The Only Guide You Need to Choose Perfect Domain name

A domain name became as important as a brand name in recent years and especially after the COVID-19 pandemic where the marketing behavior and people’s interest shifted online, but what is a domain name, and which domain name suites the best for your business?

To help you with that in this article we will answer the following questions:

1. What is a domain name?
2. What are DNS records?
3. What are the types of DNS records?
4. How to choose the perfect domain?
5. What are Top-level domains & Second-level domains?
6. What are the types of Top-Level domain names?
7. What should you consider before registering your domain name?
8. Does your domain extension affect your SEO Rank?
9. How to add security to your domain name?
10. What to do next after registering your domain name?

URL and Domain names:

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), is a referral to a web resource (such as a website or a mobile application) located on a server or a device in general that is connected to the internet.

There are 3 main parts to a URL; the scheme, Domain Name, and path.

1. The scheme in a URL is referred to the type of connection that is being established (such as HTTP & HTTPS) which is the first part of the URL.
   
   
2. The domain name is essentially the IP address of where this website is located.
   
   
3. The path is where specific data is stored in the server.

Domain names:

IP addresses are assigned to every device that connects to the internet, and to connect to this device and see the content it holds (such as a website or an application) you can reach it through the IP Address that is being assigned.

However, it is difficult to remember the IP Address, it is easier when it is a string of text or a memorable name, and that is the main use of a domain name which is translating this hard to remember IP address into a string of text or a name and the other way around.

How to assign an IP address to a domain name?

Domain names use something called DNS records (Domain Name Server Records) which is how a domain name can hold the information about where your website, mail servers, and other services you are using are located, the DNS records are stored in what is called zone files in the DNS server or Name Servers.

Types of DNS records:

The DNS records are being stored in zone files in different types for different functions, there are many different types of DNS records, and these are the main ones.

SOA Record: SOA stands for Start Of Authority, holds the information about the domain name and how the DNS zone files are propagating to other servers.

NS Record: NS Stands for Name Server, a Name server is where your DNS records are stored, and this record is used to store the information and points to the location of the DNS records of this specific domain name.

A Record: mostly used to map a domain name with an IP Version 4 and acts as a translator from a name to an IP address and the other way around.

AAAA Record: similar to the A record however this type uses an IP Version 6.

TXT Record: it is a text-based record and it is being used mostly for validation, for a website, email policies, and other validations.

MX record: MX record stands for Mail eXchange record, and is used to map where to deliver the emails for the domain (directs emails intended for a domain to the server that holds the mail services of this domain)

CNAME Record: CNAME stands for Canonical Name, which is an alias that points to another domain, or a subdomain.

SRV Record: A Service Record allows services such as VoIP (Voice Over IP) and others to communicate and to be directed through a different port and host.

SPF Record: A Sender Policy Framework record (SPF Record) is being used by email services to prevent mail spoofing and limit spammer.

How to choose the perfect domain name?

When you start building a website the first thing you need to do is to choose your domain name, and this is one of the toughest and most crucial steps you need to take as this will be your online representative for your business.

A domain name is the first thing that a customer interacts with when they visit your website or they need to know more about your company and it can be used to refer to your brand, having a memorable and unique domain name can make that first impression last longer.

There are a few things you need to look for when searching for the perfect domain name for your brand, a domain name consists of two parts, a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain,

Second-Level Domain name:

The Second-Level Domain name is the second part of a domain, for example, shabaqo.com, in this case, the Second-Level Domain is “shabaqo”, it needs to be short, simple, and represent your brand in the best way possible, the shorter your Second-Level Domain is the easier it is to be remembered, here are some tricks you can use to make your Second-Level domain short, simple and memorable for your customers:

Choose your company name or brand name as the Second-Level Domain name.

If your company name or brand name consists of more than one word you can take the first letter of each word to make it your Second-Level Domain.

Promote and add your domain name to your marketing campaign, the more that it repeats to the reader in different ads the easier it gets to be remembered.

Top-Level Domain name:

A Top-Level Domain is the last part of the domain after the “.” symbol, for example, the domain name “shabaqo.com” in this case the Top-Level domain name is “com”.

There are two main types of Top-Level Domain names (TLD) which are; Country Code Top-Level Domain names (ccTLDs) and Generic Top-Level Domain names (gTLDs).

