There are many different reasons why you would want to make a domain name purchase. Some people do this as the first step of their Internet business, while others wait until after they have a better grasp of their business strategy, plan and direction. Whenever you decide to do it, at some point you will have to purchase your domain name. And while the process is actually very straightforward, the choices that you make can be quite complex. Here is a basic rundown on your purchase, domain name features and choices that you have available to you.
In order to find your domain name, you should first run a search to make certain that the name you have chosen is available. Many people are surprised, especially if it is their first time purchasing a domain to find that many names are unavailable. In fact, at one particular time, up to 80,000 of these domain names were being sold on a daily basis. It didn't take long until almost all of the good one and two name domains were taken. Fortunately, there are always options.
One of the best things that you can do when deciding on a domain name is to be a bit creative. Of course, if you are attempting to have your domain name match an existing business, purchasing a domain with your business name in the URL is very important.
If, however, you are starting a new business on the Internet, you might find that coming up with a catchy domain name far outweighs having one that is descriptive in nature. Think of the website "google.com", for example. That particular name has nothing to do with searching the Internet, but through smart and clever branding, the name "Google" is now synonymous with Web search.
One of the next things you're going to have to decide is if you are going to get a .com, .net, .org or any of the other available extensions. If you plan on branding your name in one way or another, you most certainly should look for a .com as it is the most widely recognized domain name extention. Going back with our example of Google, many people will tell you that they went to Google, not that they went to Google.com. The extension is simply understood. Unless it is absolutely necessary, you may want to stay away from the less recognized extensions, such as .info or .biz.
Once you have finally found the domain name that you plan to use, purchasing it is a simple matter. You only need to choose a domain registrar and then register your new domain through them.
Your domain may be purchased for as little time as one year, up to 10 years or more in advance. However, for several reasons we won't go into here, purchasing the domain for at least a three-year term is recommended.
All that is necessary from the point of purchasing your domain, is to direct it to your Web server and then upload your website. From there, you will continue to work your business from behind the scenes and build your way to success.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
A Good Domain Name Is The Key To Your Web Business
Just like all things in life, the ways to run a business are rapidly changing and evolving. The potential involved with having a domain name / web site is staggering to say the least. A web site gives the consumer a 'shop front' that is not only open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but is also situated right on their desktop. Instead of being locked into only the immediate area, the whole world's marketplace becomes your sphere of interaction.
Customers can access information on all your products, no more salesperson with limited knowledge trying to explain something they no little about. No more waiting in lines for help, all people have access immediately. The domain name of the website gives great freedom to the business process. Having your own name is like having an address, then infinite emails can be added to the name so different departments within the company can be reached without having to wait at reception.
As a business, the domain name adds professional authenticity, as your address is not affiliated with other companies. In the area of communication, the email system opens up many avenues. Instead of having to put clients on hold because of limited personnel, innumerable emails can arrive at once, even when there's no one in the office. Then you can pick and choose which one's to reply to first (the most urgent), while people browsing can wait till later. First come, first serve becomes obsolete as necessary customers automatically reach the front of the line.
Getting a website and domain name is an easy, simple, cost-effective process. You can register your name through web domain registrars. That is definitely a very limited risk compared to opening a store, renting a location, and the thousands of dollars involved in overhead costs. How can this be true? A key to the door for anyone who wants to enter a mega-mall that is as big as the Earth. Let's hope you've got something special to share and trade with the global community! Another option is you can buy multiple versions of your domain names, even if you won't be using them all. You can prevent competitors from getting the similar name as yours and reducing competition. It's not imperative though. If your budget is limited, you can use them for other purposes. If you ended up using other than .com domains, you can still thrive your way to success. An easy to remember domain name means nothing if there's nothing to remember about the name.
Customers can access information on all your products, no more salesperson with limited knowledge trying to explain something they no little about. No more waiting in lines for help, all people have access immediately. The domain name of the website gives great freedom to the business process. Having your own name is like having an address, then infinite emails can be added to the name so different departments within the company can be reached without having to wait at reception.
