Domain Names

Archive for May, 2010

Selecting a domain name can be a bit overwhelming since domain registrars often offer far more services than just domain names. Many offer “hosting” as well, so it helps to understand the relationship between domain names and hosting. Domain names and hosting are two completely separate products, but in the effort to sell the products together, domain registrars often just confuse people.

When you purchase Web site hosting, you are basically renting a folder on a computer (called a Web server) that is connected to the Internet. You pay a company a monthly or yearly fee to keep your Web site files online and safe from hackers and other online “bad guys.” Although technically, you might be able to host a site yourself, the $10 or $20 a month you spend on hosting is money well spent. Keeping a Web server alive and well is not a trivial exercise, so leave this task to the techies who like that kind of thing.

It is important to understand the relationship between Web site hosting and domain names. A domain name basically points to a specific folder on a specific Web server. You can buy a domain name without buying hosting. Many people buy domain names long before they get around to creating a Web site. As soon as you think of a good name, spend the $8 and just buy the domain, so someone else doesn’t get it.

Until you put up a site, the domain name points to a “parked page.” This page is created by the domain registrar as a sort of holding spot until you buy hosting and get your site online. The parked page lets other people know that the domain isn’t available anymore. After you develop a site, get hosting, and put your Web site files in your folder on the Web server, you change your domain to point to the site.

Note that you also can point more than one domain to the same Web site. If you decide to do this, you do not need to buy more hosting. Here are some questions to ask before you buy additional hosting.

1. Do you want another Web site? (A completely different site with different files.) In that case, you would have two different URLs for two completely different sites. They have two different domains, are located in different folders, and are made up of completely different files.

2. Do you want another domain name to point to the site you already have? In this case, you buy another domain and point the URL to the site you already have set up. It is one folder with one set of files, yet two domains point to it.

If the answer to the question is 2, you do not need to purchase another hosting account. The files are already there in the folder. Generally, your hosting company should not charge you to point another domain to the same site. Hosting companies don’t care how many domains you have pointing at a site. However, they do care if you have more than one Web site and will charge you accordingly.

In order for most corporations to survive in this new business atmosphere, it has become essential to incorporate some branch of their business into the online environment. The net has become a leader in the business world with its ability to connect to the worldwide marketplace and has become a primary supply of company growth. Even smaller markets profit from the resources of the internet where they will display information and prices to anyone seeking on-line info on native businesses.

The net business usually guarantees the chance to develop a low price business branch although even with these low start up prices companies are still looking for more savings opportunities. One solution that has been developed by website hosts is found with a company’s opportunity to share domain names.

Website hosts perceive that they’re an online demand and are trying to maximise the chance of any business seeking the advantages of the internet. After you utilize the domain name sharing options of web site hosts you become part of a single domain name with further web site identification that allows consumers to specifically visit your site.

The use of the website hosts domain sharing permits you to reduce your expenses related to the cost of your own domain name and permits you to either save that money on your website hosts services or reinvest them in other features of your web site hosts such as disk space or bandwidth.

While the advantages that are related to a web site hosts domain name sharing options are nice for the company looking to discover on-line saving opportunities, there are risks that a company ought to be aware of relating to this. It needs to be known that when you seek the money saving opportunities of web site hosts you take the time to greatly analyze any company you are sharing your potential domain name with.

It’s common practice on-line for a business to become black listed by on-line consumers and net filters when a business regularly participates in mass promoting or shady practices. If your website host saving opportunities connects your site to one of these shady firms sharing a domain name, you will likely be the recipient of the identical black listing.

When consulting website hosts it is important to identify the specific companies you may be affiliated with as well as of any future businesses being tied to your domain name. Cash is tight and web site hosts are going to great lengths to satisfy the business demand related to lowering expenses and maximizing return. The opportunities presented by most web site hosts are quality options and it becomes the responsibility of the business to seek savings to make sure they’re being associated with the most reputable businesses.

