Domain Names

Archive for April, 2010

Over 400 million domain names have been registered and 20,000 names are estimated to be registered on daily basis. Among a lot of domain names.com and.net extensions are the most popular because these are the very earlier extensions to be registered. Search engines read the text of entered domain name and display the website in search result for the matching keywords. So it is important to select a domain name for your website which describes the nature of your product or service. A good domain name can make a lot of money for you.

There are some techniques to use in making money with your domain name. First of all develop a website which is content rich with the key words that are in your domain name. This method will bring unlimited traffic to your website. Top websites are earning millions of dollars by using the combination of domain name and web content key words. If you are not able to find a right domain name for your website do not get confused. You should keep in mind the example of acronyms of Yahoo and Google. These acronyms could mean anything but still they are the most popular. More you promote your website more you will be able to earn for your products and services. So, the domain name matters but work hard for your website. Make it content rich and up to date.

You can make money by getting involved in your domain aftermarket. Millions of dollars are being earned by the owners just by selling the domain names which are need by someone else. So get involved in your domain name aftermarket. You can submit you’re any or all the domain names to some online auctioneer of domain names. The submission of domain names doesn’t cost you anything.

If you are setting up a blog for your own personal use or as a business you will have to give it a name. Whether it is your companies name, your own personal name or a nickname to conceal your identity. The first rule is choosing a name that has not been taken already.

The best way to understand a blog domain name is by seeing it as the address people use in order to search and find your blog. In a way it is equivalent to a postal address but, for the web. People will use your address to type into the search engines to access it. If the domain name has a catchy title then this will help to make it stand out and help people to remember your blog.

It is important that you spend some time on choosing your domain name to ensure it is the most appropriate for the purpose of your blog. If you are building your blog around a topical subject such as weight loss then, try to incorporate the keyword ‘weight loss’ or at least a prefix or variation of that keyword into your domain name.

The following benefits will help you understand why a domain is very important:

1) If you use a catchy name that is relevant to your blog people will remember it more easily.

2) A domain names your own intellectual property it is the name of the business that you own.

3) Even though a blog or website has to be hosted by an external company you still own the domain which means you have the freedom to move your domain, blog or business to any host company of your choice.

Obviously one of the main reasons that you are setting up a blog is for people to visit it and read your content and even interact with you. There is really no point in having a blog if you have no traffic because people cannot find it. The domain name plays an important role in helping you attract more people to your blog by making it more visible in the search engines.

However, there are a few rules you should use to maximise the effect of your domain name to attract more traffic as follows;

1) Ensure the domain matches the main keyword you are targeting.

2) Use a relevant but catchy title that stands out and creates curiosity.

3) The domain should correspond with the name you have given the blog.

Due to the number of websites on the web it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find the exact domain name you want. Therefore, it does not pay to be too rigid in your choice of names. Try and be more creative and come up with alternative names as these may work out just as well, or even better. Many of the online companies where you can buy your domain name can actually help you find and narrow down your choice by using a combination of prefixes to find the best domain name for your blog.

Ouch! You just discovered the domain name you’d been dreaming about is gone. Of course you had been visualizing it with a Dot-Com extension; but you found you were twenty years too late. It is still for sale but the owner wants more money for it than you paid for your house!

Ok, you were almost prepared for that; you’d been reading about how picked-over the Dot-Com names had become and while you were a bit disappointed you weren’t surprised to find your dream-name gone. So you decided to settle for Dot-Net.

Guess What? You discovered that many Dot-Com owners purchased the Dot-Net extension at the same time to avoid anyone getting too close to their name. And the Dot-Info and the Dot-Org! Now what?

Back to the drawing board. You still want the name, but it’s a business and you want it recognized as such. Picking just any old domain extension isn’t good enough. You want something your customers can recognize and remember as being about business. That’s when you heard about Dot-Biz. Dot-Biz has been around for a while and was actually conceived as a replacement for Dot-Com when the elder extension became crowded. So Dot-Biz it is!

Not! The Dot-Biz extension was gone too; the domainers are migrating there looking for cheap available names and your name already belongs to one of them. The price he’s asking isn’t unreasonable, certainly nothing like what the Dot-Com guy was demanding, but it’s still a lot of money. Dot-Biz is the end of the line. There’s just nowhere else to go for a guy that wants everybody to know his domain name is about business!

Sure there is! How about Dot-Bz? Doesn’t Bz spell business just as surely as Biz? Hey, it’s even easier to spell. And there is a likelihood you can get it for less than fifteen bucks.

Dot-Bz has been around since 1991. It’s the country-code top-level-domain (cctld) of Belize in Central America, home of the ancient Mayans. The extension is administered by the University of Belize and there are no restrictions on its purchase. In fact, since there are less than half a million people living in Belize, it’s been forced to be reasonable about distribution. Believe it or not, it’s one of the most popular website extensions in Italy; apparently the official abbreviation of the Italian province of Bolzano-Bozen is Bz.