As a business, the domain name adds professional authenticity, as your address is not affiliated with other companies. In the area of communication, the email system opens up many avenues. Instead of having to put clients on hold because of limited personnel, innumerable emails can arrive at once, even when there's no one in the office. Then you can pick and choose which one's to reply to first (the most urgent), while people browsing can wait till later. First come, first serve becomes obsolete as necessary customers automatically reach the front of the line.
Getting a website and domain name is an easy, simple, cost-effective process. You can register your name through web domain registrars. That is definitely a very limited risk compared to opening a store, renting a location, and the thousands of dollars involved in overhead costs. How can this be true? A key to the door for anyone who wants to enter a mega-mall that is as big as the Earth. Let's hope you've got something special to share and trade with the global community! Another option is you can buy multiple versions of your domain names, even if you won't be using them all. You can prevent competitors from getting the similar name as yours and reducing competition. It's not imperative though. If your budget is limited, you can use them for other purposes. If you ended up using other than .com domains, you can still thrive your way to success. An easy to remember domain name means nothing if there's nothing to remember about the name.
Domain Holders Take Advantage of You and Me
As if it's not difficult enough to find a marketable and appealing domain name these days, some companies are now suspect of manipulating buyers by analyzing recent domain searches and using the data to inflate domain prices. This has been a growing issue as the number of domain purchases over years has skyrocketed and along with that so have the number of companies facilitating domain purchases.
To combat this issue a law suit was filed with a Los Angeles court Monday against Network Solutions, LLC, one of the many domain facilitation sites (networksolutions.com). The importance of this lawsuit is extremely prominent in protecting businesses and consumers involved in online business development. As someone who owns more than ten domains and has experienced the aforementioned problem, let me tell you, this is huge.
Here's how it works:
For the purpose of this argument, let's say I am a apparel designer in Florida who realizes the potential to grow my business through the outlet of e-commerce. I put together my online business strategy, hire a couple of designers, and begin to create what will soon be my online presence. Using a domain facilitator I search and scour through thirty possible domain names but decide to come back and purchase after I speak with a marketing consultant to get some ideas on which domains have the most marketability. During this gap of time the domain facilitator has accessed its search analytics and notices that I, as well as others, have been searching for possible domains. In turn they purchase the domains, making them unavailable to me upon my eager arrival to get up and running online. At this point I am either forced to search for another, likely less appealing domain, or purchase my first choice at a much higher price. The domain facilitator has just manipulated me to increase its profit margins.
Many companies who do this defend their actions by stating that they are helping the consumer by ensuring domains are available when their customers return to purchase. Don't be fooled. This is a cover for their blatant misuse of search data. I commend them for developing a strategy that allows for higher profits, but they've gone about it the wrong manner. There is a better solution, which I will outline below, to both increase company profits AND provide value and honest service to consumers. Now Network Solutions and others will likely deflate their profits in a vigorous class action law suit that in my opinion could have easily been avoided.
My Solution:
Surely it would be nice to have some more insurance that my domains would be available upon my return to purchase, but as the buyer I should have the option to obtain that insurance. What Network Solutions and other companies should do is develop an option to purchase domain insurance for a nominal fee that reserves the domain for a period of time. This both opens a new stream of revenue for Network Solutions and the like while also preserving the rights of the consumers.
As the competition for domains increases and more and more businesses establish themselves online it will be more and more important to have ethical standard for businesses and consumers to follow and understand. Especially when it comes to private data.
Tips for buying domains:
1. Use a reputable site - I use GoDaddy (godaddy.com) because they not only have a great reputation, but also offer a full suite of domain and hosting services. 2. Be alert of suspicious behavior - If you're domains keep disappearing before you can purchase them, consider investigation the company you're working with. 3. Report suspicious behavior - Visit RNS Domain Fraud and know how to handle potential misuse.
