Domain Name Basics

An Internet domain name for your company or organization gives you the opportunity of presenting a unique and consistent presence on the Internet.

Your Web and FTP sites can be reached with an address like www.yourdomain.com. Your domain can also be used in email addresses for staff and various departments. Commonly used email addresses like info@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com or webmaster@yourdomain.com can be directed to the appropriate person in your organization.

When choosing a domain name, the following guidelines should be considered:

.com is generally for commercial, for-profit organizations.
.edu is for 4-year, degree granting colleges/universities.
.org is usually for non-profit organizations.

All other extensions (.net, .biz, etc.) are suitable for any type of business or organization. It is recommended that Massachusetts-based schools, libraries, museums and local government agencies register under the ".ma.us" domain tree.

As far as the name itself is concerned, a good rule of thumb is to select a name that can be easily remembered, spelled correctly, and not be too long in length.

Domain names are assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you want to capture all the traffic possible to your site, and/or protect your marketing advantage from your competitors, you may want to register several domain names, and establish either mirror sites of your main site, or point these domains to your main site. See our Website Hosting link below for further information and costs.

A publicly accessible database (on the Internet) can be queried to see if a specific domain name is available. Cape.Com is happy to make these queries for you.

The party requesting registration of a domain name must be able to certify that, to her/his knowledge, the use of the name does not violate trademark or other statutes.

Domain Registration

Cape.Com will gladly submit a domain registration on your behalf. When a domain is registered, an electronic form is submitted to the Internet Naming Authority, Network Solutions.

The fee for domain name registration is $35/year, or $60 for 2 years and $95 for 5 years, when paid in advance. Initial domain setup with Cape.Com requires a 2-year registration ($60) and a one-time setup fee of $35, for a total of $95. To register a domain, the following information is required:

1. The complete requested domain name.
2. Organization name, address, and phone number (Registrant information).
3. Name, address, phone number and email address of an Administrative Contact. The Administrative Contact should be an owner of the domain and able to answer non-technical questions about the intended use of the domain.

Other required information includes a designated Technical Contact and Billing Contact, which is typically set to Cape.Com. This allows us to make any technical changes to the account when necessary. We also will notify you when your account is up for renewal, so you do not have to contact Network Solutions directly.

It is important that the Registrant Name and Administrative Contact are current, and that the email address is correct, to insure all correspondence is received in a timely manner. Cape.Com confirms this information on a regular basis to ward off any potential problems.

Renewal Scam Alert: You may receive, via email or snail mail, a request to renew your domain from a company called the "Domain Registry of America". Their renewal correspondence looks very much like an invoice. If paid as such, this in effect transfers your domain over to their service. This is known as "domain hijacking". If you receive any correspondence about a website/domain that you host with Cape.Com, please contact us first before doing anything! We could save you a lot of unnecessary pain and frustration.

Ownership of the Domain

The legal owner of a domain is the organization listed on the original domain request form (Registrant name). Administrative, Technical, and Billing contacts for a domain can be changed at a later time. However, the owner of the domain must remain the same. When Cape.Com registers a domain name(s) on your behalf, you always own that domain.

Never let another party assume ownership of your domain! The domain owner is the only one who has the power to make crucial domain decisions, including changing contact information and transferring files to another server. If an Internet-related company registers ownership of your domain to themselves, you should question it immediately. We've heard so many terrible stories about people unknowingly granting technical companies full reign when it comes to domain registration -- all of which could have been prevented. Don't let it happen to you - be aware!

Related Pages