What’s more-and this is the important part for you-there are a lot of English words that haven’t been registered yet. The domainers will get there eventually, but for now you have the best chance of finding the name you need among any of the easily recognized business-friendly domains.

A recent test found a number of three and four letter acronyms not to be found in any of the other business oriented extensions: “kaf,” “utd,” and “nbo” for example. You don’t want an acronym? Cool! Bz is one of the last popular extensions where you can find three and four letter domain names that form actual words, not gibberish…excuse me, acronyms (One man’s gibberish is another man’s company name. IBM anyone?). Try one of these: glib; rug; blow; then and atom. Probably none of these float your boat, but the point to be made is that there is still plenty of room for domain names containing short English words and acronyms in Dot-Bz, something you can no longer find in Dot-Com, Net, Org, or Biz. Grab the nearest domain name search box and give it a try. And hurry, the domainers will be there shortly.

The debate of whether domain names should represent brand names perfectly or shaped to support search engine optimization purposes has been around for quite a while now. I would have to stay neutral in this matter; from my observation I discovered that certain specific trick works better on certain circumstances, making both equally beneficial if applied properly.

To select the right domain name, you should first make sure you understand the purpose of your new site. Sites providing information as their primary missions should really go for SEO optimized domain names instead. The main goal of the site would be to attract a lot of visitors to enjoy their contents, and then generate revenue from either advertising or selling merchandises and products as side businesses; the goal can be easily achieved when the site is ranked at the top-10 of search engine results, thus it needs to be properly optimized.

If your site is all about a business or product, choosing domain names that represent your brand perfectly would be the best way to go. There is nothing better than owning your brand’s domain name, since as the brand become recognizable the site will enjoy a nice stream of visitors as well. Don’t forget that if you are targeting at local target market, area top level domain should be the one you opt for. Businesses in Canada, for example, should register.ca domain instead of opting for.com or.net, although getting both will secure your businesses operation from unwanted copy sites using lookalike domains.

Localized domain names also works for sites providing contents for certain area. You would notice that there are geographically specific contents and niches, and for these types of sites choosing local top level domain is the best option. You will be able to reach the right target visitors and get better search engine rankings on localized search results.

No matter what kind of domain you choose, make sure you understand fully what your site really needs and make your choice carefully. Evaluate every option available and register the right domain at a reliable domain registrar in no time at all.

Before I go into details about protecting domain name you should first know that there is no business operating under the sun that has got no risks. Perhaps that is the reasons behind why businesses get rewards in term of profits. It’s agreed by business school of thought that the higher the risk in any given business, the higher the rewards.

Online businesses are no islands on this matter too. It’s really heartbreaking and total confusion when you realize that some lazy cruel person somewhere has actually messed with your domain name. How has she messed with it? Well… I am going to tell you how this happens.

Cyber squatting is where a person registers a name which is another person’s trade mark without owner’s consent. The person will sell it at inflated price. If you have a trade mark, somebody can cyber squatter it. Cyber squatters usually register many trademarks and speculate selling them at much higher prices than the ones they paid for when buying them. Some will go as far as registering another level of domain name of the trade mark.

There has been cases regarding cyber squatting and if the plaintiff wins the case, then the cyber squatter ends up paying for damages caused. There are options you should use to recover your trade mark. First you can solve the dispute using Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy [UDNRP]. UDNRP is a domain name dispute solving organization created by ICANN. It’s quick and cheap using it.

Secondly you can write a cease-and-desist letter to a cyber squatter informing her to withdraw the name or else you will take legal actions against her if otherwise she doesn’t.

Thirdly and lastly you can sue the cyber squatter to let the court decide the fate of that particular trade mark. There is a difference between domain name theft also know as hijacking and cyber squatting.

Domain theft is a situation where a properly registered domain is stolen by another person. It’s not necessary that this name is a trade mark as compared to cyber squatting. Through hacking, a person is able to steal your website name.

Here are Three Ways of Protecting your Domain Name from Cyber Squatting and Hijacking:

By locking it-Locked domain names cannot be transferred to another account or registrar. You should only unlock it when transferring it or at the time of renewal.
Through Authorization Code-Transfer Authorization Code is a six to sixteen characters code that is assigned to your domain name as a means of securing it from unauthorized transfers. Let the code be your secret.
Through Secure Socket Layer[SSL]-SSL enables your surfers to know that indeed they are on the correct domain name they are searching for. It also protects the information send. This will enable you protect your domain name from cyber squatters and domain name hijackers who will try to impersonate your website name.

