The domain you choose, like "ClackamasGOP.Org" or "OregonRepublicanParty.Org", says who you are. If you are reading this, you probably already have that domain name picked out, but if not, have some fun with it. On the web each name must be unique, but there is no requirement that they are easy to remember and make sense. A pity, because then there would be no need to advise that WE should always have names that are sennsible AND memorable. There are, for example, lots of "Washington" counties in the U.S. (popular guy, eh?). So the difference between "RepublicanPartyOfWashingtonCounty.Org" and "WashingtonCountyGOP.Org" -- and their variants ".Com", ".US", ".Info", ".Net"... -- might satisfy the uniqueness requirement for registering a name, but it's more sensible and memorable to distinguish Oregon's Washington County from others by branding the name with something unique to Oregon. Jackson County, for example, has chosen "ORGOPJackson.Org". Short (good), Oregon-branded (good) and definitely GOP (good). Make sense? The rest is up to you, of course.

We recommend GoDaddy.Com for registering domains, as they seem to have reliable and consistent service, are inexpensive, and are always ready to assist you in registering and maintaining domain names, as well as setting up and managing DNS entries.

We also recommend that you consider registering multiple names that people might use, in order to catch additional traffic. You don't have to set up a separate site for each name: all the names can "point" to the same place, and usually the registrar you choose will offer that feature for free. So, if MyCounty.Org is your primary domain name, perhaps you should also consider MyStateMyCounty.Org, MyCounty.Com, MyCounty.US, and others. When you start to register your domain, the registrar will suggest alternatives, as well. Consider them. We have ORGOP.Org, of course (the old website name), and others, held in reserve, as well as the primary domain name OregonRepublicanParty.Org.

In setting up the new Clackamas County site on Hostmonster, one issue arose that was most easily solved by having a live (that is, public) web domain address pointing to the site, but we were not yet ready to make the site live. There's no need to describe the issue now (it's a detail about how to link to uploaded files from within the site), but having at least one public domain name pointing to the site while you are still developing it makes the issue moot. So, you now have another reason to register multiple domain names for your new site: to have a public address to utilize for testing and development. In the case of Clackamas County, ClackamasGOP.Org was active already, but we had also registered ClackamasGOP.Com and forwarded it ("pointed" it) to the old .Org site. So, we instead redirected the .Com name to the new site, to have an easier time installing Drupal as we configured it.

If you host with Hostmonster, they offer one free domain registration for 12 months. That means that if your live domain already exists, you can easily register a temporary domain for installation purposes if you find you need to, without additional cost. However, we do not recommend that you use that free registration for your primary, permanent domain name, and we don't recommend that you keep your permanent registrations with the same company that you use for hosting (more on that in the next section). Temporarily, however, that free registration is useful.

You should be aware that there are always folks out there who will try to divert visitors to your site by some devious methods, and you should try to defend against them. First, there are people who will watch for a domain to expire, and then quickly grab the name, holding it hostage for a large fee. That is avoided by never letting the domain expire using automatic renewal, being sure the credit card used to renew the registration is current, and being sure there is always at least one responsible party watching the registration email for notices.

Second, folks will register similar names, or names with a different usage tag, like "OregonRepublicanParty.Com" or "OregonRepublicanParty.US", in an attempt to catch people who let their browser search for the site instead of using the complete URL. Consider a brain-storming session where you protect your brand by purchasing registrations for similar names, to create a sort of protective perimeter around your site. Want the most significant political example of this? Everybody knows the website "WhiteHouse.Gov", even if we don't all like the current occupant. Well, for many years "WhiteHouse.Com" was a notorious pornography site, though thankfully no longer. And recently, "WhiteHouse.Org" has become a parked link to a permanent archive for President G. W. Bush. So, lesson learned?

Third, folks will try to hijack the name, by faking transfer requests from your registrar. This is avoided by making sure the email from the registration company is constantly monitored, not just once every month or so. That's part of the reason we recommend a temporary email address with forwarding, to avoid this devious technique: (a) hijacker looks at public registration data, and retrieves registration email address, (b) begins spamming the address with hundreds of fake emails per hour, (c) gets another registrar to issue a transfer request for control of the site name, (d) depends on the overwhelming nature of the spam from concealing the presence of an impending transfer notice from the registrar, (e) is awarded the web domain name after the notice waiting period expires.

So, the wise website manager would see the flood of SPAM to their registration address, quickly replace it with a new address, disable the forwarding on the old address, and let it fill up with the hijacker's now-futile attempts. The notice of impending transfer gets seen, either when logging into the registrar to change the email address, or afterward, on a new spam-free account, and can be quickly denied.

Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but it would work, and we should put nothing past partisan adversaries these days. So, plan ahead for adversarial events.