The Internet is a worldwide network of linked computers that are instructed (programmed) to communicate and pass messages between one another using telephone lines and satellite relays. These "messages" can be in the form of e-mail, web page text and pictures and a whole range of other formats.

When you send an e-mail, for example, it gets split into little pieces called "packets", each tagged with information about its destination and its other components. The packets are relayed from computer to computer ("sent over the Internet") quite independently until they arrive at their common destination. The pieces are then recombined (in the correct order!) and presented to the user as a new e-mail.

When you type in a web address (that's the line with "http://www " in front) into your web browser, your computer sends out a message that says: "I'd like to see this web page please". That message is relayed until it is received by the computer that contains that particular website, and it, in effect, says: "Certainly, here you are...", followed by the actual data that makes up the web page. Your computer then receives that data and displays it on your screen.

In this way we can send computer-based messages regardless of where the sending and receiving computers are physically located.

The web is a relatively new (compared to the origins of the Internet itself) way of making data publicly available over the Internet, in the form of pages that can be interpreted and displayed by a web browser. These pages can contain text, pictures and links to other pages, and are written in HTML (HyperText MarkupLanguage) - you can see the actual HTML code if you click on "View Source" in your web browser.

Over the web's short lifespan various other technologies have been developed to extend the flexibility and power of these pages. They enable web authors to include motion, database content and even small computer programs on web pages, which has helped bring entertainment and e-commerce to the previously text-only world of the Internet.

A domain name is like your home address, but specifically for your website. For example, the popular site Yahoo! has the domain name: www.yahoo.com. Once that domain name has been registered, no one else can have it. That's why it's important to get the right name for your website while it's available - otherwise someone else may get it first.

If your business is called "Demo Company" and someone else has already claimed it, people looking for your company as "www.democompany.com" (no spaces or apostrophes are allowed in web addresses) will go to the other company's website.
The end of the domain name (after the dot) is important, as it denotes what kind of website you are running, and potentially in what country too. Consider our "Demo Company " example.
The following domain names could be registered:

www.democompany.com (commercial, typically USA-based sites)
www.democompany.ie (Irish site)
www.democompany.co.uk (UK commercial site)
www.democompany.org (non-profit making organisation)
www.democompany.fr (French site)
www.democompany.net (Internet-related site).

There are many types of these suffixes, including one for most countries in the world, and you should choose the one that is best for your company (provided the domain has not already been registered by someone else). The ".com" one is the most high-profile, but for Irish sites a ".ie" is just as good.

It may be the case that you want to register multiple domains for your company, like a .com and a .ie, and point them both at the same website. If you are a larger global company, you may want regionalised versions of websites specific to the area to which they apply - you may want your website at www.democompany.co.uk to be available in the French language at www.democompany.fr, for example.
Domain names do not last for ever - you have to pay renewal fees every year or two, typically much less than registering the initial domain.
We can check existing domain names, make suggestions as to useful alternative names if necessary. Then we can register your domain for you, pointing it to your website, and renew the domain when necessary.

A website in many ways is no different from other promotional and marketing material, and as such, you need to consider the same types of issues.

You need to understand the purpose of your site. Will it be to act as an information store for your business? Do you want to sell your products or services online? Are your products or services even suitable to be sold online?

Secondly, you need to understand your target audience - who will be visiting the site, and why. How are they going to find it? You need to work out what you want to present on the site, and how.

Obviously, we can help you with this planning process, and once we have a good idea of what you want, we can build the website for you.