1. Very Low Cost

All right, here’s the catch: there are many web hosting providers available with very low costs. Actually, there is a reason for a web hosting company’s cheap rates. And the purpose for doing this is they do a lot of business. You are only a number for a cheap web hosting service, specifically if you have a small company. This is an additional issue to think about: What is the number of websites that will have the same IP address as you do? You know about spammers, don’t you? Well, usually aggressive spammers use the least costly web hosting package available. What is the reason? The reason is they intend to only stay in business for a short amount of time. Are you aware that your site can be banned by the Search Engines as well as your ISP if you are spamming? Generally, when you have the same IP address with, for example, 1000s of other companies, and if one of these companies use spam, the whole IP address could, and frequently will, be restricted by the Search Engines. Then your business will drop. Most likely, you would not even have clue about what has caused your traffic to decline so steeply. In addition to this, an extremely cheap hosting company will normally have slow operating servers and general services will not work because the bandwidth is low. Using a cheap web hosting company will cause you and your company more problems than it is worth.

2. Some Space To Expand

There will probably be an expansion of your Internet business. You should have the option to pick a different hosting package that will allow you to do this. Preferably, when you have to make decisions, the web hosting company should be available for consultation. Do they want your business, or your cash only? One solution doesn’t work for everyone. If this isn’t understood by the web hosting service, then you should look elsewhere.

3. Underdeveloped Website

The site for hosting companies should be very complete, full of details and easy to use. It is that easy. The FAQ for the site and Help section should be shown. Additionally you should have a method to get in touch with them, and not only by sending an email. Who has enough patience to wait 24 hours for a response?

4. Dubious Promises

Your uptime is promised to be 99.99%. What is the number of times you have seen this promise? Is there any meaning to it? As a matter of fact, nearly all hosting services promise to do this. Not too many actually have guarantees in place as far as getting your money back if you are not happy, or offering you something else if there is a problem. You shouldn’t let a web hosting business get away with that.

5. Lack of References

A good hosting company will be glad to provide you with a list of happy customers and will not mind if you contact them for references. You must know the people you are working with. If you can’t look at any references for the web hosting company, look somewhere else. You must understand that web hosting is not only business, it is partners working together. Are you considering a hosting company that understands this?

6. Aggressive Sales Methods

When you phone the hosting company for help, do they continue to persuade you to get a more expensive service or buy something? Do they try to convince you to buy something whenever they call you? In other words, are they requesting that you pay for the entire year of web hosting right away? Did you know that if this is done, and then you figure out that there service is wrong for you, you won’t ever get your money back? Is this affordable? Do you want to take the risk?

7. Bait and Switch

Read the fine print. Is the information in the headline different from information in the small print? For instance, is there a limit to the number of emails you are permitted to receive and/or send out through your web hosting company at one time? Features like this are important if your company is going to do business to help your clients with speed and efficiency. You don’t need to buy a web hosting system based on this promise and later discover there is a catch. Regardless, if a web hosting company does this, they are not trustworthy for your business. Don’t just leave. Run away.

8. Package/Software Inflexibility

Does the web hosting company offer packages that are limited? Can they help you find a hosting package that is best for your business? Is everyone pushed to accept the same package? Being able to be flexible should be the main consideration when you choose your hosting company or you should continue to look elsewhere.

9. Enormous Companies

Even though a hosting provider is an enormous company, this doesn’t mean it is very good. You must decide if your web hosting company will provide your company with personalized service or if you will just be lost in the crowd.

10. Bad Customer Service

The behavior of the hosting customer service shows you how dependable they are and the company’s character that you are trusting your business with. A web hosting company should make all of the contact details available to you. This is what all businesses need. Who picks up the phone? Who responds to the phone calls? Those in the Sales Department? Nobody? Internet companies are open all the time. Currently, an uncommunicative web hosting company can’t be accepted. You require somebody to respond to your questions immediately. Nobody is interested in leaving a message, or even worse, getting a canned email response. The main point is that the only thing a web hosting business actually has to do is market their service. That is the truth. If they do not realize this, they should not be offering their services anyway.

