The first step in creating a website is to register a domain name - which is done using domain registration sites.

Registering domain names is the process by which you can acquire or own a web domain. A web domain registration site is a company providing new website domain name registration services. They interact with domain registry sites, or sometimes may be registrars themselves.

A domain name also may be referred to as a URL or web address, and you register a URL or web address via web domain registration sites as well.

Domain name selection is an important first step in starting up a website. It is the web identity for a website. Sometimes webmasters want fanciful domain names, or sometimes they want descriptive names. Examples of fanciful domain names that have been registered are "Yahoo.com" or "Zillow.com". Examples of descriptive domain names are "Cars.com" or "FreeSamples360.com".

Domain names that you can register via domain registration sites come in various top level domains (TLD) or country code top level domains (cc TLD). So, another step in selecting a domain name is selecting the TLD or ccTLD. Not all website domain registration sites cover all of the TLDs or ccTLDs. Among the TLDs, the most famous are .com, .net and .org and it is likely that almost any of the sites that can register domain names can register one of those. Also .info and .edu are available, among others. There are country code TLDs essentially for all countries, and there also are regional TLDs like .eu for Europe and .asia for, of course, Asia. The most popular country code TLDs are: .uk for United Kingdom, .de for Germany, .ca for Canada, .is for Israel, .jp for Japan, .cn for China, .ru for Russia, .fr for France, .au for Australia, .us for United States, .ch for Switzerland, .it for Italia, .nz for New Zealand, .nl for Netherlands, .se for Sweden, .es for Espana (Spain), .br for Brasil, .be for Belgium, .sl for Slovenia, .hu for Hungary, . pl for Poland, .no for Norway, .sg for Singapore, .in for India, .mx for Mexico, .kr for Korea, .za for South Africa, .ro for Romania, .ge for Greece, .pt for Portugal, .ua for Ukraine and .tr for Turkey.

Among the domain registration sites, the two largest, and my two favorites are GoDaddy and 1and1.com, also called 1&1. Personally, I have found both to be reliable, and very different. Each has its advantages, and I believe depending on your needs, you can pick either one.

Godaddy is the largest website to register domain names. They are famous for their racy commercials, and I have found they provide among the fastest domain registration services. They are relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of web domain registration sites, but more expensive than others like 1and1 (who I discuss below). You can follow this link to register domain names at Godaddy.. Among the advantages of using Godaddy to register domain name is that it is very fast, their domain management tools are great and they have bulk management if you want to perform several domain management tasks at once. They run periodic new domain registration sales as well.

1and1 is a relatively inexpensive domain name registration site. They also likely the second largest of the registration sites, and are my favorite. They are very popular in Europe, and also in the United States. Their user interface is not as polished as Godaddy's, but they make up for it on price. Indeed, the bigest advantages of using 1and1 as a domain registration site is their consistently relatively low prices, i.e. cheap domain names! They also usually automatically renew by default so you don't have to worry about renewals usually (remember always to calendar your renewal dates and make sure you remember to do the renewals or check to make sure it is done automatically.) Another advantage of 1and1 as of this writing is that they also provide private domain name registration services free of charge with the price of domain registration. Click Here to go to the 1and1.com domain registration site to register domain names.

As mentioned above, always remember your domain renewals. Typically you need to check your account at the domain registration site within a year of when you registered your new web domain name. The renewal typically is in a year. At that time you must pay a renewal fee, an if you do not, then you will lose your web name / domain. Typically your domain name site will send you an email reminder, or multiple renewal reminders, but it still is your responsibility to check and avoid having the domain name drop, i.e. be lost to you. So remember, select a domain name you like, go to one of the domain registration sites and register the URL, then check back before the renewal date to renew.