Yahoo! Small Business: Domain Name Registration

Glossary of Terms

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

24-Hour Toll-Free Support

You can call Yahoo! Domains' trained customer support staff any time at a toll-free number to get help with your domain name.

Annual Service Fee

The fee you pay to receive Yahoo! Domains or Custom Mailbox service for one year. This fee is paid at the beginning of the term and no refunds are available if you choose to stop using your domain name before the year is over.

A Record

Short for address record, it maps a domain name or hostname to an IP address. You would set an A record if you wanted all traffic for a domain or hostname (shoes.domain.com) to go to a specific machine, which is identified by an IP address.

Catch-All Address

With this feature selected, any email that is sent to your domain name is forwarded to an "@yahoo.com" email address. This allows you to have email addresses for yourself, departments (sales@yourcompany.com), promotions and other needs all forwarded to one mailbox. It also ensures that misspelled email addresses (salse@yourcompany.com) still reach you.

Please realize that this is only email forwarding. If you try to reply to a message, the address shown in "reply from" will be the address for your Yahoo! Mail account (e.g. you@yahoo.com). For full-featured domain mail, which enables you to reply using your new domain name address, you'll need to upgrade to Custom Mailbox.

CNAME Record

A CNAME record maps a hostname to another hostname. For example, you could set up store.widget-designs.com to map to store.wd.com. This means that users will always end up at store.wd.com no matter which hostname they enter in the browser.

DNS Management

DNS stands for Domain Name System. It is an Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses, which is how the Internet identifies unique hosts or computers on the network. For example, the domain name www.widget-designs.com might translate to 198.105.232.4.

DNS files control the functionality of domain names and are made of records including MX, A, and CNAME. Information in these records helps to direct your personal computer to a specific web site and helps deliver email messages to the correct mail server.

Domain Extensions

Domain extensions or TLDs are the necessary suffixes that complete your domain address. At Yahoo! Small Business, you can choose from the following TLDs: .com, .net, .org, .biz, .us and .info.

Domain Forwarding

Domain forwarding allows you to point a domain name to any other destination web address or URL, which can be a domain name, a hostname, or even a file within a folder. The result is that when a visitor enters your domain name in their browser, they are automatically sent to the destination you've chosen. This feature is often used when customers purchase multiple domain names and then direct them all to the same web site.

Domain Locking

Domain locking is a security feature that prevents your domain name from being transferred to another domain registrar and ensures that no one can modify your name servers without your permission. When you sign up for a domain name, your domain is automatically locked.

Domain Name

The "yahoo.com" portion of the URL http://www.yahoo.com is the domain name. It is a unique web address that can be registered to an organization or individual. It's like having your own personal street name on the Internet. In the same way people can find your home at 1234 Main Street, they can find you online by typing in your domain name.

If you purchase one of our Business Email, Web Hosting or Merchant Solutions plans when you order your domain, your domain name registration and annual renewal fee are included at no charge.

Email Forwarding

Email forwarding will send email messages addressed to your domain name to a free Yahoo! Mail address. For example, an email message addressed to you@yourcompany.com will be delivered to you@yahoo.com.

Hostname

A hostname is the "smallbusiness.yahoo.com" portion of the URL http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com. A hostname is usually composed of a string of letters and numbers, a dot and then a domain name. For example, you might choose to set up a hostname for the shoe department within your online store, e.g. shoes.yourstore.com so that visitors have an easier URL to remember or bookmark (versus www.yourstore.com/shoes/).

ICANN

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the governing body for the Internet. As a public service to Internet users, ICANN requires that every new domain must be added to the public WHOIS database, which lists detailed information about each domain owner, including your postal address, email address, and phone number.

Anyone can use this database to search for a domain name and discover who owns it. With Private Domain Registration, you can replace your private contact information in the public WHOIS database with generic contact information that points to the offices of our domain name registration partner, Melbourne IT.

IP Address

An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address.

Masking

Masking is an option that Yahoo! Small Business offers when you choose to forward your domain name. Forwarding your domain name means that when visitors click on a link or type a url into a browser, they are automatically directed to another site.

In standard forwarding, visitors will not see the original domain name they clicked or typed in the address box at the top of their browser when they reach the destination site. Rather, the destination domain will be displayed.

When you choose masked forwarding, the visitor will see the original domain name they clicked or typed in the address box at the top of their browser when they reach the destination. You may use this feature when you want to "mask" a web address that may not be user-friendly, such as http://www.angelfire.com/n3dqu/10_widget-designs/index.html. A Yahoo! ad will appear in the outer page frame when masking is used with the Yahoo! Domains plan.

MX Record

Short for mail exchange record, it is an entry in a domain name database that identifies the mail server or servers that are responsible for handling email messages for that domain name. You would modify this record if you would like another server, other than one managed by Yahoo! Small Business, to handle email sent to your domain name.

Name Server

The name server translates a domain name into an IP address. The whois listing for your domain includes the name servers that host your domain name. For example, when Yahoo! Small Business hosts your domain, the name servers in your whois listing will be ysn1.yahoo.com and yns2.yahoo.com.

Name Server Modification (Redelegation)

When you choose to use an existing domain name with Yahoo! Small Business services, we ask you to contact your current registrar to change your name servers to Yahoo! Small Business's name servers. This allows us to host your domain name.

Note: Modifying your name servers to Yahoo! Small Business's doesn't mean that your domain name is managed by our registrar. If you change your name servers, your domain is still managed by your original registrar and you will continue to pay your annual registration renewal fees to them.

With the Yahoo! Domains product, we also allow you to modify your name servers so that you can continue managing your domain name through us, but have your domain hosted elsewhere.

Private Domain Registration

All domain sellers are required to add your contact information to a public database. To help you protect your privacy, Yahoo! offers Private Domain Registration. With Private Domain Registration:

Our partner Melbourne IT updates your listing with Melbourne IT's own generic contact information.
Whenever someone looks up your domain and tries to contact you, Melbourne IT screens the call, email, or letter on your behalf.
Melbourne IT forwards prescreened communications to you, so you can reply as you see fit.

Starter Web Page

A starter web page is a bonus feature that you receive when you purchase a Yahoo! Small Business plan that includes a domain. The starter web page can replace the default "Under Construction" page and act as a placeholder until you decide to build a full web site or store at your domain.

A starter web page allows you to post a short, customized message about yourself or your business and choose from a set of standard page templates. You cannot edit these templates, add pages, or include your own graphics.

Under Construction Page

When you register a domain name, we automatically create a placeholder web page for you. Your visitors will see this default "Under Construction" page when they go to your domain until you replace it. This page lets visitors know that you have not yet begun building your site and includes links to advertising-supported search results.

When you're ready, you can create your own placeholder page by adding your own text and contact information to one of our predesigned templates. This starter web page is a bonus feature of your Yahoo! Small Business plan.

WHOIS

WHOIS refers to the public databases that store contact and technical information for domain names. Each domain registrar is required to maintain a WHOIS database for the domains they "host." These databases are accessible by anyone, 24 hours a day, and include information such as the date the domain name was registered, the date the domain name expires, the name servers, and the domain name holder's name, address, phone number, and email address.