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There is some common advice on the Internet that if you register your domain name for a longer period than the customary 1 year, for example a 2 year or even 5 year period, that it will give you an advantage in the Search Engines.

Is this really true?

The length of your registration has a minor effect upon the rankings. All that you really gain from registering for 5 or 10 years as opposed to 1 or 2 years is the added convenience of not having to register your domain name again.

In theory, if you register for a longer period of time, Google will place a higher value on your page through Trustrank. In theory, Trustrank is ranking indicator for your domain that takes both the age of the site as well as the length that it has been registered for, into consideration. This is all just conjecture though and there is no hard evidence that Google actually HAS a Trustrank algorithm. Even though there was research done by Yahoo on the concept of Trustrank, and Google has previously registered a trademark for the name, the two has nothing to do with each other and Google has even dropped the trademark.

Search engines therefore do not take the length of your registration period into account. The only age related factor in search engine ranking is the actual age of the site but even this could be due to the fact that due to the mere age of the site, the site has had more opportunity to collect links back to it and would therefore naturally perform better in the search engines due to that. Once again, the idea that links from well established sites count more than from new sites has nothing really to do with the actual age of the site where the link is coming from, but more with the reputation of the site itself.

After all, some link farms have been around forever, not so?

But do make sure that you re-register your domain name in time. There are groups of people that scan for soon to be expired domain names with the intention of buying them and exploiting their established business. Luckily most registrars have a grace period of about 45 days available that you can use to re-instate a domain that was deleted due to negligence or by mistake.

If you really want to stay ahead of the competition, you might consider registering or renewing your domain name for 100 years. Currently, Network Solutions (www.netsol.com) is the only registrar offering the 100 year option, which costs $999.00. GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com), currently offers to renew or register a domain name for 10 years, at a discount of $6.95 per year.

But all in all, the most important thing is to get a good quality name. Choose a name that is short, easy to remember, easy to say and easy to spell and use it to build your brand and identity on the web. Good domain names are not easy to get these days but with a little creativity you can still come up with a good name. After all, nobody knew what a ‘Google’ was in the days BG, Before Google!

Over the past few months I have received many emails from frustrated readers asking for ways to find available domain names for their new websites.

They don’t have the time to look for or wait for domains to expire. They also don’t have the startup cash to fork out for a pricey domain. They just want a cool, fresh, new domain name to start working on their website.

The tool I use to brainstorm available domain names is called Domain Name Analyzer. It is made by DomainPunch and is free to download. It is an amazing tool and does the job perfectly.

Well, let’s say I am looking to get an available domain for a “golf tips and equipment” website I want to make. I first come up with word combinations that I would like to use if possible. A great way to find words that could go well with search terms is to use a keyword suggestion tool like Wordze.

This way you can combine your target word with words which are actually searched for by people – which means there is demand for your target word from the start. (In addition to this, I use Wordze to find keywords for my AdWords campaigns – so I kill two birds with one stone).

For my example term “golf”, I found the words “tips, accessories, equipment, clubs, wedges, putters, irons, instructions” which seem to be pretty popular in the Wordze search results. Wordze tells me people have extensively searched for the above words in combination with the word “golf” in recent days.

I also decide to throw in a set of other generic terms which can always go well in a domain name “ideas, point, place, world, site, news, ways, heaven, haven”.

Ok, so we have our target words, now what?

Fire up your Domain Name Analyzer!

Once you have Domain Name Analyzers turned on, look in the top toolbar. You will see an option called “Domain List”. Click it and go to “Create Domain Names From Keywords”. This launches the Create

Domain Names from Keywords box:

Enter your prefix terms in the left box, and your suffix terms in the right box. For best effect I entered golf, golfing and golfer in the left box. Also, in order to avoid pointless checking of words which are usually registered, you can click the No suffix padding and No prefix padding checkboxes. Also, make sure you select which Tlds you want to search in. I selected .com, .net, .org and .us.

After you have completed all this, you are ready to search.

So, click ok!