To combat this issue a law suit was filed with a Los Angeles court Monday against Network Solutions, LLC, one of the many domain facilitation sites (networksolutions.com). The importance of this lawsuit is extremely prominent in protecting businesses and consumers involved in online business development. As someone who owns more than ten domains and has experienced the aforementioned problem, let me tell you, this is huge.
Here's how it works:
For the purpose of this argument, let's say I am a apparel designer in Florida who realizes the potential to grow my business through the outlet of e-commerce. I put together my online business strategy, hire a couple of designers, and begin to create what will soon be my online presence. Using a domain facilitator I search and scour through thirty possible domain names but decide to come back and purchase after I speak with a marketing consultant to get some ideas on which domains have the most marketability. During this gap of time the domain facilitator has accessed its search analytics and notices that I, as well as others, have been searching for possible domains. In turn they purchase the domains, making them unavailable to me upon my eager arrival to get up and running online. At this point I am either forced to search for another, likely less appealing domain, or purchase my first choice at a much higher price. The domain facilitator has just manipulated me to increase its profit margins.
Many companies who do this defend their actions by stating that they are helping the consumer by ensuring domains are available when their customers return to purchase. Don't be fooled. This is a cover for their blatant misuse of search data. I commend them for developing a strategy that allows for higher profits, but they've gone about it the wrong manner. There is a better solution, which I will outline below, to both increase company profits AND provide value and honest service to consumers. Now Network Solutions and others will likely deflate their profits in a vigorous class action law suit that in my opinion could have easily been avoided.
My Solution:
Surely it would be nice to have some more insurance that my domains would be available upon my return to purchase, but as the buyer I should have the option to obtain that insurance. What Network Solutions and other companies should do is develop an option to purchase domain insurance for a nominal fee that reserves the domain for a period of time. This both opens a new stream of revenue for Network Solutions and the like while also preserving the rights of the consumers.
As the competition for domains increases and more and more businesses establish themselves online it will be more and more important to have ethical standard for businesses and consumers to follow and understand. Especially when it comes to private data.
Tips for buying domains:
1. Use a reputable site - I use GoDaddy (godaddy.com) because they not only have a great reputation, but also offer a full suite of domain and hosting services. 2. Be alert of suspicious behavior - If you're domains keep disappearing before you can purchase them, consider investigation the company you're working with. 3. Report suspicious behavior - Visit RNS Domain Fraud and know how to handle potential misuse.
Domains and the search engines
Whether you are buying a new domain to build pages and sell on, or whether you want to build it to generate income, you should give some thought to the use of site optimization in the development process.
When it is to make your domain name more valuable for a purchaser (to whom you can point to good traffic or Pagerank), or for the sake of your own long-term income (for which you also need steady, and hopefully growing levels of traffic), search engine optimization is vital unless you are simply going to promote by pay-per-click.
You may have heard some SEO myths presented as fact. It is now taken for granted among the top SEO commentators that key words in the domain itself do not have any effect on the rankings of site pages. The time is past where search engine algorithms could be gamed by simple tricks like creating a domain called buy-keyword1-keyword2.com. The internal page names, if they incorporate keywords, may have some effect, though this too is doubtful.
So, when deciding on your new domain name, you shouldn't worry when you find all the top domains are already registered. The search results will show the domain name to searchers, but that is the only possible advantage of keywords in a domain name.
Another myth is that using PPC on your new domain will get it noticed, cause spidering, and give it a boost in the search engine rankings. This has been shown to be completely untrue, and is the result of wishful thinking.
Acquire incoming links from other sites, and the spiders will arrive naturally.
Have worthwhile and original content, and the search engines will learn to love you. If you can't create original content, look for a writer who can. The shortcuts to collecting web content - scraping that of others, using public domain directory listings, and all the gray and black hat methods either don't work or will get you degraded in the results.
