A unique string of alphabets, numbers and/or special character hyphen (-) which corresponds to an internet address or website is known as a domain name. Domain names are governed by rules of Domain Name System (DNS).

Most common form of Domain Name is a website address used world-wide by website owners to publish their sites on the internet. When domain name is entered into browser, it is resolved to a server based on the DNS rules for that domain. There are more than 25 crore active domain names by year 2014. Domain names are maintained by Domain Registry and needs to be registered through a registrar. Domain name can be registered with different extensions. Most common extensions like .COM, .NET and .ORG are called Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). There are now 600+ different extensions available out there to register from.

Generally the minimum registration period of a Domain Name is 1 Year and maximum period is 10 years. Once the domain is registered, the owner is authorized to use that name for his/her website for the registration period. Domain names can be renewed at any time before expiry date to extend its validity from the date of expiry. There is also varying grace period after expiry date depending upon the extension to renew the domain. Domain names can also be transferred from one registrar to other registrar but once a domain name is newly registered or renewed, it cannot be transferred to other registrar within next 60 days.

Registering a domain is the first step to make a website live. Competitive registration prices are an important factor while choosing registrar company however, ensuring a reliable partner for this service is even more important as some of them tend to lock your domain and do not allow transfers in future or tend to charge too high for renewals. So Choose your domain registration service provider wisely.

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