1. Shop carefully for your domain name. Go Daddy has plenty of competition, and there is a wide range of product (just the name, versus the name plus hosting, what that hosting includes, etc.) and pricing.
2. Free hosting definitely falls into the "get what you pay for" category. Sure, there are reams of free hosts, some who even offer an ad-free space, with reasonable storage and bandwidth. But after going through two of these (8tt and Gigacities) and finding the downtime unacceptable, I read a little more about this area and discovered that, as usual, others had been there before me and found the same thing. If you need your site to be up all the time, and if you don't want to hop from host to host as they fly by night, you are probably going to have to pay something.
3. If you are like me and you are going to want to customize provided templates at least a little, you are going to want to work with some web software like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage (I couldn't even get the FP page to come up properly, actually, which may have been related to something to do with MS Office, if I am to believe the message that appeared). So I didn't look into the MS products, but man the Adobe stuff is pricey! Fortunately, there are free trials which allow you to get a feel for the application to know whether you are likely to continue working in it, thereby justifying the investment. And even if you're not going to continue, you will be able to achieve your one-off results within the usual 30-day period of the trial.
4. Somehow I ended up customizing to the point where I finally realized I needed to start from scratch and design my own pages. This was not as hard as I thought it might be. Dreamweaver's Spry stuff is essentially pushbutton scripts. Sure I'm oversimplifying a bit, but truly I was able to incorporate interface elements and effects that I would never be able to code, simply by selecting things out of menus and then doing a little followup in Google as to why this or that was not behaving as I expected.
5. In getting feedback on the look and feel of your site and its navigation, be sure to ask which OS and browser the site was viewed in. All of the browsers have their peculiarities in how they display certain code, and most of those peculiarities have workarounds which are readily searchable.
6. Don't forget to add your URL to Google and Yahoo search engines. Would they find you on their own? Probably, eventually. But you can submit them for free, so why wait or leave it to chance.

More people are coming to the internet looking for work. This means it is getting harder to find a reasonable domain name. You need to find a name that is catchy and simple. Every business wants a name that corresponds to their business and is displayed in as few words as possible. But it is becoming harder to find simple domain names.

The beauty of getting a domain name is that there is no limit to how many you can buy. So, more people are snatching up several names for a low price. Then, instead of using these names they go out and sell them for a much higher price then what they had purchased them for. Hence, making money!

There are many methods you can go about making this into an internet home business. The most basic way is to find a domain web site like Go Daddy and sell your name. There are people out there that would love to have the name you have to offer. You can list the domain on sites similar to this and it will be up and running. People can then scroll through the list of available domain and buy them from you.

You can also post the name into an auction, somewhat, like, how ebay works. From there you can sit back and watch the price of your name rise up.

The last option you have is to actually build a web site and sell domain names from it. The more domain names you have to offer, the better chance you having with success.

1. DicksOnWeb.com (Dickson Web)

   This is an example of a purely honest mistake. Dickson Web is a website used for data loggers and chart recorders; however their domain name is misleading. As suspected, they have finally caught on to the words within the domain that give it its misleading message. They now only use this as a link to redirect to their new domain name.

2. ChoosesPain.com (Choose Spain)

   Choose Spain. This is a hotel and a realty site for Spain. Hopefully your vacation isn't as painful as the domain. They do however have some pretty nice land for sale and hotels for rent there.

3. ViagraFix.com (Via Grafix)

   This has been around for a while. It was a rather innocent name until Viagra came out. They have "graphix" tutorial cd's and a bunch of other items related to computer graphics. The company no longer uses this as their domain.

4. TeacherStalk.com (Teachers Talk)

   This is a community for teachers and students from across the US to talk about just about anything. It just turns out that by moving the "s" it turns into teacher stalk.

5. WinterSexPress.com (Winter's Express)

   This is a small town's local newspaper. They are called the “Winter Express”, but the domain can make it appear to be a different type of site. The paper is for Winters, California.

6. NYCAnal.com (NY Canal)

   This is a travel information website with links to all sorts of different activities to do on the canals of New York. This is a general website mistake. If you were to start a business on the Cook Islands, you would end up with .co.ck at the end of your domain. Co is the standard for commercial domains, and .ck is the TLD for the Cook Islands, so either way you will end up with the .co.ck after any innocent sounding domain name.

7. WhorePresents.com (Who Represents)

   This is actually a database for contacting the lawyer and/or publicists of some of the biggest actors and actresses out there. Whether or not this actually puts you in contact with the people it claims is beside the point, still somehow, the domain fits for at least some of the people on the database.

8. ExpertSexChange.com (Experts Exchange)

   This is a site where Experts can exchange their ideas. It is actually for programmers to get help with their current projects, and yet it makes it sound like it's advertising the best “sex change” company out there. Since then, for some reason, they've changed their domain.

9. TheRapistFinder.com (Therapist Finder)

   This is actually a database for you to find a therapist. I thought this was the best of them all, as even without the caps you would probably read it as it sounds. This site is actually pretty big and could really help you find the best therapists in your area.

Hopefully this list will make you think twice before registering your next domain name. If you've seen another strange domain name other than the ones here, please feel free to share them with me in the comments.

If Internet users hit the wrong TLD they are bound to end up on the wrong website as many web addresses may share the same secondary-domain name. But how does this pose a problem? The problem arises when the secondary-domain name, that is, the name that lies between the two dots in the example, (www.example.com) are the same. If the secondary domain names are the same, then the TLD has to be specific to locate the right site.

Just imagine trying to log on to the TNT Network for some Inside the NBA news by typing www.tnt.com only to realise that typing the TLD “com” lands you on a website for a shipping and document service in the Netherlands! The correct TLD, however, for locating the website for the TNT Network is www.tnt.tv. So, we see here how the TLDs “com” and “tv” determine to which address you end up, much like a zip code locates the right address or a surname in a class registry to locate students with similar first names.

