Internet Domain Registration: March 2007

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Internet Domain Registration FAQs

Website addresses have two parts, the domain name and the top domain. The domain name refers to the main part, for example, yahoo in www.yahoo.com. The top-level domain is the latter part, as in com. The top-level domain name gives the visitor a brief idea as to what the site is about: net for network providers, ?edu? for educational institutions, and ?org? for non-profit organizations.

All domain names in the US are registered in the DNS (Domain Name Server) database, which is managed by the regulatory body ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Different registrars like Go Daddy register the domain names, depending on the availability of the domain name. When registering a domain, a small fee is charged. For those users wishing to have anonymous domain registration, this fee will be a little higher. The InterNIC (Network Information Centers) that is responsible for US domains, charges $70 for a two years registration.

Domain names can also be accessed without typing WWW in front. The domain name availability can be checked on sites that are linked to the WHOIS database. This database provides the information related to the contact details such as name, phone number, and addresses. Sites such as www.easywhois.com can be used to check domain availability.

Domain names are allowed to only have characters between 0-9 and A-Z. The hyphen (-) is allowed, but it cannot be placed at the beginning or at the end of the domain name. The maximum number of characters allowed is 63.

A domain name can be registered for a minimum of 1 and maximum of 10 years. Usually renewal is required between 2-5 years.

Once the InterNIC specifies that the domain name has been registered, it takes about 72 hours for it to become active.

Files must be transferred to the website by a FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Each site will have a user-set login and password, which will protect the site from other people accessing it to change the data.

Some website providers restrict the number of hits that a site can receive. A better option for sites that have a lot of traffic is to shift to a dedicated server.

Internet Domain Registration provides detailed information on Internet Domain Registration, Cheap Domain Name Registration, Domain Registration And Hosting, Domain Registration Information and more. Internet Domain Registration is affiliated with Generic Internet Domain Names.

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Domain Name Registration Do Keywords Matter ?

How To Select

The Most Important Part Of The Web Site Concept Is The Domain Name. Get It Wrong And Your Site May Never Show Its Full Potential. What Makes A Good Domain Name You Ask ? Unless You Are Going To the Trouble And Expense Of Establishing A New Trade Name Business Where You Will Have Thousands Of Domain Choices With A New Word Or New Words Added To Your Industries Strongest Keyword, Example Chameleonpaint.com Or Giraffedomain.com You Are Going To Have To Buy Or Register The Best Keyword Name That You Can Afford.

Keywords

The Most Searched Keywords For This Site Are "Domain Name" So In The Ideal World You Would Choose "Domainname" With .com Or .co.uk, But As You Have Properly Realized These Domain Names Have Long Gone. Some Are Being Used For Web Sites But Most Are Parked With One Page Adverts Which Can Produce Revenue And With The Hope Of Making A Sale And Profit In The Future. "Domain" Can Be Combined With The Next Most Important Keyword Which Is "Domainregistration" Or "Cheapdomain" Or You Can Add A Descriptive Word Which Will Sound Nice, "Wonderfuldomain" Or "Insantdomain" But This May Be An Existing Trade Name You Will Need To Check, The Main Point Is That These Are Not Good Keywords Not Many People Search For A "Wonderful Domain". It Is Still Better To Combine The Top Keyword With A Lesser One To Make The Name, We Had To Settle For Domainweb Which Are Both Keywords To This Industry.

Are Keywords Really That Important ?

There Are Three Main Reasons Why Keywords Are Paramount.
1, Some Of The Major Search Engines Add Weight To Web Sites That Have Keywords In Their Domain Names. Search On Msn Windows Live, Using Your Industries Keywords And A Large Proportion Of The Results Contain Domain Names As Keywords. For New Sites This May Be The Only Organic Traffic You Will Receive For Many Months.
2, When People Search, Organic Or PPC The Click Rate Is Significantly Higher If The Domain Name Is The Same Or Very Similar To Their Search Word Or Words.
3, The Sale Conversion Rate Is Much Higher, Customers Trust Short Keyword Impressive Domain Names.

