software-development-lessons

Domain Names

You have already built and deployed your own personal website. Eventually, we’ll add your portfolio, learning blog, and other fun stuff to it.

Notice the URL of my site above— https://rag.hu . rag.hu is a domain name that I purchased. In a URL, the part that comes after the “http://” or “https://” and before the path is called the domain name:

(from MDN’s What is a URL?)

A domain name is usually comprised of:

A top-level domain (TLD). For “www.example.com”, the TLD is “com”. For “en.wikipedia.org”, the TLD is “org”. For “rag.hu”, the TLD is “hu”. A primary domain, immediately to the left of the TLD. For “www.example.com”, the primary domain is “example”. For “en.wikipedia.org”, the primary domain is “wikipedia”. For “rag.hu”, the primary domain is “rag”. Subdomains, to the left of the primary domain. For “www.example.com”, the subdomain is “www”. For “en.wikipedia.org”, the subdomain is “en”. For “rag.hu”, there is no subdomain. (When there’s no subdomain, it’s known as the apex domain.) When you deploy your personal website or final project, what domain do you want it to live at? It’s time to find and purchase one.

A standard .com domain name costs approximately $10/year. (If the name you want is already taken, however, then you first have to buy it from the current owner, which could cost anythingLinks to an external site.. Let’s avoid that for now and only look for domain names which have not yet been registered by anyone.)

Domains from other TLDs can cost more or less — for example, .ai domains cost approximately $70/year.

We will pay for the first year of your domain for you, up to $20. So your task is to find an available domain name for your personal website, and this week we’ll purchase it and get the first draft of your site deployed.

Perhaps, your firstnamelastname.com domain is still unregistered. If it is available, you might want to pick that. However, you might want to get more creative or use a pseudonym — for example, Bret Victor, a great designer and thinker, has his famous personal website at worrydream.comLinks to an external site..

If you can’t find a .com that you like, .dev is a relatively new TLD (and therefore lots of names are still unregistered) that works well for technical folks’ personal websites and projects.

There are many tools out there to come up with ideas for domain names and to check domain availability — try Instant Domain SearchLinks to an external site. or domainrLinks to an external site.. Try to find two or three candidates that you like.

Don’t actually register anything yet. We’ll do that together. But, when you find a name you like, go to porkbun.comLinks to an external site. and check how much it costs. Porkbun is my preferred domain registrar, and typically has the lowest prices. But you can also check namecheap.comLinks to an external site. or gandi.netLinks to an external site. , two other domain registrars, if you can’t find the name that you want on Porkbun.

For this assignment, in the text entry field below, submit:

At least one domain name that is still unregistered that you would want to use for your personal website or final project. For each candidate domain name, enter the price and at which registrar you found that price.