Whatever business you are in, an Internet address or domain name registration is crucial for the future of your business. Imagine how often your company name, your address, your telephone number and your overall identity is used and referred to today and you will get some idea of the importance your domain name will have. Registering your domain is an important part of protecting your business. You may have spent a lot of time and money building your reputation, corporate identity and brands and if you fail to register appropriate domains you are open to abuse of this intellectual property.

Although the concept of a domain name may seem simple enough – using a sequence of letters and words to identify a Web address – there is a great deal more going on “behind the scenes”. This is because a domain name registration not represent a Web site’s true address; rather, it is a mask that makes a Web site’s true address easier to remember. Domain names are actually attached to a DNS (Domain Name System) server, which is used to translate numeric addresses (known as IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses) into words. Each site you visit on the net has a numeric IP address behind its name, which represents the site’s real address on the Internet. Every domain name registration be attached to a DNS server, which is the responsibility of the domain’s owner (most registrars and Web hosts will handle this issue for you). There is no one central registry for DNS information; when a user enters a domain name registration to their Web browser, it is up to that URL’s DNS to handle the request. The DNS server then provides the browser with the correct IP, if it exists; otherwise, it returns an error message or redirects the user elsewhere.