Don't worry about keyword density, just focus your pages on a natural, coherent subject. In fact, do not be concerned about the search engines at all. Your intention should be to give something great to your real audience - your actual visitors.
Validating your new site to W3C standard is a complete waste of your time. Any search engine would have to exclude 99% of the web from its results if it used this as a ranking technique. Use the time saved to create new pages.
Don't pay to place your new domain in paid directories, or directories selling PR-based links. This may have worked once, but the search engine algorithms no longer give much weight to tricks like this. Just consider - a rich company could buy its way to the top of the results for every keyword it wanted, if purchasing links actually worked: and it would destroy the worth of the search engines to their users. This is exactly Google and the other engines want to stop happening at all costs.
However, the search engine giants can make mistakes. Some domains, however great and original their content and however numerous their incoming links, just never do anything in the search results. Buy another domain and try again.
When it is to make your domain name more valuable for a purchaser (to whom you can point to good traffic or Pagerank), or for the sake of your own long-term income (for which you also need steady, and hopefully growing levels of traffic), search engine optimization is vital unless you are simply going to promote by pay-per-click.
You may have heard some SEO myths presented as fact. It is now taken for granted among the top SEO commentators that key words in the domain itself do not have any effect on the rankings of site pages. The time is past where search engine algorithms could be gamed by simple tricks like creating a domain called buy-keyword1-keyword2.com. The internal page names, if they incorporate keywords, may have some effect, though this too is doubtful.
So, when deciding on your new domain name, you shouldn't worry when you find all the top domains are already registered. The search results will show the domain name to searchers, but that is the only possible advantage of keywords in a domain name.
Another myth is that using PPC on your new domain will get it noticed, cause spidering, and give it a boost in the search engine rankings. This has been shown to be completely untrue, and is the result of wishful thinking.
Acquire incoming links from other sites, and the spiders will arrive naturally.
Have worthwhile and original content, and the search engines will learn to love you. If you can't create original content, look for a writer who can. The shortcuts to collecting web content - scraping that of others, using public domain directory listings, and all the gray and black hat methods either don't work or will get you degraded in the results.
Don't worry about keyword density, just focus your pages on a natural, coherent subject. In fact, do not be concerned about the search engines at all. Your intention should be to give something great to your real audience - your actual visitors.
Validating your new site to W3C standard is a complete waste of your time. Any search engine would have to exclude 99% of the web from its results if it used this as a ranking technique. Use the time saved to create new pages.
Don't pay to place your new domain in paid directories, or directories selling PR-based links. This may have worked once, but the search engine algorithms no longer give much weight to tricks like this. Just consider - a rich company could buy its way to the top of the results for every keyword it wanted, if purchasing links actually worked: and it would destroy the worth of the search engines to their users. This is exactly Google and the other engines want to stop happening at all costs.
However, the search engine giants can make mistakes. Some domains, however great and original their content and however numerous their incoming links, just never do anything in the search results. Buy another domain and try again.
The long and the short of domain names by Sandy Cosser
There are many ways to go about choosing a domain name for your website. There are also many experts who populate the Internet with sound advice on how to choose the best domain name available. ‘Available’ being the key word in that sentence. If you can think of it, chances are someone else already has and they’ve beaten you to the registration desk.
The list of good, memorable, effective and available domain names is shrinking all the time. We have domain name prospectors or speculators to thank for that. These enterprising individuals spend a great deal of time creating and buying brilliant and powerful domain names so that they can resell them at a much higher price.
You can bypass them by creating a domain that’s unique and accurately reflects your company. There is general consensus on what constitutes an effective and memorable domain name, although as with all fields of expertise, differences of opinion do occur.
Domains should be short, except when long ones represent your company or enterprise more accurately. There are many different opinions regarding this particular point, some experts say that you should strive for a two-word domain and that three words is pushing it. Others contend that you should aim for around 10 characters with a maximum of 20. Names of fifty characters are considered too long. They all agree that shorter names reduce the risk of searcher misspellings and confusion.
