godaddy.com is an inexpensive and reliable place to go to register a domain name for a web site or a blog at about $7.95+/year.

however, godaddy is not easy to navigate. SO, as of October 2008, Here are the steps to point a domain to a regular hosting server.

1. login

you must login. (you must buy the domain at godaddy in order to have an account).

2. left side navigation

1. My Products
2. Domains
3. Domain Manager

3. Modify the domain in question

nameservers - for web hosting

1. click on the domain in question or check the check\mark next to it.
2. click Nameservers
3. click Custom
4. Enter the nameservers in the boxes.
5. click OK
6. click OK
7. wait at least a couple of hours for changes to propogate. to be safe, wait a day.
8. now it is safe to park the domain in your hosting server's control panel. Note: some hosting companies charge for this (like Globat: $12). Others, like PenguinWebHosting, do not. Once the domain at godaddy has settled, parking should be a smooth process. But do not try to park before the nameservers are pointed or you will have a mess on your hands - you may need to try over from scratch at the hosting server.

redirect - for URL's (and blogs that use URL's longer than a domain name)

If you have a URL (such as for a blog on webs.com or wordpress.com or blogger.com) instead of nameservers and hosting, you need a REDIRECT rather then putting your DNS servers into the NAMESERVERS entry, which is what you do in the case of regular hosting.

1. click on the domain in question or check the check\mark next to it.
2. click Redirect
3. Enter the URL
4. click OK
5. click OK
6. wait at least a couple of hours for changes to propogate. to be safe, wait a day.