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This page offers some introductory basics on domains and related topics for the benefit of the church pastor,
church board member or a ministry eager to set up a website. Webmasters will need much more detailed information (e.g.
available on the TAGnet website) in order to setup a website. |
What Is
A Domain? |
A domain (e.g. mychurch.org) is a registered web address referred to as a URL (Universal Resource
Locator). Domains revert to the registry that owns them if you don't keep up your payments. In that sense you don't actually
own the domain. |
TAGnet
Example |
My church is hosted by TAGnet and appears on the internet in two different ways: 1) TAGnet.org/mychurch
2) MyChurch.org
The first is illustrative of what every church and ministry site gets from TAGnet with a basic membership. The second
approach uses a domain listing, which TAGnet facilitates, with AWregistry. Domain listings are readily available for about
$15. Hosting the domain costs more than the regular service, largely because it comes bundled with several features such as
domain based email. |
Basic
Membership |
The advantages of a basic membership are that it is easier to set up and costs less. Most of your
visitors will be delivered to your site by search engines, so you could argue, what difference does it make. |
Domain
Advantages |
Everything following the TAGnet.org/ in the first example must be spelled correctly, with
upper/lower case done exactly. The domain listed identity is much easier for people to remember and identifies much better
with the church or ministry. Spelling it MyChurch.org or mychurch.org works equally well. It is much easier to remember and
get the internet address correct with a domain, something you want to feature in your church bulletin, business cards, etc.
Email is also associated with the domain. You can set up email accounts and automatic forwarding aliases:
- Webmaster@mychurch.org
- Pastor@mychurch.org
- Treasurer@mychurch.org.
Be sure and have your webmaster read up on SPAM Proofing Your Website before
implementing your new email system, regardless of which approach you use. |
Upgrade
Later |
With TAGnet, you start out with the basic membership and can upgrade at any time in the future.
Your site will then be accessible both ways because traffic arriving anywhere at TAGnet.org/mychurch is automatically
redirected to the mirrored mychurch.org address. When a visitor arrives at the TAGnet/ address, by way of a search engine
still using the old address, what they see in the address box is the domain listed address, ready to be book marked. When my
church upgraded from a GeoCities free hosting service, complete with commercials and slow performance, to TAGnet hosting, I
placed re-directing code on all the important pages to seamlessly forward the old site over to the new site. It took months
for the search engines to completely abandon the old site, so I waited a year before depopulating the GeoCities site. |
Domain
Extensions |
While .gov and dozens of other extensions are restricted, there are no limitations to
claiming any one of the extensions listed below. For that reason, many churches and ministries buy up .com and .org domains if
not the entire set, not wanting an anti site to claim one of the others.
.com -- commercial
.net -- internet
.org -- non profit organization
.info-- information
.biz -- business |
Domain
Name |
A domain name should be short and memorable. MyTownAdventist is recommended while MyTownSDA is
not. |
Choose A
Domain |
Go to the TAGnet Names Services
page and enter a domain idea that you wish to try (e.g. DomainIdea). At this point it makes no difference whether you use
.com, .org, or no extension at all. The next screen will tell you which .extensions are available. Do not attempt to
use this entry point to purchase a domain. You need to login as a TAGnet member to get an AW Registry domain for $15 at the
TAGnet member rate. |
Cheap
Domains |
Beware of cheap domains as companies do go out of business. The domain registry owns the domain
that you rent from them. This can be a problem when they go out of business. |