Test The Domain Name Before You Buy Or Register

Lets Face It We Are All So Absorbed In The World Of Our Industries And Business That We Can Convince Ourselves That We Have Found A Great Domain Name. Ask People Who Know Absolutely Nothing About Your Industry What The Domain Name Means, The Response Should Be Instant Without Prompting. A Good Domain Name Should Instantly Tell Your Visitor What You Sell Or The Information Or Services That You Offer. If The Name Is Technical Or Specialized To Your Industry You Will Have To Test It On Junior Members Of Your Organization.

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How To Find Expired Domain Names

Every day thousands of domain names expire. Some owners no longer have any use for the domain name and let it expire. There are owners who have no idea that their name has expired. Once the domain name expires it can also be referred to as a deleted domain name.

Amongst these thousands of domains are some hidden gems that can be sold for a profit or used to start your online business. The trick is finding them. As with any magic trick if you are taught the secrets you can do it too.

There really isn't any secrets to finding expired domain names. You can do a quick search and find plenty of places that offer this service. Some of the websites will charge a monthly fee for this type of service. After you have sold a few names and decide you really want to get into the domain name selling business then you can decide if a monthly service is worth the price.

Paying a monthly fee is an option if you want to speculate on domain names that will be expiring soon. You don't need to pay a service fee to search for an already expired domain name though. You can find some decent domain names that you can buy for under $9 to use for your online business or to resell for a profit.

Regardless of what you intend to do with the domain name a .com is still the preferred type to get. A .com name usually sells for more than the same name with any other extension. A short, easy to remember, 2 or 3 word domain name without any numbers or hyphens is a good starting point.

One place to begin your search is at Whois.net. Enter the keyword you want to use in your domain in the field next to Search through deleted domains and click the Go button. You will see a list of results that match your keyword. You can the click on the advanced search link below the New search section.

Doing an advanced search will allow you to enter a keyword and specify where in the domain name your keyword should be. This is great if you know you want your name to start or end with a specific word. You could do a search for all deleted domain names that start with howto by entering howto in the search box and selecting left for the Match string setting.

The only problem using this method is that you can't filter the search results to a specific domain extension. You will need to scan all the results to pick out a suitable .com domain. You can click on any of the results to see if that domain name is still available to register.

Another great place to search for expired domain names is at DomainTools.com. Click on Whois Applications and Toolbars and then click on Domain Search on the top menu.

Enter your search term or terms and click Search. The result screen will allow you to do an advanced search that has many options to narrow down the results. This is definitely a page you will want to bookmark. You can make your search so specific that it only returns expired .com domain names with no numbers or hyphens that start with howto and are a certain amount of characters long.

Once you find an expired domain name that you like you can register it at either of the sites mentioned above or at any domain register that you like. Two of my favorites are GoDaddy.com and NameCheap.com.

That is how easy it is to find an expired domain name. No secrets or hidden strings, in fact there is no magic involved whatsoever. The name you've been searching for just might be waiting for you. Now go out there, and find the perfect name for yourself!

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Advantages And Disadvantages Of Previously Registered Domain Names

Advantages Of Previously Registered Domain Names

There Can Be Substantial Advantages In Buying A Previously Registered Domain Name, The Most Important Is The Existing Traffic.

1, Back Links, Have You Found What A Laborious, Time Consuming Job It Is To Obtain Reciprocal Links. Some Of This Resistance Is Due To The Webmasters Lack Of Time, Non belief In Linking, Page Rank Concerns Or Laziness. But Just As It Is Difficult To Get Links, Once They Are Coded Webmasters Do Not Always Bother To Remove Them. There Can Be Significant Targeted Traffic From These Links Especially If They Are From Old Established Sites.

2, Search Engine Listings And Directories, If The Domain Name Was Not Just Parked But Used As A Working Web Site You Can Bet That The Webmaster Tried To List The Site In The Major Search Engines And Directories And Maybe Paid A Submission Service To Be Listed In Hundreds More.

