Simple Designs

Simple Designs
Webpage Design for Small Businesses

Selecting a domain name... Perhaps you already have one in mind, or Simple Designs can help you pick one out. Please review the list of criteria set out by Internic, the company that manages all requests for Domain Names.

Maximum length is 26 characters. This includes the .com .net .org or .edu ending.

Allowable characters are any letter, any number, and the hyphen: -. Spaces are not allowed.

Domain names cannot start or end with a hyphen.

There are guidelines for determining which endings (.com .net .org .edu and .gov) go to what types of companies. .edu and .gov are actually monitored, but there are guidelines for the other endings. These guidelines are mostly suggestions but they are nearly universally followed. Generally speaking--

.com is for commercial businesses
.net is for network (computer) related organizations
.org is for non profit groups
.edu is for 4-year degree granting institutions
.gov is for US government agencies
.ca is for Canadian companies
.us is for US Business--but there is a strict naming policy using state and town names. For example, if your business is Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, then your domain name would be microsoft.redmond.wa.us

Finally, you need to make sure no one else already has the domain name you have in mind. To do this, do a "whois search" by going to this webpage: http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois