WHAT IS A DOMAIN NAME?
A Domain Name is a singular name that works as an identifier for a website on the Internet. Each Domain Name therefore is a unique website address (eg. www.bjwebmagic.com) indicating a location on the Internet. A domain name is also used as part of an email address (eg. info@bjwebmagic.com).
Domain name extionsions and their definitions:
- .com - Short for commercial. Domain names with the .com extension are the most popular and can be purchased by any individual or business in any country.
- .biz - Short for business. Domains using the .biz extension must be used for business or commercial use.
- .net - Short for network. This domain extension was originally designed to be used by technical web sites. However, this extension can be registered by anyone.
- .org - Short for organization. Originally for non-profit organizations that did not fit under the .com or .net extension. However any individual or business may now register an .org domain name.
- .info - Short for information. Originally for informative websites and is available to the general public.
- .museum - This is available only to museums, museum organizations and individual members of the museum profession.
.aero - Is designated for the air transport industry. The .aero extension is only available to the aviation community members.
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WHY DO YOU NEED A DOMAIN NAME?
If you are like some people, you may be wondering what the big deal is with getting a domain name. Why does anyone want or even need one? Well the answers can vary with circumstances, however there are some pretty simple initial reasons.
Individuals sometimes like to have their own domain for vanity or notoriety reasons. Other times they have a family or genealogy Website and having a domain name for that site helps it to be found and remembered easier. For instance if your name is Sheila Brooks, you could try to get the domain name of "sheilabrooks.com" so that anyone looking for you online would easily find you. If you have a family Website then a domain name such as "brooksfamily.com" would give it a nice touch. If you are an up and coming author, artist, activist, volunteer or otherwise it would also give you a unique and memorable address with which to promote your causes.
In the business world, domain names are becoming as common as telephone and fax numbers. If your advertisements and business cards don't display a domain name, you run the risk of being completely passed over by customers that prefer to browse merchandise and services online.
A good domain name is vital for a business. If the name does not match your business name or slogan then it must be closely related to one or both. Your domain name must also be easy to remember so that customers do not have to work hard to find your site online. Having a registered domain name with a live Website is sometimes the first priority for a business today, because it is a very inexpensive way to get your business name and information in front of the public.
Other primary reasons for a business to register one or more domain names is to protect copyrights and trademarks, secure unique product names and increase their brand awareness with the public.
By: Kathy Burns-Millyard - http://www.SasEz.com
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TIPS ON DOMAIN NAME CHOICES
Before buying your domain name, give some thought to the following 8 points which can help you make the right decision.
1) If possible use your sites name as the basis of your domain name e.g www.discountdomainsuk.com for Discount Domains UK. This might seem common sense but not every site follows the convention. If you use your name in your URL it will be much easier for your customers to find you.
2) Generic names - if you can register a generic domain such as toys.com that's great, but most of these have already gone. Also getting ranked in the search engines is likely to be harder. Selected a domain closer to your market segment will cut down the competition. E.g toyplanes.com
3) Hyphenated Names - Its easy to forget the hyphen! Which is the problem, particularly if your customer remembers your name but not your URL. Though on a positive note hyphenated names are less likely to be registered already.
4) If the .com extension is not available then consider the alternative TLD (Top level domain types) such as .net or .biz. If your domain name has already been registered then approach the owner and ask if they will sell. They may accept a $100. If you ask, they can only say no.
5) Plurals. Very often a domain name will be free in the plural but not in the singular form. It's a personal choice, but if your prefered choice of domain name is not available you might be stuck.
6) Short or Long domains - A short domain name is more memorable, but less likely to be available. A longer domain is harder to remember, but can contain more keywords which is important as some of the search engines, use keywords in a domain name as part of the search algorithm.
7) Which Top Level Domain Type - .com, .co.uk , .net etc. This is a question I am often asked. There is no evidence that any domain name type is given preference by the search engines. However some search engines such as Google, have local searches e.g www.google.com which do select local content. Customer often get re-assurance from seeing a local TLD as they know they are dealing with a local company etc. You can, of course, register all of them!
8) Variations - If your prefered domain name is not available then its always worth trying a prefix my e.g mydomains.com or suffix e.g domains4U.com etc.
By: Clare Lawrence - http://www.discountdomainsuk.com
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PROS AND CONS OF PRE-OWNED DOMAIN NAMES
Sometimes it seems like all of the best domain names have already been taken. On more than one occasion, I've come up with a great domain name for a site, only to find that someone else had already purchased it. I can live with that, but sometimes I've found that it has been purchased by some scum domain scavenger, and that's really annoying.
I don't know about you, but sometimes it seems like all of the best domain names have already been taken. On more than one occasion, I've come up with a great domain name for a site, only to find that someone else had already purchased it. I can live with that, but sometimes I've found that it has been purchased by some scum domain scavenger, and that's really annoying.
