Domain Name Setup

This page shows you the steps you need to take to configure your domain name.

After registering a name there are a few things you may need to do to set up the name even if you are not going to use it right away so you can change how the domain looks on the web and change the email capabilities. Since I use Namecheap to buy domains - and recommend that you do too - I will make references to them on this page.

Contact info - When you register a domain name you will have to enter contact information for different purposes - registrant, administrative, technical, and billing.
WhoisGuard - WhoisGuard is Namecheap's privacy protection. If you have this set up then the public will not be able to see your personal information when they do a whois lookup of your domain. Some webmasters like this because they don't want people to see who owns their domain if they run a successful website or if they run a site where they want privacy. Other times they do it to cut down on spam. WhoisGuard costs a couple of bucks per year per domain but Namecheap gives you the first year for free.
Set auto-renew - Set up your domain so that it renews itself so you won't forget to renew it. First, after logged into Namecheap go to "Manage Domains", then click on the domain you want to edit, then click on "Auto-renew", then click on "Enable Auto-Renew", then click "Save changes".
URL forwarding - Even if you own a domain name that is not being used you can have your domain name forwarded to another website (for an affiliate link or to a different site of yours). They let you do this for free. First, after logged into Namecheap go to "Manage Domains", then click on the domain you want to edit, then click on "URL Forwarding", then in the "Foward URL" box type in the domain you want it forwarded to, click "URL Redirect", then click "Save changes".
E-mail forwarding - Here, you can have all e-mail sent to your domain forwarded to one of your e-mail addresses. Most people might think that since their domain doesn't have a site then why bother setting up e-mail forwarding. But you never know - maybe you'll get an offer from someone to buy the domain from you. To do this, log into Namecheap and go to "Manage Domains", then click on the domain you want to edit, then click on "E-Mail Forwarding Setup", type an asterisk ("*") for "UserName" (this will make e-mail to all usernames at your domain name to forward to your email address), then type in your e-mail address in the "Forwarded To" box, then click "Save changes".
Customized Parked Page - You can customize your parked page. For example you could put up a banner to try to make at least a little money if someone clicks on it or you could put a "Contact Joe@domainname.com if you want to buy this site".
Set DNS settings - "Setting custom DNS settings" is what you do when you get a hosting package and want to associate the domain to your hosting package. If you don't plan on associating the domain name to a hosting package then don't change this. Please note that when you add your hosts DNS settings (i.e. associating the name to your hosting package) this will disable some of the features like e-mail forwarding and URL forwarding that you get from your domain registrar. When entering the DNS information, which you get from your host, enter it in the following format only: "ns1.yourhost.com". Don't enter IP addresses. You can enter up to five name servers and it is advisable to enter more than one so you have a back-up if one goes down (two is fine). Also, it will take up to 24-72 hours for the changes to take effect, so don't start to worry unless it has been more than 3 days.