FatCow Web Hosting & Domain Names

Domain name

A domain name, or domain, is an identifier or a label which you can put on your website, hosted with FatCow. For example, if you do not register a domain name, your website is located at http://username.fatcow.com/. If you do register a domain name, say example.com, then your website is located at www.example.com. Domain names make it much easier for your visitors to remember your site address and gives your business a presence on the web.

Top level domain

A Top Level Domain (TLD) is the "suffix" or the end of each domain name. (e.g., the “.com” in yahoo.com is the TLD.) There are two types of TLDs - global and country code.

• Generic Top Level Domain (gTLDs) extensions include: .com, .net, .org, .biz, .coop, .edu, .gov, .info, .int, .mil, and .museum.


• Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) are TLDs created by a country, such as .it, which is the country code for Italy or .tv which is the country code for Tuvalu, and of course .us for the United States.

A complete list of ccTLDs (sorted by ccTLD) can be found at http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm.

Register a new domain name

Register new domain names through FatCow to take advantage of our Automated Domain Renewal Service, Domain Privacy and other features. To do this you must have a hosting account with FatCow. If you do not have an account, go to FatCow's Web Hosting plans page first to purchase a hosting plan.

To register a new domain:

1. Log in to your account
2. Go to DomainCentral
   
   
3. Enter the domain name you wish to register in the text box
4. Select Search for New Domain radio button
5. Click Search
   
   
6. Select the domain name(s) you want to register by clicking the check box(es) next to the available domain(s)
7. Select the period for the registration from the drop down box
8. Check the Domain Privacy box to add it to the domain (optional)
9. Select Add to existing account, since you are already logged in, or select Create new account if you wish to add this domain to a new hosting account
10. Click Continue.
11. Enter your payment information, and click Continue
    FatCow will send a receipt for your domain registration and Domain Privacy, if you purchased it, to your administrative email address.
    
    NOTE: Activation of new domains takes 24 to 48 hours.

Add a domain registered elsewhere to your FatCow account

If you already own a domain, registered through another hosting provider, consider adding it to your FatCow account. Doing so will allow you to use all the services FatCow provides such as mail, ftp, and website design (just to name a few).

1. Log in to your account
2. Go to DomainCentral
   
   
3. Enter the domain name you wish to add to your FatCow's hosting account
4. Select Add Existing Domain
5. Click Add
6. Contact your domain name registrar to update your domain with the following nameservers:
   ns1.fatcow.com and ns2.fatcow.com
   Help finding your current registrar
   You should see your domain name in the list of domains
   

Cancel a domain name registration

Once a domain name is registered we have no way of canceling that registration. It is very important that you double check the spelling of any domain name that you have entered and be sure that the domain name selected is the domain name that you wish to register.

Why is my domain not loading when I enter its address in the browser?

There are three major causes that typically prevent a domain from loading:

• The domain name registration hasn’t propagated yet. It takes approximately 24 - 72 hours for any newly registered domain to show up on the Web. During this 24 - 72 hour period, important information about the domain name (including information about its nameservers, registrar, and contact information) is being sent to all of the nameservers around the world. You will not be able to access your domain until all of the nameservers that lie between your local computer and your server have received and processed this information. A similar process occurs any time a domain is renewed after its expiration date. If you renew your domain before its expiration date, however, no downtime will be experienced.
  
  To check the status of your domain name registration, you can perform a Whois search on the Internet.
  
  
• Your domain name registration has expired. Domain names will go off-line if they have expired. Perform a Whois search to check the status of your domain registration. If the Status field reads anything other than Active, you should contact Customer Support.
  
• The Nameservers aren’t set correctly. If your domain is registered with us, follow these instructions to verify that the nameservers are configured correctly.

Why are the contents of my FatCow account (http://username.fatcow.com) the same as the new domain I just registered?

The URL http://YourUsername.fatcow.com is assigned to your account when it is created.

When you purchase or add a domain name, we add that domain to your account as a domain pointer, or alias, to direct traffic to your website. Both your domain name (www.YourDomainName.com) and http://YourUsername.fatcow.com show the same content.

While registering and using a domain name is optional, it provides you with a more marketable address for your site. 

When I tried to register my domain I received an error about my telephone number being in improper format. What does this mean?

Many of the registries for non-standard domains (e.g. .biz, .org, .info and .us) require your telephone number to be entered in a particular format. This format is a plus sign followed by your international calling code, followed by a period and your complete telephone number:

+.telephonenumber

A telephone number in the United States would have the following format under these requirements:

+1.5555555555

Please note there are no symbols in the telephone number other than the opening '+' and the '.' after the country code. Do not use any dashes or other separators in the phone number.