I registered a domain a few hours ago, but I can't reach my site on the web / How come my domain still shows as being available on the InterNIC database?

Registering a domain was fairly easy, wasn't it? That's because we made it simple. However, when you clicked on the order confirmation, you set a rather extensive process in motion.

Upon receipt of your payment, we submit a registration template to InterNIC. Overnight, depending on its workload, InterNIC registers the domain name and send us an acknowledgment that the registration has been accepted. However, at this point, the domain name is not yet useable.

First, InterNIC needs to enter the domain information, such as the domain name, the domain owner name and address, the names of the administrative, billing, and technical contacts, and information about where the domain will be parked in its database. When the database is updated, it is then published on the web and searchable in the Registrars' Shared Registry "whois" database. This tends to take another day or so. Is the domain useable now? Almost.

The database with your new domain name must now be distributed worldwide. This is called propagation. This can take up to a few days as some smaller ISP's do not always update their databases frequently. On average, however, the elapsed time between your order and your domain being available worldwide is about 2 - 3 days.

Note that a domain reservation alone does not make it possible for you to post your pages on the web. A domain reservation is exactly what the term says: a reservation to use a domain name to be attached to a web site. (Or, in some cases, to ensure that nobody else can use that same name for their website).

To post pages on the web, you need a virtual website, i.e. physical storage space on the Internet. We have several plans to choose from and from there you can upgrade your domain to a virtual hosting plan.

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