Country Code Top-Level Domain names:

A ccTLD is an internet Top-Level-Domain that is generally reserved for a country, all ccTLDs identifiers are two-letter long, here is a list of currently available ccTLDs and the country for which this code is reserved for:

#	Name	Country	Where the name came from
1	.ac	Ascension Island (United Kingdom)	Ascention Island
2	.ad	Andorra	Andorra
3	.ae	United Arab Emirates	United Arab Emirates
4	.af	Afghanistan	Afghanistan
5	.ag	Antigua and Barbuda	Antigua and Barbuda
6	.ai	Anguilla (United Kingdom)	Anguillia
7	.al	Albania	Albania
8	.am	Armenia	Armenia
9	.ao	Angola	Angola
10	.aq	Antarctica	Antarctique
11	.ar	Argentina	Argentina
12	.as	American Samoa (United States)	American Samoa
13	.at	Austria	Austria
14	.au	Australia	Australia
15	.aw	Aruba (Kingdom of the Netherlands)	Aruba, West Indies
16	.ax	Åland (Finland)	.al and .ad already allocated
17	.az	Azerbaijan	Azerbaijan
18	.ba	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnia
19	.bb	Barbados	Barbados
20	.bd	Bangladesh	Bangladesh
21	.be	Belgium	Belgium
22	.bf	Burkina Faso	Burkina Faso
23	.bg	Bulgaria	Bulgaria
24	.bh	Bahrain	Bahrain
25	.bi	Burundi	Burundi
26	.bj	Benin	.be, .bn, and .bi already allocated
27	.bm	Bermuda (United Kingdom)	Bermuda
28	.bn	Brunei	Brunei
29	.bo	Bolivia	Bolivia
30	.bq	Caribbean Netherlands ( Bonaire,  Saba, and  Sint Eustatius)	.be and .bs already allocated
31	.br	Brazil	Brazil
32	.bs	Bahamas	Bahamas
33	.bt	Bhutan	Bhutan
34	.bw	Botswana	Botswana
35	.by	Belarus	Byelorussia
36	.bz	Belize	Belize
37	.ca	Canada	Canada
38	.cc	Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Cocos Islands
39	.cd	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Congo, Democratic Republic
40	.cf	Central African Republic	Central African Republic
41	.cg	Republic of the Congo	Congo
42	.ch	Switzerland	Confoederatio Helvetica
43	.ci	Ivory Coast	Côte d’Ivoire
44	.ck	Cook Islands	Cook Islands
45	.cl	Chile	Chilie
46	.cm	Cameroon	Cameroon
47	.cn	People’s Republic of China	China
48	.co	Colombia	Colombia
49	.cr	Costa Rica	Costa Rica
50	.cu	Cuba	Cuba
51	.cv	Cape Verde	Cape Verde
52	.cw	Curaçao (Kingdom of the Netherlands)	Curaçao, West Indies
53	.cx	Christmas Island	Christmas Xmas
54	.cy	Cyprus	Cyprus
55	.cz	Czech Republic	Czech
56	.de	Germany	Deutschland
57	.dj	Djibouti	Djibouti
58	.dk	Denmark	Danmark
59	.dm	Dominica	Dominica
60	.do	Dominican Republic	Dominican
61	.dz	Algeria	El Djazair / Dzayer
62	.ec	Ecuador	Ecuador
63	.ee	Estonia	Eesti
64	.eg	Egypt	Egypt
65	.eh	Western Sahara	Español Sahara
66	.er	Eritrea	Eritrea
67	.es	Spain	España
68	.et	Ethiopia	Ethiopia
69	.eu	European Union	Europe
70	.fi	Finland	Finland
71	.fj	Fiji	Fiji
72	.fk	Falkland Islands (United Kingdom)	Falkland
73	.fm	Federated States of Micronesia	Federated States of Micronesia
74	.fo	Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark)	Føroyar
75	.fr	France	France
76	.ga	Gabon	Gabon
77	.gd	Grenada	Grenada
78	.ge	Georgia	Georgia
79	.gf	French Guiana (France)	Guyane Française
80	.gg	Guernsey	.gu, .gs, and .gy already allocated
81	.gh	Ghana	Ghana
82	.gi	Gibraltar (United Kingdom)	Gibraltar
83	.gl	Greenland (Kingdom of Denmark)	Greenland
84	.gm	The Gambia	Gambia
85	.gn	Guinea	Guinea
86	.gp	Guadeloupe (France)	Guadeloupe
87	.gq	Equatorial Guinea	Guinée équatoriale
88	.gr	Greece	Greece
89	.gs	South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (United Kingdom)	South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
90	.gt	Guatemala	Guatemala
91	.gu	Guam (United States)	Guam
92	.gw	Guinea-Bissau	Gine-Bisaawo
93	.gy	Guyana	Guyana
94	.hk	Hong Kong	Hong Kong
95	.hm	Heard Island and McDonald Islands	Heard Island and McDonald Islands
96	.hn	Honduras	Honduras
97	.hr	Croatia	Hrvatska
98	.ht	Haiti	Haiti
99	.hu	Hungary	Hungary
100	.id	Indonesia	Indonesia
101	.ie	Ireland	Ireland
102	.il	Israel	Israel
103	.im	Isle of Man	Isle of Man
104	.in	India	India
105	.io	British Indian Ocean Territory (United Kingdom)	Indian Ocean
106	.iq	Iraq	Iraq
107	.ir	Iran	Iran
108	.is	Iceland	Ísland
109	.it	Italy	Italy
110	.je	Jersey	Jersey
111	.jm	Jamaica	Jamaica
112	.jo	Jordan	Jordan
113	.jp	Japan	Japan
114	.ke	Kenya	Kenya
115	.kg	Kyrgyzstan	Kyrgyzstan
