Here are some answers to most of the frequently asked questions. However, if you cannot find answers to your questions, please contact us through the contact form and we will try to answer your questions. Or you can visit our website for these FAQs.
What does a domain name mean?
It’s basically an address (like a house on a street) on the Internet. Each website you may have visited, and any e-mail you have sent has been used to send to a domain name in its address.
People normally register a domain name in relation to a business name or it might be a particular individual’s name to claim a business or its name. Eg, “Bob the Plumber” you can buy a domain whether for your own use or for any business-related reasons.
Upon a domain name being registered to a company or person, it is exclusively for that person to use it perpetually, you are entitled to renew the domain name with an annual fee, if not, the domain name will be either auctioned off or else it will expire off eventually. At which point someone else who might be looking for such a business or name may buy it and register it again for their own business.
What are valid domain names?
For a domain that is an owner’s name or names of a business, these could be made up of characters which are valid these can be letters from a to z, or numbers ranging from 0 to 9 and or it may contain hyphens (-).
And the maximum is 67 characters long can be used for a domain name itself, and these may include these characters, and these allowable characters to be used to identify the TLD or “Top Level Domain” as they are known.
For example, these names “fox.com”, “fox.au” or “firstname.net” can be registered and these are considered acceptable domain names.
On the other hand, these names cannot be registered, as they are unacceptable domain names, such as www.fox.org or http://fox.com or lawyer_xyzcharacters.com (the spaces or underscores are not acceptable for domain names)
What is TLD or “Top Level Domains”?
It is the characters in a domain name that are on the rightmost side of it. Generic and National are the two types of “Top Level Domains” or (TLDs).
As a Generic Top Level Domains, such as these (.name, .net, .com, .org, .biz and .info) and these can be described as an entity or an organization for the domain name that is being registered. However, be forewarned that they cannot be differentiated between themselves in terms of a geographic location for that Generic TLDs.
For a National, Top Level Domain, for example, (.ca, .us, .cn, .us) an owner’s name or a registered domain can be specified in a territory or by countries.
The current registrar may deny a transfer, or they may even approve it and only then it can be registered under an organization or citizen but if it is a national domain it may be denied as these are only kept as countries TLDs.
“Top Level Domains” what do some of them mean?
a) For any Business site – it normally ends like this, with a (.com)
b) For any ISPs or Internet Service Providers – it normally ends like this, with a (.net)
c) For any Non-profit Organizations – it normally ends like this, with a (.org)
d) For any Commercial site – it normally ends like this, with a (.biz)
e) For any Informational sites– it normally ends like this, with a (.info)
f) For any Personal sites – it normally ends like this, with a (.name) eg, mike.com or Joe.UK
g) For example, in Canada an Organizations there – it normally ends like this, with a (.ca)
h) For example, in China an Organizations there – it normally ends like this, with a (.cn)
i) For example, in the UK an Organizations there would end normally like this, with a (.uk)
j) As for example, in the USA an Organizations there would end like this, with a (.us)
What’s the duration it takes to activate a domain?
It can be almost immediately in some cases, or it might take about 24 hours to be activated. However, it may take a couple of days before the domain name can be propagated throughout the Internet.
How do we ascertain if a domain name is taken or if it is available?
Many domains could be registered but may not have a website hosted yet. So, if a website does not exist on the internet it does not mean that the domain name is taken up. However, to verify if a domain name exists or not there are search tools on the internet to help you find if a domain name is available or not.
What takes place during a domain name transfer?
Well, it is a multiple process step and these steps laid below normally takes place:
a) A confirmation e-mail will be sent to the contact currently registered as the registrar or the owner of the domain name.
b) Upon your approval and confirmation of the transfer, the “new” registrar will receive an email, indicating this request.
c) The “new” owner or registrar may deny or can allow the transfer.
d) The “new” registrar may initiate an acceptance and once the approval is received by the Empowering Media, it can approve the transfer to be completed, however, the nameservers will stay intact.
e) You, the “new” registrar will be notified by email that your transfer request is completed.
f) You can now start to get hosting and prepare to build out the website as your heart desires.
Are registration fees refundable for a domain name once registered?
Unfortunately, the registration fee for a domain is non-refundable and there are no such deals or guarantees are given like returning monies within 30-days.
If I made a typo error during a registration of a domain, can I get a refund?
Any fees are not refundable, so it is advisable to check before registering any domain names, and male sure to verify and re-verify the domain names are correctly spelled out to make minimal errors, as registration is absolute and final.
How can I make changes, if I have renewed or registered a new domain name?
Well, if it’s at the hosting or backend changes, no problem, you can log in through the backend and make changes. However, if you want to change anything to a domain name is impossible now.
If you want to manage your information online, you can get into the backend after setting up the hosting and you can log in to the backend to make changes. Eg, https://www.james.com/wp-admin (this is for a WordPress website only). For these changes to be effective, you will need the domain’s username and password to make the desired changes.
If you don’t have the username and password or have forgotten them, please contact the host whom you had bought the hosting from for that domain name or contact the support over at the hosting for help you.