your choice of domain name. In the meantime, feel free to ask
questions or add more pros and cons.
-Mary