A domain name is a unique identifier for a web address. This page offers some tips on whether to get a domain name for your organization's web site, and other related information.
If it's at all possible, I strongly advise you to get a domain name for your organization's web site, for two simple reasons:
First, having your own domain name makes it easier to identify and remember your organization's web site. A church I used to attend, University United Methodist Church, in Austin, Texas, is a good example. Before they had their own domain name, the address of their web site was, I believe, 'www.io.com/~uumc'. Now, it's www.uumc.org. My current church, Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin, now has its web site at www.goodshepherdaustin.org. That's easy enough to tell people and to remember. (The character ~, by the way, is called a tilde. Try telling people a web site address containing one of those!)
Another very good reason to get your own domain name is that it allows you flexibility in where you host your web site. A domain name is, in essence, a pointer. You set up hosting for your web site and then point the domain name at that location. If you ever move your web site to a different host, all you do is point your domain name to that location instead. Visitors to your site will never know it has moved. With a site-specific web site address like 'www.io.com/~uumc', if your organization ever moves its web site to a different host, you'll have to change your web site address as well. Address changes are always a hassle.
NOTE: If you host your web site in certain places, it may not be possible to use your own domain name. See our page Hosting Your Web Site for more details on web site hosting options.
Getting your own domain name is pretty easy and cheap. There are dozens of domain name registrars you can use, and it costs $10-$35 per year to register a domain name. Notice that I cited a per-year cost for domain name registration. You don't actually buy a domain name; technically you register it for your organization (like renting, I guess) and pay an annual fee for that service.
To get your own domain, visit the web site of a reputable domain name registrar and try to find an available domain name that's suitable for your organization. Most of them have a form where you can enter a domain name that you want and find out whether or not it's available.
I use register.com for my domain names. They're not the cheapest registrar out there, but they have a good reputation and I've had no problems with them. You can get a list of all accredited domain name registrars from ICANN.
In a web site address such as 'www.example.org', the domain name is actually the last two parts, example.org. The last part, '.org' in this instance, indicates what type of organization the web site represents, and the middle part, 'example' is the unique identifier for that organization. The first part, 'www', indicates the computer on that domain. 'www' is the convention most commonly used for the computer that hosts the organization's main web site.
The first question you face is what type of domain name ending to get. '.org' was intended for use by non-profit organizations, though that is not strictly enforced. The most common ending, or course, is '.com', which was intended for commercial businesses. Now, there are other also .biz, .info, and .name, each intended to be used for a particular use.
I would recommend .org for religious organizations, since it is intended for non-profit organizations. Some people argue that you should use .com since people are most accustomed to that web site address ending. But, personally, I feel that .org is common enough that people are familiar with it, and many people are also familiar with its intended use for non-profit organizations. It might confuse some people if your web site has a .com ending, since that ending is intended for commercial operations.
Finding an available domain name can be tough these days, as so many good domain names have already been registered. The rules of thumb that I recommend is that it be short, descriptive and easy to remember. Let's use my church, Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin, as an example. The most obvious choice, goodshepherd.org, was not available. churchofthegoodshepherd.org would have been too long. ecgs.org, while short, would have been too abstract. I think goodshepherdaustin.org was a good choice. It incorporates the part of the church's name that people remember most, and seeing as their are many churches named 'Good Shepherd', it adds Austin to distinguish from other churches with similar names.
Another consideration is similar domain names. My kids, for instance, attend St. Francis School in Austin. The school's web site is http://www.stfrancis-school.org/. That's not a bad address, except that http://www.stfrancisschool.org/ is for a school in Kentucky. Forget the hyphen in my kids' school's name and you get the wrong place. Following the example of my church, a better choice of domain name for the school might have been stfrancisschoolaustin.org, though that gets pretty long.
In a similar vein, the address for the web site of the U.S. president is http://www.whitehouse.gov, where .gov is reserved for U.S. government domains. Opportunists have taken advantage of the fact that people might enter the wrong ending while trying to access the president's site: www.whitehouse.com takes you to an explicit adult web site, and http://www.whitehouse.org/ is a political parody of the real presidential web site.
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