116	.kh	Cambodia	Khmer
117	.ki	Kiribati	Kiribati
118	.km	Comoros	Komori
119	.kn	Saint Kitts and Nevis	Saint Kitts and Nevis
120	.kp	North Korea	Korea Democratic People’s Republic
121	.kr	South Korea	Korea Republic
122	.kw	Kuwait	Kuwait
123	.ky	Cayman Islands (United Kingdom)	.ci and .cy already allocated
124	.kz	Kazakhstan	Kazak
125	.la	Laos	Lao
126	.lb	Lebanon	Lebanon
127	.lc	Saint Lucia	Saint Lucia
128	.li	Liechtenstein	Liechtenstein
129	.lk	Sri Lanka	Sri Lanka
130	.lr	Liberia	Liberia
131	.ls	Lesotho	Lesotho
132	.lt	Lithuania	Lithuania
133	.lu	Luxembourg	Luxembourg
134	.lv	Latvia	Latvia
135	.ly	Libya	Libya
136	.ma	Morocco	Maroc
137	.mc	Monaco	Monaco
138	.md	Moldova	Moldova
139	.me	Montenegro	Montenegro
140	.mg	Madagascar	Madagascar
141	.mh	Marshall Islands	Marshall
142	.mk	North Macedonia	Makedonija
143	.ml	Mali	Mali
144	.mm	Myanmar	Myanmar
145	.mn	Mongolia	Mongolia
146	.mo	Macau	Macao
147	.mp	Northern Mariana Islands (United States)	Marianas Pacific
148	.mq	Martinique (France)	Martinique
149	.mr	Mauritania	Mauritania
150	.ms	Montserrat (United Kingdom)	Montserrat
151	.mt	Malta	Malta
152	.mu	Mauritius	Mauritius
153	.mv	Maldives	Maldives
154	.mw	Malawi	Malawi
155	.mx	Mexico	Mexico
156	.my	Malaysia	Malay
157	.mz	Mozambique	Mozambique
158	.na	Namibia	Namibia
159	.nc	New Caledonia (France)	New Caledonia
160	.ne	Niger	Niger
161	.nf	Norfolk Island	Norfolk
162	.ng	Nigeria	Nigeria
163	.ni	Nicaragua	Nicaragua
164	.nl	Netherlands	Netherlands
165	.no	Norway	Norway
166	.np	Nepal	Nepal
167	.nr	Nauru	Nauru
168	.nu	Niue	Niue
169	.nz	New Zealand	New Zealand
170	.om	Oman	Oman
171	.pa	Panama	Panama
172	.pe	Peru	Peru
173	.pf	French Polynesia (France)	Polynésie française
174	.pg	Papua New Guinea	Papua New Guinea
175	.ph	Philippines	Philippines
176	.pk	Pakistan	Pakistan
177	.pl	Poland	Poland
178	.pm	Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (France)	Saint Pierre and Miquelon
179	.pn	Pitcairn Islands (United Kingdom)	Pitcairn
180	.pr	Puerto Rico (United States)	Puerto Rico
181	.ps	Palestine[56]	Palestine
182	.pt	Portugal	Portugal
183	.pw	Palau	Pelew
184	.py	Paraguay	Paraguay
185	.qa	Qatar	Qatar
186	.re	Réunion (France)	Réunion
187	.ro	Romania	Romania
188	.rs	Serbia	Republika Srbija
189	.ru	Russia	Russia
190	.rw	Rwanda	Rwanda
191	.sa	Saudi Arabia	Saudi Arabia
192	.sb	Solomon Islands	Solomon Islands, British
193	.sc	Seychelles	Seychelles
194	.sd	Sudan	Sudan
195	.se	Sweden	Sweden
196	.sg	Singapore	Singapore
197	.sh	Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom)	Saint Helena
198	.si	Slovenia	Slovenia
199	.sk	Slovakia	Slovak
200	.sl	Sierra Leone	Sierra Leone
201	.sm	San Marino	San Marino
202	.sn	Senegal	Senegal
203	.so	Somalia	Somalia
204	.sr	Suriname	Suriname
205	.ss	South Sudan	South Sudan
206	.st	São Tomé and Príncipe	São Tomé
207	.su	Soviet Union	Soviet Union
208	.sv	El Salvador	Salvador
209	.sx	Sint Maarten (Kingdom of the Netherlands)	.sm, .ma, and .mt already allocated
210	.sy	Syria	Syria
211	.sz	Eswatini	Swaziland
212	.tc	Turks and Caicos Islands (United Kingdom)	Turks Caicos
213	.td	Chad	Tchad
214	.tf	French Southern and Antarctic Lands	Terres australes et antarctiques françaises
215	.tg	Togo	Togo
216	.th	Thailand	Thai
217	.tj	Tajikistan	Tajik
218	.tk	Tokelau	Tokelau
219	.tl	East Timor	Timor-Leste
220	.tm	Turkmenistan	Turkmen
221	.tn	Tunisia	Tunisia
222	.to	Tonga	Tonga
223	.tr	Turkey	Turkey
224	.tt	Trinidad and Tobago	Trinidad Tobago
225	.tv	Tuvalu	Tuvalu
226	.tw	Taiwan	Taiwan
227	.tz	Tanzania	Tanzania
228	.ua	Ukraine	Ukraina
229	.ug	Uganda	Uganda
230	.uk	United Kingdom	United Kingdom
231	.us	United States of America	United States
232	.uy	Uruguay	Uruguay
233	.uz	Uzbekistan	Uzbek
234	.va	Vatican City	Vatican
235	.vc	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Vincent
236	.ve	Venezuela	Venezuela
237	.vg	British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)	Virgin Islands
238	.vi	United States Virgin Islands (United States)	Virgin Islands
239	.vn	Vietnam	Vietnam
240	.vu	Vanuatu	Vanuatu
241	.wf	Wallis and Futuna	Wallis Futuna
242	.ws	Samoa	Western Samoa
243	.ye	Yemen	Yemen
244	.yt	Mayotte	Mayotte
245	.za	South Africa	Zuid-Afrika
246	.zm	Zambia	Zambia
247	.zw	Zimbabwe	Zimbabwe