3, Listed On Potential Customers Favorites, Some Of The Searchers Who Found The Web Site Decided That It Was Very Interesting And Informative So They Saved It For Future Use, One Day They Will Click On Their Favorites And Revisit The Site.

Disadvantages Of Previously Registered Domain Names

1, The Price, Sometimes It Is Possible To Re Register A Dropped Domain Name For Just The Registration Fee, But It Is Getting Almost Impossible Now Due To The Practise Of Name Snapping, Name Snappers Use Sophisticated Software Programs Or Just Search Dropped Name Databases To Find Premium Names, Then Use Programs Which Try To Register The Name Every Second. The Domain Names Are Then Parked And Sold For Sometimes Thousands Of Dollars.

2, Spam Yes Good Old Fashioned Spam, The Past Webmaster May Have Stuffed The Meta Tags, Alt Tags, In Fact The Whole Web Site With Spam, Repetitive Key Words, Doorway Pages, Duplicate Content, Even Duplicate Web Sites So The Domain Name May Be Banned In All Search Engines.

3, Adult Sites Or Worse, The Name Could Have Be Used For Unlawful Businesses, Hate, Racism, Adult Or Anything Much Worse. You May Never Be Able To Remove All The Previous Links.

4, The Domain Was Associated With A Failed Or Illegal Business, You Could Receive A Considerable Amount Of Bad Publicity And Irate Customers From The Previous User. There May Be Negative Write Ups In Blogs, Forums And Web Reviews.

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Who Registers Domain Names?

A domain name registrar registers domain names. A domain name registrar is a company accredited by ICANN or by a national ccTLD authority or both to register Internet domain names.

ICANN or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a nonprofit organization that is responsible for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management and root server system management functions.

The late Jon Postel created ICANN in 1998 in response to a policy statement issued by the US Department of Commerce. ICANN has authority over gTLDs (Generic Top Level Domains) that include .com, .net and .org. The organization does not have authority over ccTLDs (Country Code Top-Level Domains), which include .ca (Canada), .uk (United Kingdom), .us (United States), .in (India), .de (Germany or Deutschland), .fr (France) etc.

The board of ICANN is comprised of nineteen Directors, and nine At-Large Directors. Directors serve for one-year terms and are succeeded by At-Large Directors. The At-Large Directors are elected by an at-large membership organization.

ICANN has taken various measures to oversee the domain-name registration system's transition from government hands to private hands and to coordinate its decentralization and the integration into a global community.

A company chosen by ICANN to register and manage domain names on its behalf is a designated registrar. There are several domain registrars offering domain registration services. Some of the top domain name registrars include Go Daddy, Network Solutions, eNom, Tucows, Melbourne IT, Schlund.de, Register.com, Wild West Domains (Part of Go Daddy), Moniker Online Services, and DomainDoorman.

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How to sell Domain names on eBay

Buying and finding domain names that are brandable and have importance for any kind of commercial field can be an interesting task to say the least. Ebay is a great market place to sell these domains no matter what type they are. We are going to review how you can be successful selling domain names on ebay and not get caught in the ruts that so many with higher than normal hopes do.

The first step in preparing your self to sell a domain name on eBay is the purchasing of a domain name. In doing so there are several things to keep in mind. 'The domain name should be short'. This means that a domain name should really be no longer than eleven characters when you are looking to purchase unless two great words can be compounded to form a great sounding name.

Do not be fooled! Many selling on ebay have come to the conclusion that they can make up a domain name instantly and sell it for thousands of dollars. This is hardly a likely scenario. However you will see ebayers trying to sell their domains for thousands without any bids every time. It's important that you never fall into this trap and end up registering a bunch of useless domain names only to find out you are stuck with them and a couple hundred dollars down the drain.

The second step in the purchase of a domain is 'branding'. This means that not only should your domain be short but either have a great sound to it or have a special and unique reason for someone to buy it. An example of some names that I have seen sold for upwards of 70 dollars are, floozy.com, weezy.com, dumpy.com and so on. As you can see these names can be pronounced and have a certain type of branding to them, as well as being short in character.

