Capital Professional Services

Your web site needs its own unique domain name (web address) if you want to provide a professional appearance to visitors. The domain name should reflect the unique content of your web site. For example, you wouldn’t use your name, e.g., JohnDoe.com, unless you are well known. This would work for Donald Trump or Oprah but not for the majority of us “regular” people.

Let’s look at the anatomy of a domain name: http://www.intergalactic-webs.com. Another name for a web site address is Universal Resource Locator or URL (pronounced “erl”). The first part of the URL is the protocol. Usually this is http, which stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, but it could also be https, same as http but secure, or sometimes ftp, for File Transfer Protocol. The next part of the URL, “www”, is short for World Wide Web. This part of the URL is optional now. Most web sites entered without the “www” will work. The third part of the example URL, “intergalactic-webs” is the domain name which isn’t case sensitive but may contain only letters, numbers and the hyphen character. The last part of the URL is the top-level domain. The three most commonly used top-level domains in the United States are .com, .net and .org. You have probably also seen .gov, .info, .tv, etc. Another type of top-level domain is based upon geography. The above URL could also have been something like http://www.intergalactic-webs.henrico.va.us. Continue reading →