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Bluehost

Rather than owning and maintaining my own server, I have been using the services of Bluehost for several years. Bluehost provides hosting packages for business and personal web sites. Basically, they provide the server (and numerous tools) where your website will reside. They also register your domain. I use Bluehost for all of my own web sites as well as my clients websites. I endorse them 100%.
 

How to See if Your Domain Name is Available 

1. First click here to go to bluehost.com. Note that it will open in a new window so you can hold this page open to refer back to.
2. In the menu on the left side of their main page, you will see a link called "Domain Check". Click this link.
3. You will see a box called "New Clients" (shown right) which provides a field named "Enter Domain Name".
4. Simply type in a domain name from your list and click the next button. Note that you do not need to add the "http://" before the domain name.
5. Also, there is a drop down box on the right side of the field to select a suffix for your domain name. It defaults to a ".com" suffix. You could select a different type of suffix such as: .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .us. However, the most popular suffix is ".com". This is what I always choose.
    
6. After you click the next button, you will get to see whether your domain is available. If your domain is available there will be a big green box at the top of the page congratulating you! Then you will be prompted to sign up with Bluehost. If the domain name is not available, it will tell you that the name is already registered and may provide other options with a different suffix. However, you can just start the process over and use another name from your list.

If you have found an available domain name that you like, congratulations, you are ready for registration!


 

Part 4: Registering Your Domain Name

Table of Contents for this Series