A third thing you will also want to keep in mind when purchasing a domain is in choosing whether it will be a dot com or not. I highly recommend dot com until you can understand the use and branding of other extensions. The dot com is most sought after and will remain that way for a while.

Now that you have found your domain name to sell, which you could have purchased at godaddy.com for about 8 dollars with a coupon code, you should list your auction on ebay at a reasonable price. Remember, the lower you go the more bidders will be tempted to bid on your auction which can drive the price higher to your expectations. But also keep in mind that you could be losing money if you put your auction at too low of a price to start. Its best then to find a middle ground between cost and reasonableness.

Over time you will begin to better understand how the domain selling business works. It takes patience, time and a study of the market to understand what great domains are and why. With that in mind, do your research, keep your head up, and don't be quick to purchase and most important of all don't get discouraged and give up. After all, now that you have read this article you are one step ahead!

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Making Money from Parked Domains

Let me tell you a true story. A friend of mine who likes to collect domain names was describing a few that he had acquired. While he has a wide range of domains in various categories, these particular domains were all related to web hosting. Some of the domain names were similar to existing web hosting company names (or derivatives of web hosting company names). Others simply had 'hosting', 'host', or a related term in the domain itself.
So my friend and I were talking and he said something like, "Yeah, it's a shame - if only I had the time to develop some content for some of these domains then I might make some money form them". It turns out that he had no content on any of the domains - just parked pages, or no content at all. When I investigated the domains, it turned out that there was a small but steady traffic stream that visited these domains. Some simply typed in the domain, others apparently found the domain through a search engine that had categorized the parked page.
So I suggested the following to him - why not use a service that will take the domain as is - with no content whatsoever - and suggest search options that generate revenue for each click? He took my advice, grudgingly I might add, and guess what? He made $50 the first month from just a few of his domains.
He was so excited that he asked what he might do to further increase his revenues from his domain names. I suggested that he use his parking pages (these can be customized with some hosts) to test banners from affiliate programs with the highest paying hosting companies. He placed only three banners at the top of his pages - with a brief description of the company's product offerings taken straight from their web sites. This also proved to be a great success - and his revenue stream increased. My friend has since invested some time and energy in monetizing his other domains. He has either pointed the domains to a pay per click search engine, or listed affiliate links on almost every domain. This has turned a lackluster domain speculation business into a profit generating pay per click and affiliate business that requires almost no effort to maintain. Needless to say, my friend has taken my out to lunch a couple of times since then.

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Making Money from Parked Domains

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How does your Domain taste?

Domain tasting is the practice of registering a domain with the intention of taking full advantage of ICANN's "Create Grace Period" (CGP), holding those domains for up to five days, analyzing traffic and revenue statistics over the course of that 5 day period and discarding them for a full refund if they have a lack luster performance. Domains which have the potential to earn the minimum of the registration fee are kept and parked or littered with a smorgasbord of ppc ads.

Now, this term has been around for some time, but there has never really been any solid evidence of this practice that I am aware of.

The following is an excerpt from Bob Parsons (CEO and founder, Godaddy.com) Online Blog.

"DirectNIC registered more than 8.4 million domain names in April 2006, but only permanently registered -- or paid for -- 51.4 thousand of those. The trend was the same in March, when DirectNIC registered 7.6 million names and only permanently registered -- or paid for -- 52.5 thousand. Whatever could DirectNIC be doing?"

This is sadly as close to actual proof that we can get, not definitive by any means but very interesting none the less.

We as webmasters must take the right precautions to avoid such a detrimental set back to a new project. The loss of an amazing keyword domain or perhaps worse the best possible brandable domain could mean your project is "chewed".

The following are a couple of tips to help you avoid domain tasting and register the domain you want without any hassle.

1. Do not search for your new domain without having the funds to purchase it readily available, you want to avoid tipping anyone off to an unregistered name that you have your eye on so make sure you have your credit card handy if you do choose to search, if you find a domain you want or even 10 domains, register them then and there, this way you are not giving anyone the opportunity to taste them, and use the CGP to your advantage, cancel the 9 that don't seem to fit and keep the gem.

