As you adventure into the World Wide Web, there are a few things you should know. First and foremost deals with your DOMAIN NAME. This is your www.whatever.com name - how people find you on the web. This is no different than your home address - except there is a fee for leasing your domain name. Everyone pays a fee for domain name leases - EVERYONE! These lease fees can be purchased then renewed ever year, every few years, or up to 99 years. The longer the lease, the higher the cost. Here is a typical fee for an average .com:

www.rtiffany.com

Initial fee - $15.00

At the time I paid my initial fee, I had the option of a 1 year, 2 year, 5 year or 99 year lease

• 1 year - $15.00
• 2 year - $13.00 per year - $26.00
• 5 year - $12.00 per year - $60.00
• 99 year - $8.00 per year - $ I can't count that high! But you get the idea.

If I choose NOT to take advantage of the initial offers - this is how they GET you - they don't tell you that your next year fees are going to be around $30.00. This is how they make money - so carefully plan out your purchase. If this site is 'just to see what happens', you might consider just a 1 or 2 year lease. If you know this is what you want, purchase a longer lease up front if you can, it will save you $$$.

Another word of advise - these fees can change without notice. There are regulations as to how much they can increase them, so it shouldn't get too out of hand. Quite often you can find 'sales' on domain names. I use Godaddy for all my domain name purchases, so you can look at the pricing structure there. They also have a search area so you can try different names to see if what you want is available.

Domain name leasing is something most folks do - its the 'nature of the beast' so to speak. You will find other hosting sites that will not make you purchase a domain name, but your web name can be extrememly long. A typical free domain name would look like this:

www.myhostingcompny.com/otherbusiness/clients/yourname.com