A. Where to Register

A number of new domain name registration agencies are getting ready to open their electronic doors. (See "New Domain Name Registries," below.) For now, however, we recommend that you use Network Solutions, Inc., to check the availability of and register your name. NSI is the leading domain name registrar in the world, with over five million registrations to date and, until mid-1999, was the only U.S. registry. We base our recommendation primarily on NSI's successful track record; the newer registries, while competitive in terms of price, lack NSI's experience.
New Domain Name Registries
The international group that is now in charge of Internet domain name policy (ICANN, short forInternational Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is in the process of chartering a number of additional domain name registering agencies. All of these agencies use a shared, central registry, maintained by NSI, so that there will be no duplications. The main stated purpose of having a number of registering agencies is to foster competition. While NSI is still the main game in town, more choices may mean lower registration fees. A list of approved domain name registries is available at www.internic.net/alpha.html.
After checking the availability of your name with NSI, you can either register it or reserve it with a credit card. If you want to register the name, you must be prepared to give NSI information about your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and about who will be physically maintaining (hosting) your website. If you don't have immediate plans to attach your domain name to a website, or haven't gathered the information you need to register from your ISP (or intended website host), you can still reserve the name. The ISP and hosting information will not be required until you are ready to put the domain name into use. Reserving rather than registering the name costs an additional $49, on top of the basic $70 fee for a two-year registration. You can register a name for up to 10 years.