Generic Top-Level domain names:

A gTLD is one of the categories of the Top-Level domains that is maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which can be used for general-purpose, currently, there are more than 1,500 generic top-level domain names such as .com, .net, .info, and so on

There is also another type of gTLDs named sTLD stands for Sponsored Top-Level domain names, which is the type of Top-Level Domain names that are sponsored by a specific entity or business.

 Here are some examples of the sTLDs:

• .gov: used by the US government
  
  
• .edu: for institutes that are accredited by the US Department of education.
  
  
• .mil: used by the US Military.

Things you need to consider before registering your domain:

Some of the domain extensions have restrictions and roles regulated by the government of that country or the company that manages it, so make sure to read about the domain extension if it has restrictions.

Here are some of the roles and regulations that are commonly used by the governments to give you a kick start:

Your domain name should not infringe a company name or a brand name that is already registered in the country or internationally known.

Your domain name should not contain culturally offensive words.

Your domain name should not hold a name of a ministry or a known authority in the country.

Does your domain extension affect your rank in SEO and Google Search?

Nop, Google does not care what kind of extension you hold, whether it is a ccTLD or a gTLD, Google search algorithm looks for content and how can it benefit the person who uses Google to offer the best website that can benefit the user the most in their search.

However, a domain name can have an indirect effect on the user, if your domain name has an unfamiliar extension or an odd one, the user is more likely will not click on your website which leads to less traffic to your website and in turn, it will affect your SEO rank.

How to add security to your domain name?

A domain name is the most important aspect of your brand name as nowadays everything is shifting online, and we all know how frustrating it is going to be if you well established your company and your company’s website and then your domain gets hijacked by a hacker,

Therefore, adding security to your domain name is a very important step, there are different levels of security that you can add to your domain name:

Registrar Level Security:

A registrar is a company accredited and authorized by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to sell domain names.

Here are some tips on how to secure your domain at the registrar level:

Generate a strong random password for your domain access.

Activate Two-Factor Authentication.

Domain-Level Security:

• Activate WHOis Protection ( This will hide your domain information from the public.)

• Activate email alerts for DNS changes.
  
  

Name server Level Security:

Activate DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security), This will ensure the authenticity of the queried data or DNS records.

Email Security, you can do this by adding specific DNS records such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, this can be provided by the email security provider.

Server Level Security:

Install and activate an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate.

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection.

WAF (Web Application Firewall), can help you filter unwanted traffic or queries to your domain and DNS records.

What to do next after registering your domain name?

By reading this article you will understand more about the domain names, DNS records, and how to pick the perfect domain for your business, however, this is not the only thing you need to do to establish your digital presence if you are ready to take the next step after registering your domain name you can read the following articles to give you more details on how to build your website, and where should you host your website.

• How to start your website like a professional?
• The Complete Guide To Shared Web Hosting

And you can always contact our professional team to guide you to your successful digital presence!