You will find that after you click ok, Domain Name Analyzer populates it’s lookup queue with your keyword combinations. Thanks to your check in Wordze, you have the right keywords for the job. The look-up queue will look something like the above. As you see, the words have been combined with your selected TLD’s for a list of all possible combinations.

Use the search button in the toolbar to start up the search. The Domain Name Analyzer does the entire job for you in a few minutes.

Obviously, this is just an example of the power of this cool free tool. It has a lot more functionality and allows you to do a lot more.

You might find that popular word combinations are taken, but don’t be discouraged. Find the right keyword combinations and combine them with Domain Name Analyzer to find the next domain name for your new website.

Domain names are the first step in implementing your Internet marketing business plan. Domain name represents your brand. Many people know very well the importance of brand in the “offline” but even those can make mistakes in their Internet brand management. Domain name is the first step in successful Internet brand management.

Choosing a domain name

It is not easy to register a good domain name (especially dot com), these days. According to domain name statistics on the most popular web site for whois searches Whois Source there are more than 57 million active generic top level domains registered as of September, 2005. Majority of these domain names are .com names. You can view this statistics if you visit http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/

It is sure that you can’t register a classy one-word domain name but with a little knowledge and appropriate services you can find a decent one, especially if you are not interested only in .com names. Useful site for finding decent domains is above mentioned Whois Source – http://www.whois.sc There you will find a free service that will give you 20 domain suggestions based on your keyword. Also, on the Internet you can find software that focus on domain names. Using free software Domain Name Analyzer you can make a list of domain names and this software will check availability of all included domains so you won’t have to check one-by-one which is time-consuming. Also this program will give you useful suggestions.

Another useful thing in find decent domain names is using expired domain name or back-ordering services. Using the first service you will get the list of expired domain names where you can find some really nice names with a little luck. However, it is not easy because many people use those services and some companies have special infrastructure that check availability of certain domain names every second and register them. You will have better chance to get your desired domain using back-ordering services. These services will monitor for domains you want to register and once they expire they will make register them on your behalf. Popular services are SnapNames.com and Pool.com.

It is recommended that your domain name be short, catchy, brandable and most important – easy to remember! You can register a domain name that has no obvious connections with your business but that is cool. Then you will have to invest more money in branding. With good domain name you will save thousand and thousand dollars in advertising, especially in TV advertising. If you are an email marketer domains are also very important because getting email subscribers without well designed web site is not recommended. It is recommended that the name of your domain be the same like your email newsletter name. You can make “teaser” articles in your email newsletter so that your readers will have to visit your web site in order to read complete articles and vice-versa. You can put “teaser” articles on your web site and require that people subscribe to your email newsletter to read complete articles.

Also, in order to find out popularity of certain keyword combinations you can use keyword suggestion services. We can recommend you these services:

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox

Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

You can use Google, enter your keyword combination and see how much results you will get.

If you are in process of registering a domain name we can suggest you these two great companies:

Go Daddy – http://www.godaddy.com

Namecheap – http://www.namecheap.com

Internet brand management

We will take our company Infacta, Ltd. as an example. Infacta is Ireland-based company so it is logical that we registered http://www.infacta.ie. However, although we are Ireland-based company we focus globally. This can prove the fact that we have clients in more than 130 countries world-wide. So, it is also logical that we have a domain name in .com extension, too. Dot com domain name is considered as a global domain name for companies. Many people think that it is enough to have 2 domain names. For successful Internet brand management it is not enough. Beside, .ie and .com domains, Infacta owns domains in all major generic top level domain extensions (gtld) like .net, .org and .info. This is to prevent people or companies to use other Infacta name in other extensions that can confuse our customers and make harm to our brand. Beside that, we registered domain names for our products GroupMail and GroupMetrics in different domain extensions. Other famous companies have literally hundred and even thousand domains in their portfolio for each country where they have a presence and for their services. That is called a professional brand management.

