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Choose the right handle for your Web site
IF YOU'RE TRYING TO PROMOTE A SMALL e-commerce business in a big world, the right domain name is everything. Roses.com by any other name may not be the online shopper's obvious source for rose sales. Registering your domain name sounds easy enough: Pick a catchy name, register it with one of the domain vendors on the Web, and open your online doors.
But the reality of domain registration is more complicated; it's not just a matter of picking a name. You'll have to make sure the one you choose aptly represents your business-and isn't already taken.
Find a Name Say you run a small business specializing in roses and you want to register roses.com. First, you need to make sure the domain is available by running a Whois (www.whois.net) search from any domain registration site. One good place is InterNIC (www.internic.net), which managed all top-level domains (.com, .net, and .org) before control was passed to the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN; www.icann.net).
If your top choices are already taken, head to Network Solutions Inc. (www. networksolutions.com), which registers about 80 percent of all...