2. If you do choose to search without taking the necessary payment precautions and your domain does get registered while your off looking through the washing machine to see what pair of khakis you left your wallet in, don't blame us, but do take the correct steps to get it back.

If you think it was a taster because the odds of it being registered by anyone else are almost incalculable, leave it alone, thats right leave it. If you think about it, tasting domains is to see the traffic the domain receives, if you view it over and over again you'll never get it back because the taster will think they have a keeper. So abandon all searches for 1 week, after 1 week go to a different registrar, search for it, if its there congratulations, register it and move on, if not sorry about your luck you did everything you could. So to everyone reading this, remember, if you think you have found "the" domain, make 100% sure you have the funds to register it and do so without thinking, it may be your last opportunity.

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What to do when choosing a domain name

Domain name registration has become rather difficult these days because most top-level domains like .com, .net, .org etc., are already starting to fill up. Therefore, finding a short name that is easy to remember and relates to your website, product or services can be rather challenging. Something that can help you in choosing a domain name is removing the excess word standard that many have come to rely on lately. Websites that have names a mile long are available and easy to register for very cheap prices. However, what are the chances for someone to remember them or visit them frequently?

There are some things that you should not do when choosing a domain name. You should not use more than three words when naming your domain. The name you want for domain registration should be right for your business, but should also make a catchy statement that most people tend to memorize and popularize. Many registration sites offer alternative suggestions when searching for the name you desire. These scripts use dictionaries for processing synonyms and antonyms of the words you included in your search. If the name you have searched is not available for domain registration, they will suggest other similar names. You can use such tools when you want to find the appropriate name.

You should not hyphenate the name of your domain. People tend to forget names with hyphens, because the brain focuses on letters when associating names and tends to ignore the symbols. If a domain registration name is very appealing, but is already used, there is no recommendation stating that you should use hyphens to keep that name. Nevertheless, if you cannot go around using hyphens, you should try to limit the name you use for domain registration to two words separated by a hyphen.

Another thing you should avoid when searching for a domain name is using numbers. Some people use numbers for the entire name. Numbers are rather difficult to remember for most people. Consequently, using them as a website address is not very efficient. All websites have an IP address consistent of a large string of digits. Memorizing all the IP addresses of the domains you know is not as handy as their names and it would defy the purpose of the DNS. If you would plan to use a number for registering domain names, you would be better off using a static IP address from your web provider.

These are the most important things you should not do. However, some aspects might work in your best interest. You should pick a domain name that is similar to other popular domain names. Contrary to common beliefs, this can be a useful tool for getting free traffic to your website with the help of "hit and miss browsers". There are people who accidentally or intentionally misspell the name of a popular domain. This happens because they want to see if there is registration for the name or if a similar website exists. Others just omit or add a letter or two when typing. This enables them to visit your site. Obviously, this is beneficial for you. When using the similarities of the names as a tool, you can also register the same name but with another extension like .biz, .name, .info and others like that.

Another way you can increase the effectiveness of your website is by mixing and matching common web words found in thousands of popular domains. These words are 'internet', 'online', 'web' and 'e'. Given these guidelines, the domain name you choose should be consistent of short, popular words and phrases in order to make it efficient.

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Domain Profiteering

I have always been trying to get domains that have value and traffic, especially expiring domains. Would you rather buy somebody else's hard work or work for months on a domain to get traffic to it?

I know of many cases of people getting domains that have tons of traffic and buying this traffic for a few dollars really is amazing. Although I have been involved in getting expiring domains, there have not been any great tutorials on this subject. I have nu- merous domains , and I am telling you it is not easy as pie remembering when the domains expire. All it takes is one good domain out of millions to be drop- ped from someone that has a high traffic site and damn, for less than 10 bucks (maybe more) you can legally steal someones sweat and hard work, and use it to make you money.

Domain Profiteer is an amazing set of informational videos that really give you the insider information of finding domains that have traffic that you can legally steal away from people that simply forgot to renew their domain name. Hey, if you aren't go- ing to get it, someone else will, and hopefully that person is me!