There is also one more thing that can show how serious one company is regarding their domain names and Internet presence, in general. That is domain expiration date. Domain names expire. After that (preferably before that) date domain owners have to renew them. When you make whois inquiry about certain domain name, for example at http://www.whois.sc , beside registrant info you will see an expiration date. Imagine that you want to see an expiration date of your email marketing software company and you see that the expiration date is the next year or even this year. This doesn’t sound promising if you want a reliable business partner that will be in the business in the next 10 years, too, that you can count on. It is not only important because of whois searches and credibility, it is important because of search engines. Google gives better placement for companies that have domains registered for longer period. It is a sure indicator that it is a stable business and that they won’t go anywhere. Infacta domain name http://www.infacta.com expires in 2011.

There are some services that can help you in Internet brand management, to monitor that someone else is not using your trademarked names. One of those companies that offer brand monitoring services is NameProtect, Inc. at http://www.nameprotect.com Also, it is highly recommended that before you register your domain name to visit http://www.uspto.gov to check if your name that you want to register has been trademarked to avoid possible problem and law suits later. USPTO is official web site of the United States Government for patents and trademarks. Here you can also register your patent, trademark or service mark.

If your company’s name has a good, generic name and you want to register a domain, it is most likely that the .com domain will be taken. Sometimes, it is good choice to buy it from the actual owner. Also, you can buy domain names that are highly connected with your products and services and that will help you in Internet marketing.

The most popular web sites for buying/selling domain names are:

Sedo – http://www.sedo.com

Great Domains – [http://www.GreatDomains.com]

Afternic – http://www.afternic.com

One of the most popular reasons to have a domain name is to have a personalized email, either for your business or for personal reasons. Choosing a domain name is an important part of the overall marketing process. As soon as a domain name is registered to a person or company, it’s theirs to use exclusively as long as their fees are paid, whether it be monthly, quarterly or annually. When choosing the right domain name, remember it is your identity on the internet, making the right choice is an essential part of the process. It is important to choose wisely and if possible choose a name that is relevant to your business, you want a name that is easy to remember, short and if possible the name of your site. Once you begin this process you may find that your first choice of a domain name is not available. However you will be given several other name suggestions by the registration company, alternately find an expired or for sale domain name.

A domain name is considerably easier to remember than a sequence of random numbers or letters, it is the text name corresponding to the IP address of a computer on the Internet. A domain name is a name that allows others on the Internet to find your web site easily. For example when a domain name is typed into a web browser, the name server associates that with the IP address and the correct web site opens in the web browser.

A domain name is a valuable corporate asset, it is important to protect domain registration. The worth of a domain name is high, and there is no limit to just how high its value could be and in today’s climate a domain name is as important as your business license. One of the reasons for the high value of domain names relevant to a specific business, is that even without advertising or marketing, they attract clients seeking services and products who simply type in the generic name.

Once your domain name is registered it then it needs to be hosted by a reputable hosting company. Domain name hosting means your domain is hosted on a secure server which allows you to use your chosen domain online, this then allows your website to appear on the Internet. A name server is a computer that tells where a domain name is located.

The web host is the most important part of any website because this is where you create and publish your pages, build order forms, add functionality and maintain your site. A fully developed website includes fresh, new content which gets your domain indexed in popular search engines.

There are a number of low-cost web services that will not only register your domain name, but also set up email and websites for you, complete with e-commerce capabilities.

If you have decided that you want your own web site, you may find that there are many new terms that you need to know before you get started. There is more to having a site, than just a well-designed set of graphics and effectively presented data. Before you can have your site posted online, you will need a web hosting service and a domain name? You may wonder, what is a domain? More commonly known as DNS, it is the system used to assign web server addresses. They can be considered the “word” equivalent to an IP address.

Until the names were created, the only way to get to a specific address would have been to enter a string of numbers. When answering the question, what is a domain, in a more in-depth manner, it is a web site address that includes a top, second and third level. They are organized right to left. The top-level names or those that are located to the far right side of the address are known as the domain. They are dot-com, dot-net, dot-gov, dot-edu and other similar formats. They are also the two letter country codes that some prefer, such as dot-us, dot-nz, etc.

