# Dummies guide to: ENS domains By [Gremblo](https://paragraph.com/@gremblo) · 2022-03-25 --- So you’ve been thinking about getting an ENS domain… ---------------------------------------------------- ENS domains are what people are using to have a web3 personality/presence, some are using it to tie web3 to their real life identity and others are creating an anonymous character. ENS allows people to tie an address to a human readable title, meaning that instead of having to type a long string of numbers and letters, people can use the ENS domain instead. ![Sending transactions to your wallet is much easier!](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/db6cbcc4b78fbf6c8fcb01ebbe635b0dac9eee78ddbdeae46266d68a4c666755.png) Sending transactions to your wallet is much easier! That’s really the main attraction to ENS domains, making your address human readable and easy to remember. How to register an ENS domain ----------------------------- Registering an ENS domain is easy peasy squeezy lemons, I’d recommend doing these steps **on the account you wish to use the ENS domain on**, otherwise you are going to have to spend money transferring it over. Step 1: Figure out what ENS domain you want ------------------------------------------- Go to the Ethereum Name Service and search for a name that you want. If no one has taken it then it can be registered. [https://app.ens.domains/](https://app.ens.domains/) UNICODE characters are accepted in ENS domains so the sky is the limit! However I’d recommend that you try to create a name that is easy to remember and/or type… or you can just not listen to me if you know people are going to be copy pasting it most of the time. ![Emoji ENS domain that is valid](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/8ba99ca05e7d072cff0e192e5056e04421cf9486f33dd4ad886bf29523032502.png) Emoji ENS domain that is valid Step 2: Registering the domain ------------------------------ First of all connect to the site using the connect button, **make sure you connect to the site using the account you want to register the domain to**, this will make it much easier as you won’t have to transfer ownership. The user interface more or less tells you how the registration process works but here’s a few tips: * Registering extra years is cheaper than less since you will only have to pay gas on this one transaction instead of renewing it every year. * At any point after registration, once you own the domain, you can freely add years to the registration. **What you select now is not permanent and can be added to.** * Try to register the domain when the gas is low, this will mean it will cost less to register the domain. * **Do NOT** try to change any transaction settings when registering the domain _other than speed_, this will most likely break the transaction. * Make sure to look at how much the transaction will cost, don’t click through quickly, otherwise you may end up spending more than you wanted to. Once you’re happy with the amount of years, hit the request to register button. It will make a request to register. ![Request to register and follow the 3 steps](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/8348779fdccf23dc1908caaa7325b1f9664d66c327a68e49fcbb015e7be41def.png) Request to register and follow the 3 steps The first transaction is a request to check if anyone else is attempting to buy the domain but hasn’t bought it yet. If no one has tried to register it, you will then get a second transaction that is to completing the registration. Step 3: Link the domain to your address --------------------------------------- If you’ve registered the domain using the same address you want to use it on there’s one more step before you can start using it. You have to set it as your **primary ENS name.** Each address can only have one ENS domain associated with it. Click on my account and click the dropdown and select your newly registered domain. After that hit the save button and complete the transaction. Congratulations! You now have an ENS domain! ![Select the domain you wish to associate with this address](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/9f9a94065f69e4be61215b12f523f40d7784c260e8e20e9c0500e217dad3ee5d.png) Select the domain you wish to associate with this address Now if you go onto Uniswap and sign in, your ENS name will show up instead of your address. Pretty cool riiiight? Well the world of ENS domains is constantly growing and there’s a whole lot more you can do with your domain than meets the eye… ![Berry cool and good](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/32e024bb14c816e24029ad0ec11a7522019685068d813be12557266dbe2b340d.png) Berry cool and good What can I do with my domain? ============================= If you’ve made it this far, you’ve set up the basic functionality when it comes to an ENS domain, but you can do a whole lot more! In this section I will be going through all the things you can do with ENS, there’s not a whole lot of accessible information when it comes to the extra functionality and I spent a whole lot screwing up. **Click on _my account_ and select the domain to be able to see what I’m talking about next** ![Click on my account and select your newly acquired domain](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d2d0b76eb9be82862fe79ed4f212825335a2bab177211920b6f90889e5e02e59.png) Click on my account and select your newly acquired domain Registrant, Controller, Resolver -------------------------------- The registrant is the person who paid for the domain, you can buy a friend a domain and then let them use it like it was their own. The controller is the person that can set ENS records and create subdomains, the controller is the person who can use and modify the domain. The resolver is the contract that allows services to interpret your domain into an address. Any basic standard ENS functionality will work as intended. Many web3 services have pledged to support the ENS standard. In other words **DONT CHANGE THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.