Domain Profiteer is a bit expensive, but is worth every penny. It will pay for itself the first time you get a profitable domain.

Domain Profiteer will teach you techniques that no- body will tell you in any forum or on the internet. Make sure you get it before the bandwagon jumpers flood this great profit area...

Who does your Domain Name belong to?

Whilst the majority of internet entrepreneurs will nowadays register their own domain names without anyone's assistance, quite a few are still relying on web designers or developers for their domain name registration needs.

If you are one of those who have left every aspect of site creation, registration and hosting to an industry professional, the following case might interest you.

Earlier this week, IceGiant was approached by a new client with a problem.

Her web site, which had been running with reasonable success for a few years, was no longer available in spite of the fact that the domain name and hosting were paid up until the end of 2007.

After unsuccessfully trying to contact her web designer about the site's downtime for almost a week, she decided to call in outside assistance to resolve the issue.
As her web designer had been handling every aspect of site design and maintenance, all the client could actually give us to work with was the domain name.

Not really an ideal starting point in anyone's book...

After verifying that the web site in question was indeed unavailable, one of our techies went about checking the domain name's registration information, administrative contacts, IP address, server location and a number of other details.
The site was co-hosted through the web designer via one of the UK's largest ISP's web servers, a common enough practice, since most ISPs offer dedicated servers for web professionals.

Since the designer's own web sites, hosted on the same server, were also unavailable, as were all contact telephone numbers and email addresses, the inescapable conclusion was that he had given the whole thing up as a bad idea, neglected to pay the server bill and disappeared into the ether.

Although this is quite an uncommon occurrence, it is not entirely unheard of and our advice in these cases is normally to obtain a fresh hosting package for the domain, change its name server settings and restore the web site from the last backup.

"Backup? What Backup? My web designer was taking care of that."

After an initially bad start to proceedings, things were now beginning to look more than a little bleak.
But worse was to come, since the domain name was also registered in the web designer's name, rather than the client's. Needless to say that this left the client what is sometimes referred to as 'snookered'.

There is another term generally used by techies in situations like this, but it is not really fit for publication in an article of this kind.

Of course, this is a highly unusual case, in fact, the worst any of us had seen in a very long time.
It does however highlight the fact that these things can happen now and again, so if you are amongst those internet entrepreneurs who leave everything to their web designer, there are a few things you should do to protect yourself and your web site against all eventualities.

Check your domain name's registration information with one of the many services scattered across the web, such as Network Solutions Whois Search.
This will tell you not only what name the domain is registered to, but also the hosting provider, name server settings and a few other details.
If the domain is not registered in your or your company's name, contact the web designer or site administrator to find out why this is and to initiate the handover of the domain into your name.
Have your web designer provide you with regular backups of the web site.
These are vital in case things go wrong since, without them you have absolutely no way to restore your site if things go horribly wrong.
If your web site is co-hosted (this is not normally a problem) on the web designer's own server within another, larger ISP's system, be sure to include a clause covering service provision into your web design contract.
This at least gives you one avenue of legal recourse if the service disappears for any reason.

If the three points above have been covered sufficiently and things go wrong as in the example above, you will be able to restore your web site with a minimum of fuss and search engine disturbance by re-launching with a new web hosting account on the larger ISP's servers using your own backups.

Although the complete disappearance of a web site is a highly unusual occurrence, the practice of web designers registering a client's domain name to themselves rather than the client, seems to be a little more commonplace.

As an online business owner, you would be well advised to inform yourself of the relevant details, even if you are not technically minded, since it could ultimately mean the difference between you actually being able to continue your business or not, in case things end up going wrong.

The old adage; 'Better safe than sorry' definitely applies in this case.