The second or mid-level domains are in the middle, or directly to the left of the top-level domain. What is a domain at this level? It is the name that you wish your site to be called. Companies and non-profit organizations often use their names as the mid-level domain. The third level, located to the far left is usually the machine name, such as www. Each domain is separated by a period, often called a “dot.” The three levels are the most common structure of a web site address. However, there are many other levels, or sub-domains that can be used.

This is not uncommon when asking what is a domain and referring to an educational institution such as a college or university with many campus locations. The top domain is usually dot-edu. The second level domain is the campus location, often just a two letter state abbreviation. The third level is the three-letter university or college abbreviation and the fourth-level is the www. Department names can be added as another level. Once you have decided on your site name check with your web hosting company or domain name registrar. If the name you want is already taken, they can recommend one that is similar.

It’s surprising, at least to me, the amount of Affiliates who aren’t aware of the value and flexibility that the ’sub-domain‘ can give their promotional website activities. Set up in the right way, a single domain through a host who includes multiple ’sub-domains’ in their hosting package can fill ALL the online needs of even the busiest and most diversified Affiliate.

Firstly, for those who need to know, a ’sub-domain‘ is simply a separate, individual web folder, which can be attached to a ‘main’ domain and treated in all respects as a separate entity online. It is similar to a ’sub-web’, which most hosting facilities include except that it is, in it’s own right, treated as a separate domain by the SEs rather than a sub-folder under a domain.

The way in which they are represented online as URLs is as follows:

For instance, if you have a domain name, ‘domain.com’ and you add a sub-domain named ‘bubble’, the URL to that particular ‘website’ (which is what each sub-domain amounts to, a separate website) will be ‘bubble.domain.com’. No doubt, many have seen these types of URLs online and in promo emails etc. The ‘dot’ between the sub-domain and main domain is not to be confused with the ‘dash’ that can be used as part of a main domain. For instance, ‘bubble-domain.com’ would need to be registered and propagated in it’s own right whereas, sub-domains can be created under a main domain in a matter of seconds, with their own FTP password, image, private and cgi-bin folders etc.

What makes them so valuable a tool, if it’s not so obvious already, is that an Affiliate can create a separate website for totally unrelated products or services, fill each website with the necessary pages of content, links and facilities etc and promote each to the Search Engines and other directories, virtually as if it were a different main domain. As I’ve said, the SEs treat each sub-domain as a separate entity and categorize them as such. A very handy ability when it comes to Affiliate programs that supply a website or webpage for their Affiliates to use and promote. In such a case, you can basically make that page or site your very own in every respect, optimizing for SEs and presenting it how ever you please (provided no agreements are broken).

Obviously, having a ‘generic’ main domain name is essential to getting the best out of this cost, time and trouble saving method of creating multiple websites. If you have a main domain name ‘pillshop.net’ (perhaps your initial Affiliate endeavor involved promoting this type of product) it is really only going to be useful for the one type of product or service. Alternatively, something more generic like ‘online-plus.biz’ is going to be useful for promoting almost anything because it has no specific meaning. For instance, in the case of promoting a Singles Dating Affiliate program, something like ’singles.online-plus.biz’ would work as well as ‘pills.online-plus.biz’ or even ‘dogs.online-plus.biz’. However, ’singles.pillshop.net’ just doesn’t work, does it? (Although, I have seen some pretty weird URLs around!)

The only problem you will be presented with, concerns the traffic ranking facility Alexa. Alexa will read all sub-domains as their parent ‘main domain‘, so the traffic ranking for each website will be the same, as will all the other Alexa information. However, this isn’t such a great problem when you consider that the total traffic indicated for each website will actually be the total for ALL of them. In my opinion, not so much of a problem, at all.

So, for the Affiliate at least, choosing the right type of domain name and a hosting facility that includes multiple sub-domains in their package is very important, especially if there’s any possibility that you’re going to be venturing into promoting unrelated products and services. The first hosting facility I was involved with a few years ago, charged $10 to create each sub-domain. The one I’ve been with for the last couple of years, allows unlimited free sub-domains (contact me at one of my websites if you want to know who they are).