A TLD, therefore, finds the right website users intend, much like a teacher locates the right student in a class of many named John when she calls him by his surname.

Brief History of Top-Level Domains Names (TLDs)

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) developed more than three dozen TLDs by 1985 and these TLDs were specific to uses, services and countries. TLDs specific to countries are called country code TLDs (ccTLDs). Examples of a ccTLDs are .ca, .uk and .us for Canada, United Kingdom and the United States respectively.

The uses and services outlined by the IANA in 1985 clearly show the way in which these TLDs were to be used and for the most part these regulations have been kept. Here are the ten common TLDs and their uses:

10 Common Top-Level Domains Names (TLDs), their history and uses

1. .Com

   This is by far the most popular TLD worldwide and one of the oldest. Launched in January 1985, the "com" is short for commercial and was originally intended for use by commercial businesses. Due to the popularity the Internet gained in the 1990's, the dot-com domain name is used for more than commercial purposes.

2. .Net

   Like dot-com, dot-net was created in 1985. Dot-net is short for "network" and was intended for use by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Today, anyone can register a dot-net domain as it has become a second dot-com.

3. .Org

   Established in January 1985, dot-org (organization) domain name was originally recommended for use by organizations and individuals. But due to its use as a domain name for non-profit organizations in the US and UK, it has become mostly associated with these bodies. It is also used by some US political parties, diplomatic missions and the French consulates in US and Canada.

4. .Gov

   Established in January 1985 with an intended use among US government agencies, the dot-gov domain name remains exclusively available to US government agencies; other countries have to use their ccTLDs. Example, Australian government agencies use .gov.ar.

5. .Edu

   The dot-edu (educational) domain name was established in January 1985 with an intended use among educational institutions worldwide. However, only US educational institutions have a strictly dot-edu domain name; other countries have to use a ccTLD. There are, however, some websites such as the Smithsonian Museum (www.si.edu) and the Montgomery Blair High School (www.mbhs.edu) that are registered with this domain name.

6. .Mil

   Created in January 1985, the dot-mil domain name is exclusively intended for use by the US military.

7. .Name

   When the dot-name domain name was established in 2001, it was intended for use by individuals and personalities, both fictional and real. Its use has remained as such.

8. .Info

   Established in 2001, the dot-info (information) domain name gained much popularity after September 11 when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) gave new transport routes on the newly created www.mta.info. Also, the rise in affiliate marketing has done much to raise the popularity of the dot-info domain name.

9. .Biz

   The dot-biz (business) domain name was created in 2001. It is intended for businesses.

10. .Museum

    The dot-museum domain name was born on October 20, 2001 and is exclusively available to museums.

These are usually something like .com or .edu, etc. In most instances, these extensions serve as guides to help with naming conventions for domains. They are related to the same idea as the file name extensions attached to the files in your computer. A file extension of .exe means that the file is an executable program. No, this does not mean you can shoot if when it makes you upset. It means that it is a program file that will run software like your word processor or web browser.

Internet domain extensions are similar but serve a slightly different function. In a perfect world, these extensions would always represent exactly what they were designed to do. However, with many people trying to hide various types of sites behind innocuous names, the meanings sometimes get corrupted. As a general rule, the extension do portray the intent of the website fairly accurately.

Websites that use the .edu extension are intended to be utilized by schools. This includes public and private schools, colleges and universities, and trade or technical schools. Knowing this can come in handy if you are trying to decide what the extension is for the site you want to visit. Always try the most obvious one first. It will be right most of the time. Sometimes a school will use a different extension for a second or third website with another purpose other than to promote the school or convey information to the students.

When you see a site have .biz following the web name, it will normally be some type of business. Frequently, the .biz is used more for companies that are smaller and more internet based. The idea here is that .biz sounds more upbeat and today than the old .com. A lot of web entrepreneurs like to use the .biz.

A site with .info as its suffix will almost always be an information website. This extension is not used as prevalently as some of the others. When it is employed, the site is often filled with information about a particular topic that has interest to people in a particular area of interest.

United States national, state, and local governments like to use the .gov extension. With very few exceptions, all government entities make use of this extension. It always flags a political division. The IRS, Social Security, all states, and most cities and towns have at least one .gov website. This is very handy if you know the state or city name. Many times you can just take a shot that it will be the name followed by .gov and be right. A lot of states will use some form of the abbreviated state name. If the agency is military, it will often switch from .gov to .mil. The various branches of the armed forces add this extension to their website names.

Of course, the most common extension is .com. This is considered the plum extension if a company can get it with their name in front of it. Many millions have been spent to obtain and defend domain names ending in .com. If you are an IBM or 3M corporation, this brand identity is your bread and butter. Every effort has been made over the years to insure that the special domains ending .com have ended up with the companies that already have a trade mark or copyright on the name.

If you are a not-for-profit or similar type of agency, you will most likely want to go for an extension of .org. This is the suffix of choice for churches and other benevolent institutions. While the .com would work just as well, by going with .org, any confusion over the type of company can be removed.

Every country has their own extension. They work something like this. Denmark is .de. Russia is .ru. Canada is .ca. The pattern continues. Unless you happen to be in that country, mostly these suffixes will just signal where in the world you are visiting on the internet. This is at least true of the where the website resides.

The list of extensions goes on and on. Although it is nearly impossible to cover them all in one article, this should give you a good start on understanding the reasoning behind the various extensions. By organizing your web addresses by their extensions, you will assure that in nearly every case that websites that are related will be in the same area of your list.