Getting a custom, shorter URL

If the URL for your Web site is hard to remember, you may want to consider getting a .org or .edu address of your own. There are several options available to campus Web publishers. The options described below are for faculty and departmental publishers only; they are not available to personal publishers or student organizations.

If you have any questions about the options described below, send mail to www@www.utexas.edu.

Option 1 - Registering your own domain name and running your own Web server

There are many organizations that do domain registration on the Internet. Network Solutions (www.networksolutions.com) is probably the most popular site for domain registration. Registering a domain name with Network Solutions costs approximately $70 for the first two years. When you complete the application to register a domain name, you must provide the IP addresses of 2 domain name servers that will resolve your domain name to a particular Internet address. Basically, these are the servers on the Internet that help people get to your Web server when they type a name in their browser.

The University of Texas has 2 domain name servers that provide name services for computers in the utexas.edu domain. All computers in the University of Texas address space (i.e. computers whose IP addresses begin with 128.83, 129.116, or 146.6) must use UT domain name servers for their name service. If your computer is within the UT address space and you want to have a name that does not end with utexas.edu, UT charges $51 per fiscal year for this special non-utexas.edu name service. For example, if you want to register a domain name of myresearch.org, you will pay Network Solutions $70 to register the name and UT $51 to provide name service. Because of the educational and public service mission of The University of Texas, UT departments cannot register .com domain names. You can read more about this service and submit a request for name service online.

Staff at the UT Network Information Center (UTnic) can assist you in preparing paperwork to register your domain. When your domain name is registered and your Web server is operating, you can contact the UT Network Information Center (UTnic) to make sure they have the proper name assigned to your computer.

Option 2 - Registering your own .org or .edu address and hosting content on an ITS Web server

First, you must complete the steps in Option 1 to register your own domain name. If you do not want to run your own Web server, ITS can host your content. ITS has set up a Virtual Host service that enables your Web site to be hosted on the central server using your domain name. For example, www.blantonmuseum.org is a virtual host being served from the central Web server. The charge for the Virtual Host service is $150 per year and it includes 24 hour operator coverage, daily backup, statistics, CGI scripts, and more. The $150 charge for ITS Virtual Host service is in addition to the $51 per year for name service. For example, if you want ITS to host your myresearch.org site, you pay $51 annually for name service and $150 annually for hosting the Web site under the myresearch.org name.

Option 3 - Using a virtual host name like foo.utexas.org

If you do not want to register a domain name, but would like to have a URL like foo.utexas.org, ITS' Virtual Host service is the answer. We will host your site on our computer using the name you select. This solution uses the same Virtual Host service described in Option 2 above, and the charge is $150 per year. Please note, names in this option are limited to utexas.org. Because the utexas.edu namespace parallels the University's structure, we cannot create virtual host names in utexas.edu.

ITS reserves the right to reclaim names within utexas.edu or utexas.org if institutional needs require it.

Keeping your old URL

If you use the ITS Virtual Host service, it's best that you redirect people from your old site to the new address. Teamweb staff can help you with this.

The table below summarizes the three most common options.

If you have further questions about domain names and virtual hosts, send e-mail to www@www.utexas.edu.

  Reviewed 2004 October 29
  Comments to www@www.utexas.edu