Chistopher Heng, from thesitewizard.com, differs from most other experts by saying that long domains are easier to remember than short ones. Sites with abbreviated names, or with names comprised of seemingly unrelated letters, are more difficult to remember than sites that use their full company names. He adds that in terms of SEO, long names with keywords in them provide better results in search engines.
The most important thing to remember is that your domain name must be meaningful to you and to your users.
Extensions are also very important. Internet users consider sites with dot-com extensions to be more reliable and professional than other sites. It’s also the extension that most searchers use when they have to guess. As a result it’s extremely popular and can be difficult to get in combination with your name of choice. Dot-com extensions are advised for businesses that trade internationally.
Country specific extensions such as .co.uk (the United Kingdom), or co.za (South Africa) are especially effective for sites with local interests. The dot-net extension is typically used for technology websites, while dot-info relates to informative sites. Whatever extension you decide on, always market your full domain name, including your extension, otherwise searchers might guess incorrectly and end up on your competitor’s site.
The importance of domains cannot be over-emphasised. It’s the avenue through which people find you online. It’s what they use when they talk about you to others and it’s what they remember. Try and match your domain name to your brand name, but if you can’t do this, your domain should at least describe what you do. If neither of those options is possible, try to create an interesting and catchy domain that’ll stick in people’s minds. The danger with interesting or offbeat domains is that people tend to be suspicious of them. A judicious use of quirkiness, however, will go a long way toward cementing your site in a user’s mind.
Over 100 million domains have already been registered. More are being registered all the time. What are you waiting for?
The list of good, memorable, effective and available domain names is shrinking all the time. We have domain name prospectors or speculators to thank for that. These enterprising individuals spend a great deal of time creating and buying brilliant and powerful domain names so that they can resell them at a much higher price.
You can bypass them by creating a domain that’s unique and accurately reflects your company. There is general consensus on what constitutes an effective and memorable domain name, although as with all fields of expertise, differences of opinion do occur.
Domains should be short, except when long ones represent your company or enterprise more accurately. There are many different opinions regarding this particular point, some experts say that you should strive for a two-word domain and that three words is pushing it. Others contend that you should aim for around 10 characters with a maximum of 20. Names of fifty characters are considered too long. They all agree that shorter names reduce the risk of searcher misspellings and confusion.
Chistopher Heng, from thesitewizard.com, differs from most other experts by saying that long domains are easier to remember than short ones. Sites with abbreviated names, or with names comprised of seemingly unrelated letters, are more difficult to remember than sites that use their full company names. He adds that in terms of SEO, long names with keywords in them provide better results in search engines.
The most important thing to remember is that your domain name must be meaningful to you and to your users.
Extensions are also very important. Internet users consider sites with dot-com extensions to be more reliable and professional than other sites. It’s also the extension that most searchers use when they have to guess. As a result it’s extremely popular and can be difficult to get in combination with your name of choice. Dot-com extensions are advised for businesses that trade internationally.
Country specific extensions such as .co.uk (the United Kingdom), or co.za (South Africa) are especially effective for sites with local interests. The dot-net extension is typically used for technology websites, while dot-info relates to informative sites. Whatever extension you decide on, always market your full domain name, including your extension, otherwise searchers might guess incorrectly and end up on your competitor’s site.
The importance of domains cannot be over-emphasised. It’s the avenue through which people find you online. It’s what they use when they talk about you to others and it’s what they remember. Try and match your domain name to your brand name, but if you can’t do this, your domain should at least describe what you do. If neither of those options is possible, try to create an interesting and catchy domain that’ll stick in people’s minds. The danger with interesting or offbeat domains is that people tend to be suspicious of them. A judicious use of quirkiness, however, will go a long way toward cementing your site in a user’s mind.