Have you thought of using domain parking to make some money? This is something that many people are taking advantage of. There are several ways you can make money with the simple task of domain parking.

Some people park a domain and decide to use it to make money while they are working out how to build the site. This is a great way to earn while you plan the site out. Some people also park domains just for the purpose of making money with no further plans to develop the website.

How do you do domain parking?

First of all, you need to know what type of domain to park. If you can think of an up and coming idea and capitalize it by buying domain names this is a great idea. If you know, for instance, that something new is in the works and becoming popular and the .com name isn’t yet taken, you can park it an earn from it. You might get approached by someone later who will pay big money for that domain or you might find that people happen upon it while looking for something else. By filling the landing page with relevant advertisements or affiliate marketing ads and banners, you can make a regular stream of income.

If you are waiting until later on to reserve that great domain name you’ve been thinking about, don’t tarry too long otherwise it could be gone and someone else might either build upon it and use it to their advantage or merely park it and wait to charge you big money for it.

It takes a bit of time to get things ready to do things this way. If you don’t want to take the time, effort and money to register the domain, sign up for affiliate programs, build a page, maintain and manage a page and fill it with advertisements, you can choose to share the profits by working with a company to do the management for you.

There are several companies that will do domain parking for you and pay you a percentage of the fees. Some offer cheap domain name registrations and other incentives to get you to join up.

Many domain parking options are available and if you cannot come up with a catch phrase, you can often come up with a similar name to another company that may get hits. There are some cheap domain names registrars out there with some great deals to offer you.

Notes Of Caution With Domain Parking

Beware though; some people that are less than ethical and will do things in the domain biz such as redirect people’s homepage to their parked domain so that people are more likely to click. Be cautious of hidden fees and black hat tactics and be sure to read the fine print because there are some known scams out there that benefit the domain parking company much more than they benefit you. Some people call some domain parking practices domain squatting or cyber squatting and some companies have been known to press charges if they suspect that someone is cybersquatting on a brand name that it their intellectual property. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) handles complaints of this nature and looks for motives of bad faith when investigating domain parking scams.

Every domain name has a publicly accessible record that includes the owner’s personal information. It’s called a WhoIs record and lists the registrant and contacts for the domain. Your name, address, city, state, zip, country, phone number and email address may be listed on the WhoIs record for your domain. It also shows when you registered your domain, when it will expire, where your website is hosted, and other technical details. You can view the record for your domain by going to domaintools.com and putting your domain in the box labeled “WhoIs Lookup” then clicking the “Search” button. These records are available anytime to anyone who does a search.

Why is the WhoIs record public info?

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) requires domain registrars to make your contact information available. It is used for some legitimate purposes such as verifying ownership of a domain name in a transfer request. Law enforcement agencies may use it when investigating illegal activity on the internet. Companies or individuals may also use these records to contact domain holders who are violating copyrights or other property rights.

So, what’s the big deal?

Your domain record may also be used in ways that aren’t legitimate or desirable. Since anyone can look up a WhoIs record, spammers, hackers, identity thieves and stalkers may access your personal information! Unethical companies check domain expiration dates then send official looking “renewal” notices in an attempt to get the domain owners to transfer domains to their company, or send “invoices” that are service solicitations for search engine submissions and other questionable services. Both email and snail mail spammers use the WhoIs databases to contact domain owners with solicitations as well.

What can you do to protect your privacy?

Many domain registrars now offer a service called privacy protection. When you choose privacy protection, your personal information will not be listed on the WhoIs record. Instead, the information of the registrar’s privacy service will appear. You still own your domain.

What are the benefits of domain privacy protection?

Once you’ve activated privacy protection on your domain and your personal information is no longer public, spammers can’t use it to find your email address or send you those deceptive domain renewal notices from other companies.

Are there any down sides to domain privacy protection?

Be aware that if you want to transfer your domain name to another registrar, you’ll need to remove the privacy protection and deal with some red tape in order to do so.

Additionally, some consumer advocacy TV shows and websites explain to customers how to check WhoIs records to see if a business is legitimate before they deal with them. You can take positive steps to keep this from being a problem though. Make sure that customer don’t need to resort to your WhoIs records to find out who you are and if you’re legitimate. Offer full contact information on your website including multiple methods to get in touch with you (postal mail, email, phone number, fax, etc). Consider adding ways for customers to contact you through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook if you use them for business.

How can I add domain privacy protection for my domains?

The process depends on your registrar. Contact the company where you registered your domain and ask about privacy protection. It may be included in the cost your yearly registration or there may be a small fee.

Many websites make the mistake of thinking about SEO only after a website is up and running, but the truth is that SEO should be a consideration before the website exists. Here are a few ways your domain name should reflect best SEO practices.

