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Domain Name Registration

Brief

Homepage will search on the status and availability of your requested name(s) and will administer the registration of your requested Domain Name with any of the Network Identification Centers (NICs) in service around the world. If you currently have a Domain Name, Homepage will administer the activation or transfer of your Domain Name to your Web site.

Detail

Every site on the World Wide Web must have a Domain Name System (DNS) entry. A Domain Name consists of an alphanumeric string followed by a dot and then a top level domain. e.g. myname.com
This Domain Name, once registered, can then be accessed by anyone on the world on the Web.

The first part of your name is completely up to your discretion. It cannot contain any spaces but you are permitted underscores and hyphens. Naturally, most organizations will request the same name as their current business with a .com (for commercial) top domain. This is fairly straight forward if that name has not yet been registered by another party. If your requested name is not available then you must choose an alternate site name or top level domain.

Top Level Domains

Top Level Domains are the two or three character extensions following the dot in your Domain Name. Here is a chart of the common top level domains.
 

Commercial Businesses	com
Higher Education (mainly U.S.)	edu
Government (mainly U.S.)	gov
Military (U.S.)	mil
Network	net
Organization (e.g. Charities)	org

If none of these top level domain name extensions are to your liking, you wish to indicate the country and/or state/province that your business is located or if that really cool name you want has already been registered, you may want to consider an International top level domain. A complete list is provided for International Top Level Domains. Here are a few examples:
 

Canada	ca
Ontario, Canada	on.ca
United States of America	us
United States of America, Ohio	oh.us
United Kingdom	uk
United Kingdom, Coventry	co.uk

Registration of .to Domain Names
The .to or International Top Level Domain for Tonga is a very special case. It is the only international top level domain that which anyone or any business from any country can register a domain name. This top level domain works like any .com, .org, .net or any other international top level domain on the internet. You do not have to host your site in Tonga. You do not have to host your site with us (homepage.to). You can host your site anywhere in the world on any server. There are several strategic advantages to using a .to domain name:

• Domain Name Availability. The vast majority of common names or English words have already been registered in the .com, .net and .org domains. You may have a very popular or cool domain name in mind that is still available with the .to extension.
• Privacy Protection. Tonga is to the Domain Name world similar to what Switzerland is to the banking world. As well as permitting organizations and individuals from anywhere in the world registering with them, they also keep all your personal and technical information private. Unlike any other registrar, nobody can query your domain name and find out who owns that name, what servers or hosting provider you are using in what country or any other information about your domain name registration. They will only tell people whether or not a specific domain name has been registered.
• Longevity. Tonga is the only registrar in the world that permits registration and renewals of domain names for periods of anywhere between 1 and 100 years!

The Bottom Line

Domain Name searches and registration or Domain Name transfer is included with all Web site packages. You are responsible for the Domain Name Registration fee.
 

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