A domain scavenger is someone who purchases a whole bunch of domain names under the theory that people will want to purchase some of them during the year or two that they own them. These people are bottom feeders, as they hold many useful domains, demand huge prices, and do not provide any real value. It's not uncommon to find that a domain name is not available, to check the WHOIS information and find it is owned by "this domain is for sale". In fact, some of these scum have been known to purchase thousands of domain names made of up the first and last names from a phone book, in the hopes that at least some of the people will want their names as a dot com.
Anyway, domains are only purchased for a specific time period, and they do come up for renewal regularly. Quite often they are not renewed, and at that time the domain names may be purchased by others. Even the so-called "good names" are occasionally not renewed.
Sometimes domain names do not get renewed because the business that owned them is no longer operational. Sometimes the business still exists but has found it no longer wants or needs a domain name. Quite often the bottom feeders will allow their unpurchased domain names to expire because they don't have the funds to purchase them again or they feel the domains are no longer marketable or profitable.
Occasionally, the domain name holder has died or lost interest in their business or the internet. Once in a while a domain is allowed to expire because it has attracted some maliciousness and it cannot be maintained, and most often of all, the domain name holder simply does not realize that it needs to be renewed. In this last instance, the domain name is unintentionally expired and someone can purchase it before the owner realizes it.
In any event, regardless of why a domain name expires, you can often find yourself in a position to purchase one that has been previously owned. Note that in addition to expired domains, you can also purchase domain names on the after-market (by making bids) or from the domain name resellers (the bottom feeders mentioned above).
Some Advantages Of Using Pre-Owned Names
The name was part of a link exchange - Webmasters work hard to get their sites involved in link exchanges. This means the domain names are listed on other sites, and this is useful for getting traffic. If you take over a domain name, you can inherit these incoming links and the resulting traffic.
It was listed in Yahoo, DMOZ and/or Looksmart - A small industry has sprung up recently, which consists simply of selling tools and reports to allow people to quickly find domain names which are listed in Yahoo, DMOZ, Looksmart or other directories yet have expired. By expiring, these domain names are up for grabs, and all of the resulting benefits for the original site transfer to the new site. For a well placed entries, this can literally mean hundreds of thousands of hits per month.
There are hundreds of thousands of sites listed in Yahoo and millions in DMOZ. Anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred expire each month. Eventually the expiration would be discovered and the entry removed. However, if someone purchases the domain name quickly enough, the entry will remain and you will gain that traffic.
It has a good page rank in Google - Another thing that webmasters work very hard on is gaining page rank with Google, the number one search engine. A high page rank implies that the site appears nearer the top in search results pages. When you purchase a domain, you can inherit the resulting page rank and traffic. Note that you will need to duplicate the page or pages referred to by Google in order for this to work properly.
The Downside Of Using Pre-Owned Names
You inherit spam - If the previous owner received spam email, then when you take over the domain you may very well inherit it. Why is this? Well, when you own a domain name, you get the email sent to every single username on that domain. Of course, most email servers are smart enough to "bounce" email messages for users who do not exist, but that email still gets sent to the server. For a domain which received a lot of spam, it could mean a significant amount of bandwidth used just for junk messages to non-existent users.
You can inherit robot activity - I got a domain once which someone had listed with a number of robots (programs which perform automatic functions). These robots were exceptionally active and caused a tremendous amount of traffic - so much so that I had to give up using the domain for a couple of months until the robots stopped visiting.
You might inherit enemies - Sometimes people give up domain names for a reason. One of those reasons might be an enemy - someone (or a group) that is targeting the name for some malicious act. For example, the name might be the target of email bombs or denial-of-service attacks. In these instances, you could find yourself inheriting these issues.
The domain could be banned - If a site gets involved in spamming search engines (attempting to fool them for higher placement on the results pages), it can be banned. By purchasing these old domain names, you might be similarly banned. This normally would not effect your existing domains, but it might reduce the value of the domain name that you purchased.
Things to do before giving up a domain name
Be sure you really want to expire the domain - Once someone else purchases your domain name, you may find it impossible or very expensive to get it returned. You will lose access to the use of the name entirely. So be sure that you want to give it up before you actually allow it to expire.
Be aware of expiration dates - Keep an eye on your domain name expiration dates as you may not get notified by the registrar before expiration. This can happen because email is not a perfect delivery system, because of a glitch in the registrar system or even because you didn't check your mail or email for the renewal. Don't accidentally lose your domain names.
Change your email addresses - Once you lose access to a domain, you will lose access to any email that is going to that domain. Think of all of the private emails that you get, and imagine them going to strangers. Well, once someone else gets the domain he may receive those private emails.
Change any links that you can - If you are allowing a domain to expire, be sure you salvage any links that you might want to keep. While you can do this after a domain name expires, it makes more sense to do it beforehand. For example, if you had owned three domains that all went to the same web site and you allowed two of them to expire, you might want to spend the time to change the links to the domain name that you keep.
By: Richard Lowe Jr. - http://www.internet-tips.net
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