Indicate your line of business

If you’re a lawyer, your URL should reflect that you practice law. Having your keyword in your url helps your ranking for that keyword, and it will also give a user a clear indication of exactly what your business does. If your business name contains your profession, a natural choice for a domain name would be the name of your business.

Be easy to remember

People have a tendency to forget domain names easily. You need to make it easy for people to remember your url so you get more traffic to your site and people find it simple to link to your website. Long URL’s, hyphens in the domain name, and anything other than a.com make the user’s job to remember your website more difficult. Also remember that buying other domain names may seem to be a good idea in case the user typo’s your url or enters a.net when you purchased a.biz, make sure to be consistent in only referring to the domain that you want customers to remember.

Be clearly different from other major website url’s

Choosing a domain name that is similar to another major website may seem like a good idea to get users who accidentally type the wrong domain, but your great idea may end up backfiring. People who are searching for your website may not be able to find your site in search results. Especially if the name of your website is similar, search engines may opt to display results for the big company instead of yours, assuming the search contained a typo. Be sure to do a search for your website name on the major search engines before committing to that url.

The purpose of a domain name or web address is to have a simple, yet effective and easy to remember domain name so that it is easy for your prospects to remember it. Even if it is not written down, it will be logged in their memory so that when they are surfing on the internet be it a day or so after they have seen your web address or even a couple of weeks and months later they will be able to remember it.

When choosing a domain name it is good practice to choose one that relevant to the content of the website that it relates to. So for example, if your business is coffee then the word coffee should be in the domain name or a word that relates to coffee such as ‘bean’ or ‘granules’.  

There are hundreds of good hosting companies available on the internet today for anyone to buy domain names from and the domain name is not as expensive as one may think, a .com domain name can be bought for less than ten dollars and as always it is a good idea to shop around as many hosting sites offer extras such as sub domains e-mail addresses and limited web space at no extra charge. Many hosts will allow you to mask forward your domain name to any web page that you desire so that your long generic web address can be shortened to something that is easy to remember and also it will stay in your visitors browser address bar making it easy for them to revisit your web site at a later stage.  

Sub domains are a really useful feature and if you don’t know what one is I will try to explain this to you. It is another word that replaces the www in your chosen domain name to give you an extension of your web address that you can use for special promotions, different products, one off announcements and advert tracking, for example ‘http:// www coffee.com’ can become ‘http:// specialblend.coffee.com’ and it will be an extension or sub domain of your chosen domain name and you can then point this web address at the web page that promotes just that particular product or feature. Some hosting companies charge extra for sub domains but there is at least one that I know of that gives you ninety sub domains per domain name that is purchased making ninety one separate web address’s in all, so for less than ten dollars for ninety one web address’s makes exceptional value for the online marketer and will give much greater exposure for your MLM or indeed any business on the internet today.  

Another good feature of a domain name is web space that comes with your purchase and is usually limited with an option to purchase more space, but can be useful to create a web page and/or site that you can use to promote any company, products or person. Domain names usually come with one e-mail address too and of course more can be added very cheaply and this will be able to give you a more professional image as you can have an e-mail address that looks something like this ‘info [at] yourdomain.com’.  

As I read the various forums on website development and domain names, I am amazed at the number of people who are searching for free internet domain names. There is no such thing as completely free domain names, there is always a catch involved. The internet is no different than the offline world in this regard. How many offline businesses will give you something of value for free?

If you sign up with a host that is offering free domain names, you can be sure your website pages will have advertising that you have no control over, let alone make any money from. There may be other restrictions placed on you as well, like I said, there’s no such thing as free internet domains!

The next obvious drawback to using free domain names, more than likely it will be a sub-domain, not an actual domain name. For example; yourname.hostprovider.com or hostprovider.com/yourname. How can you possibly build any type of brand using a name like that? You can’t!

Developing a website that generates a decent amount of targeted traffic is quite an undertaking to say the least. What if you have success with your free name and down the road you decide to register your own unique domain name. What will happen to the existing traffic you have worked so hard to generate? What will happen to your search engine indexing and ranking that you have worked hard to achieve? If you change your domain name midstream you will very likely loose everything you have worked so hard to achieve. Does it still sound free?

Now if your website is a hobby site that doesn’t rely on income and you dabble with it when you feel like it, a free name will probably work for you. What amazes me though is the number of people that are developing websites for their business and want a free name!

Business and website owners must realize the internet is not a game or passing fad that can be taken lightly. The consumer shift to the internet is real and is here to stay. You need to establish your unique web presence by having your own domain name. Your domain name is what separates you from the 120 million or so websites on the internet today.

When you are doing the do diligence for your website, do not underestimate the importance of your domain name. You may spend several hundred or several thousand dollars to develop your website, don’t blow it with a free domain name.

Without a domain name no one can find your website!