** So in summary, the **Registrant** is the person who paid for and controls who runs the domain, the **Controller** is the person who can run the domain and the **Resolver** is the contract that allows services to interpret your domain. ![Your domain details](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/c1a6a0c59fa4760daf817e762680ee1baf982d176674f26c1f3f450d7f79a97d.png) Your domain details Records ------- Records are what allow you to extend the functionality of you ENS domain, adding other addressed to work with your name, adding an avatar that will show up on any web3 app that will support it and so on. We will discuss what you can do in this section. Addresses --------- Here you can add addresses to be linked to your name, you can add your main BTC address and people can just type your ENS domain and it will be sent to that account. There are other addresses that are supported (a very large list actually) but only a few are shown by default. If you want to add an address that isn’t listed you can hit the **add/edit record** button at the top right press the drop down labeled **add record** select **addresses**, select the **coin** you want to link your domain to and then enter the **address** of the **wallet** and hit save! ![Select add/edit record](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/dbdb7f2f6fca1dfab6ff3d343a5dbc296d840c2b22a09cd7848502f5e2aaaac5.png) Select add/edit record ![Click addresses](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/71f1f3fd46aecfec70678486dcb89b1f6a3fa2a94af35d499d67ecad45697ed2.png) Click addresses ![Select what coin you want to link](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/daccf9337cdbff17230e4abe137970ef25f6cc0e4d8ded7c0fc66729d0ef5298.png) Select what coin you want to link ![Enter the address and hit save!](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/daccf9337cdbff17230e4abe137970ef25f6cc0e4d8ded7c0fc66729d0ef5298.png) Enter the address and hit save! Text Record ----------- In this section you can add a whole lot of functionality to your domain. I will be going over each one and telling you what it’s responsible for. ### Avatar This is what you use to have an image show up when you login to web3 services instead of a generated image. You can link an NFT you own as the avatar and a lot of people have already made tutorials so if you want to know how to do it go here: [https://medium.com/the-ethereum-name-service/step-by-step-guide-to-setting-an-nft-as-your-ens-profile-avatar-3562d39567fc](https://medium.com/the-ethereum-name-service/step-by-step-guide-to-setting-an-nft-as-your-ens-profile-avatar-3562d39567fc) If you have followed the tutorial above correctly, after a short time you should be able to refresh the ENS page and see your icon change. Now any web3 services that look for ENS avatars will display this image for you! ### Description This is a record that describes the name of the domain, you can make it whatever you want, I’ve used it to describe myself. ### Notice A notice for the name, this was created to allow people to set a status for the domain such as: “Selling for lots of money“ or “Not for sale, go away“. ### Keywords Traditional keywords are used in modern search engines to allow more relevant search results and in the future this may be what the keyword section is used for when ENS domains become as popular as .com domains but for the time being most people just use it to list things they do or services they provide. ### Social/Profile links | com.discord, com.twitter, etc… There’s a ton of social/profile links that are currently supported under the ENS standard, more may end up being supported so keep an eye out for that! **The general rule of thumb when it comes to linking social/profile links is to just have the username and nothing else, you don’t have to put the entire hyperlink to the site.** Here are some examples of entries: Discord: **ExampleName#123** Twitter: **ExampleName** ### URL The URL record doesn’t let you link your ENS domain to a static website hosted on IPFS, to do that you should follow something like this: [https://docs.ipfs.io/how-to/websites-on-ipfs/link-a-domain/#ethereum-naming-service-ens](https://docs.ipfs.io/how-to/websites-on-ipfs/link-a-domain/#ethereum-naming-service-ens) The URL record just allows you to have a link to a website if anyone looks you up on a ENS profile website such as [ETH.xyz](https://gremblo.eth.xyz/), just replace my name with yours to see what comes up! **With this text record you should put an entire hyperlink.** Here’s an example of what to enter: [**https://NameOfSite.org**](https://NameOfSite.org) ### Email This one is pretty self explanatory, it allows you to link an email address to your domain which will be publicly available, if you are trying to make a name for yourself within web3 it’s good to have a way for people to contact you. ### My ENS domain for reference… Here’s my domain for reference if you are confused about anything said above. ![My text records](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/48dda354e493b18fdb2fb3abfef3e04e377b0a540b0dca8db8406bd6305a8423.png) My text records In closing… ----------- This is just a quick overview when it comes to ENS domains, I decided to create this because I ended up wasting money on gas making mistakes. I’d highly recommend if you want to keep up to date with any ENS changes or ask any questions, go to the ENS forums and have a look around! [https://discuss.ens.domains/](https://discuss.ens.domains/) --- *Originally published on [Gremblo](https://paragraph.com/@gremblo/dummies-guide-to-ens-domains)*