How do domain name servers work?  I recently ran across a great article that covers this topic from head to toe.

If you spend any time on the Internet sending e-mail or browsing the Web, then you use domain name servers without even realizing it. Domain name servers, or DNS, are an incredibly important but completely hidden part of the Internet, and they are fascinating. The DNS system forms one of the largest and most active distributed databases on the planet. Without DNS, the Internet would shut down very quickly.

Read more about how domain name servers work here:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm

Choosing a domain name for your new dedicated server website can be a big challenge to any webmaster. For one, choosing the actual name itself is hard, because you want to pick something that is short and concise, suits your website’s message and purpose, and one that is easy to remember and not easy to misspell!

But after you’ve chosen the appropriate name, you’ll need to decide on the extension: i.e. should you go with a .com, .net, .biz, .ca, or any of the other extensions out there?

This is an easy decision for most webmasters, as .com and .net are the most popular Western choices. If you are in the UK, you’ll probably want .co.uk, whereas if you’re in Mexico you’d likely choose .com.mx if not .com.

But if the 1st choice is already taken, your secondary extension should depend more on what your business is about than anything else.

For example, if you are running an educational or nonprofit organization, you’d be more likely to take a .org than someone who is running an adult website. Here are a couple tips about each of the popular extensions:

.com – the most popular and most common choice. Alternatives for other countries include .co.uk and .com.mx.

.net – the 2nd most popular and common choice, though less professional than .com. A good choice for business and personal websites.

.org – mainly used for organizations and nonprofits but commonly used as an alternative for .com or .net when those choices are not available.

.info/.biz/.name – slightly unpopular choices for less professional websites. These are alright if you really want to keep the domain name of your choice but it isn’t available in .com or .net, but .info, .biz, and .name do not read professional like the others.

Your business is very important to you, and the image you portray on the internet for that business should be just as vital. When you purchase a dedicated server from a reliable hosting company, you should automatically get a domain name. If you haven’t already created one, here are some tips for creating the perfect domain name:

* Shorter is better! (Name.com instead of ThisIsMyName.com)
* Keep it simple
* Hyphenless trumps hyphenated (firstlast.com instead of first-middle-last.com)
* Catchy is key (Google sounds so much better than SearchEngine1)
* Words that are easily misspelled can spell doom
* Go easy on the web 2.0 slang

These tips will help you when choosing the perfect domain name for your dedicated web hosting account.

When purchasing domain names for your dedicated server, you will need to decide almost immediately how you’d like to handle the registration for said domains. Beware of choosing an unreliable hosting provider with little to no reputation in the industry, as they could maintain control of your name! Reliable web hosts like Lunarpages will show in the fine print that they do not monopolize your domains and that you have full control.

When registering a domain, you can choose to anonymously register it, which means your name, address, telephone number, and email will all be invisible to the rest of the world. Normally your web hosting provider’s information will show up instead, though this doesn’t necessarily mean they own you domain – it just means you are not listed publicly in a WhoIs query search.

There are many benefits to registering your domain anonymously:

* Privacy
* Less Spam
* No 3rd Party Telemarketers
* Security
* Affordability

Registering your domain anonymously is something every professional webmaster should think seriously about before setting up affordable dedicated hosting.

Want to manage your parked or pointed domain names via Web Host Manager (WHM) on your dedicated hosting server?  Here is the easiest way to get that done.  First step would be to login to WHM, and then click on the link for DNS Functions.

On the DNS Functions web page, you want to click on the link for Park or Point a Domain.  Now, select an existing domain on your server on which you would like to park a domain.  Then, in the text box to your right enter the domain that you would like to park or point.  Double check your settings, and if all is correct hit the “Do it” button.  You have successfully parked a domain on your server.  Now if you point your browser to the parked domain, it will send you to the domain name you specified.

You can also remove it by logging into WHM, and then going to the Account Information page.  From there click on List Parked Domains.  You can see the domains you have parked and you can unpark them from here too.  Now you have a little more control over domain parking on your dedicated server or account.

Knowing about MX Records will help you in self managing your dedicated server, especially if you are using one server as a mail server and hosting your website on a separate server, etc. So here is a brief FAQ on MX Records.

What are MX records?

MX records assist your domain name in handling email. These DNS records point the email to the mail server where it is supposed to go.

Where can I see my MX records?

Normally they will be located on your DNS provider or web host’s server. To view them, simply visit www.mxtoolbox.com/, type your domain name into the search field, and view your records instantly.

What do MX records look like?

Every MX record includes the same fields (though they can be formatted differently), such as:

Name – yourdomain.com
Class – IN (Internet)
Type – MX
TTL – This stands for “time to live”: i.e. the time it takes to update the record, measured in seconds. For example, a TTL of 7200 means the MX record will take two hours to update. The higher the TTL the less traffic load on the DNS.
Preference or Priority – The order in which mail is delivered to which server, etc. Servers that are sending should be the lowest preference number.
Data – the DNS information for your mail server: i.e. yourdomain.com.ns1.smtp.com

In Dedicated Server Hosting or actually in many forms of shared web hosting as well, oftentimes customers need to specify where and how email should be routed. MX Records do just that!

An MX record stands for Mail exchanger record and just specifies exactly how the email is routed using SMTP (or simple mail transfer protocol). Each MX record has a priority and host name – that way the entirety of the record for your domain name will point the servers to the right places.

In layman’s terms, all domains are assigned several DNS (domain name servers) records upon registration. These DNS settings allow you and others to locate the website online through the Internet. These DNS settings includes MX records. Each record points to a specific email server so that your email can be efficiently processed on that domain name.