A domain name is how people find your website online. Websites are hosted on a web server, and domain names connect a website to a server. Every domain has to be unique so that the web server knows where to point the user to.

Domain names can be made of up to 63 characters, and these characters can include the letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and hyphens. However, hyphens cannot be the first or last character of your domain name. Domain names cannot include underscores, exclamation marks, or any other characters. Domain names are not case sensitive.

Domain names are made up of the domain extension or 'top-level domain' (.com, .co.uk, etc.) and the second-level domain part (the 'example' in 'example.com'). When someone tries to access your website by typing in 'example.com' the DNS server will locate its IP address by first going to the group of .com domains, and then searching for the .com domain labeled 'example' to find your website.

There are a few options to get email on your domain name. Unlimited email address forwarding is completely free with all domains registered with Fasthosts. Create unlimited personal email addresses using your own domain name, e.g. you@yourdomain.co.uk, and use our free email forwarding service to redirect mail to your existing address, e.g. your Gmail or Hotmail account. Unlike many providers, we don't add our own signature text or advert links to your emails, even though our email address forwarding service is free.

Free email forwarding allows you to create professional email addresses to receive mail from, but in order to send an email from your email address, you'll need a full mailbox facility. With business-class Email Hosting from Fasthosts for as little as £0.99pm you can instantly open a personalized professional mailbox.

If you want to add a blog or a shop to your website, you can create a subdomain (e.g. shop.example.com or blog.example.com). With XcellHosts domains, you can have unlimited subdomains.

Domain extensions or TLDs are categorised into groups. The original gTLDs (generic top-level domains) included .com, .org, .net, and .gov, and over time the list was expanded to include ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) like .uk, as well as more specific geographic domains like .london, .wales and .scot.

Different extensions suit different purposes. For example, if your website is aimed at a UK audience, it makes sense to choose a .co.uk or a .uk domain. If you want your website to have international exposure, consider registering the same domain name with .eu and .com extensions. Securing your domains with as many available extensions as possible is the best way to reach the widest audience.