Over 100 million domains have already been registered. More are being registered all the time. What are you waiting for?
Learning More About Expired Web Domain Expiry And Deletion Patterns by John Khu
Just before a particular expired web domain expires and becomes available for open sale, it will undergo several passages of legal procedures. Here is a brief flowchart of the presumed lifecycle through which a typical expired web domain traverses its eventful passage:
An active web domain may become redundant, when the buyer of that domain somehow misses renewing the domain name for another term. It is an open marketable commodity that is available and open for all internet surfers. Just before it expires, the concerned authorities will place the said domain under a series of legal procedures. As an expired web domain entrepreneur, you may need to know these simple legal procedures.
Holding period: This is the first of the series of legal procedures through which a said domain traverses through. Holding period is a specific stage that lies within the registrar's exclusive control and hold.
Redemption Period: This is a grace period, when the registrar forwards a special favor by paying the renewal fees for the domain in question. This facility is available for the first 45 days, soon after the non-receipt of renewal fees. The registrar will pay the fees in the real hope that the owner of the domain will pay the renewal charges.
The 2nd Stage of Redemption: Once the said web domain passes its 45 days of grace period, the registrar will soon announce about the non-payment of renewal fees. In essence, this is the end of the waiting period and the owner may soon loose the control over the domain.
The Stage of Expiry: The final stages of expiry and deletion of a web domain lasts to about a month and at this stage the said domain comes back the registrar due to the non-payment of renewal fees.
The Stage of Deletion: This marks the end of the process and the web domain soon turns an expired web domain. This is the most critical stage, the said domain reverts back to the open market when anyone can pay the fees and buy it.
Here are some more additional details about expired web domain registration and deletion which are as follows:
a) You can register a web domain for a period of one to ten years.
b) If you do not pay renewal fees on time, you will get a series of e mail notices about the nonpayment, with an additional instruction to pay the fees.
c) When you pay up the fees on time, you will never need to worry about your domain becoming an expired web domain.
Learning more on how a domain turns into an expired web domain is very critical and important. Additional information and details on this unique topic will help you enrich your skills and knowledge of acquiring expired web domains in an effective manner.
An active web domain may become redundant, when the buyer of that domain somehow misses renewing the domain name for another term. It is an open marketable commodity that is available and open for all internet surfers. Just before it expires, the concerned authorities will place the said domain under a series of legal procedures. As an expired web domain entrepreneur, you may need to know these simple legal procedures.
Holding period: This is the first of the series of legal procedures through which a said domain traverses through. Holding period is a specific stage that lies within the registrar's exclusive control and hold.
Redemption Period: This is a grace period, when the registrar forwards a special favor by paying the renewal fees for the domain in question. This facility is available for the first 45 days, soon after the non-receipt of renewal fees. The registrar will pay the fees in the real hope that the owner of the domain will pay the renewal charges.
The 2nd Stage of Redemption: Once the said web domain passes its 45 days of grace period, the registrar will soon announce about the non-payment of renewal fees. In essence, this is the end of the waiting period and the owner may soon loose the control over the domain.
The Stage of Expiry: The final stages of expiry and deletion of a web domain lasts to about a month and at this stage the said domain comes back the registrar due to the non-payment of renewal fees.
The Stage of Deletion: This marks the end of the process and the web domain soon turns an expired web domain. This is the most critical stage, the said domain reverts back to the open market when anyone can pay the fees and buy it.
Here are some more additional details about expired web domain registration and deletion which are as follows:
a) You can register a web domain for a period of one to ten years.
b) If you do not pay renewal fees on time, you will get a series of e mail notices about the nonpayment, with an additional instruction to pay the fees.
c) When you pay up the fees on time, you will never need to worry about your domain becoming an expired web domain.
Learning more on how a domain turns into an expired web domain is very critical and important. Additional information and details on this unique topic will help you enrich your skills and knowledge of acquiring expired web domains in an effective manner.
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