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Google Advertising VS Domain Type In Traffic

As many people are aware, google advertisements (the little sponsored ads you see on the right side side when you do a search in the google search engines) are usually very effective in targeting high quality visitors to your website. Let's say you are starting a new online business, selling custom t-shirts. You set up your website, your shopping cart is ready, and now all you need is customers. You decide to invest in a google ad campaign to target potential t-shirt buyers to your website. Once you set up your google campaign along with the relevant keywords, your set to go. The way that google ads work is simple: the more you decide to pay per click, the higher you will be along with your competition. Paying 50 cents per ad may get you on the top of the first page of search engine results, where paying 25 cents per click may get you on the bottom of the second page. For many people, this may work out well for them and may walk away with a healthy profit. For others, the cost of their ads may outweigh their profits and put them in the hole. It's all trial ad error, trying different ad campaigns and various bid amounts to see what works and what doesn't.

Let's look at the larger picture. Say you are generating a decent profit, but in order to do so, you are spending $2000 on google per per click ads. That's $24,000 per year. If you are walking away with a healthy profit, it may well be worth it for you. But is there a better way? What if you were to buy a domain name related to your business that gets a great amount of natural traffic (people are typing in this particular domain searching for your product). What if you had the opportunity to buy a domain like CustomTshirts.com or TshirtPrinting.com for $20,000. Pretty steep for a domain, right? Wrong. Absolutely wrong. If such a name is getting a decent amount of web traffic (buyers looking for what your are selling or promoting, then it may be a great deal. You could either develop the name itself for your business (very specific) or you can forward the domain so that people that automatically type in this name end up on our website. Let's do some basic math. You get a great deal on a high quality, targeted traffic domain for $20,000 USD. You use the name for 2 years, make approximately the same amount of profit you were generating with the google pay per click ads. But now you decided you want out of the business. If you strictly advertised on google, you would have spent $48,000 in click ads. If you would have purchased the domain, you would spent $20,000. That's a $28,000 saving. But wait, there's more. If you are getting out of the business, you may also want to sell the domain, since you will no longer have any need for it. Keep in mind, you got a decent deal when you bought it, and now it is 2 years later (the price has dramatically gone up, it is now worth $40,000. You manage to sell the domain for $40,000. WOW! You built a business, generated free advertising, and generated a profit from your advertising expenses. Very smart move. As you can see, this is the ultimate scenario. Keep in mind, google ads are great and effective for many people. But in certain instances, you may be better off investing in a great domain which will ultimately benefit you in more ways than one!

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The Domain Marketplace, A Sure Investment

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What To Look For When Investing In Domain Names

There are many things to look for when deciding to invest in domain names. Many domain investors look for domains that can generate revenue in the intern so that they pay off their renewals costs as you wait for the right end user. Generally, domains in competitive industries like real estate, loans, travel, and gambling earn the best in domain parking revenue sharing programs. How will you know if a domain will earn, and if so, how much? A good indicator of a domain's potential parking revenue is to use the overture bid tool (a free tool that let's you type in a keyword and see the maximum amount that advertisers are willing to pay to for it). A term like mp3 may have a 30 cent maximum bid, while a term like home mortgage can have a $10 maximum bid. As you can see, a real estate domain with traffic is likely to earn you a lot more than a mp3 download domain. Although, you have to look at how much traffic a domain is getting and what the click-through rate is (out of all the people that land on the page, how many actually click the ads)

Keywords

A domain with a strong keyword in it is likely to have a better chance of receiving type in traffic or targeted search engine traffic. Terms like "mortgage", "homes", "loans" are a good idea.

Dot Com

Domains with the .com extention have always been preferred, and for a great reason. They generally sell for many times more than their closest counterpart (.net, .org, .biz) and generally receive much more natural traffic (which is what you want) Also, it is generally not a good idea (unless it is a rare and valuable domain) to promote a domain in any other extention than .com This is due to the fact that you will likely lose much of your traffic to people going to the dot com version vs your extention.

Have it make sense, Short and Sweet

Don't buy or register a silly sounding, keyword domains. You will likely not receive any traffic which means no domain parking revenue. A name like LoansCheapestInterestCalculator.com will likely get ZERO TRAFFIC (who would think to type that into there browser. On the other hand, a name like CheapInterestLoans.com is likely to receive a decent amount of traffic. Since it is a decent sounding, prime keyword domain, even a low amount of traffic may generate $40-50 per month (a decent amount if you got the domain for a good price)
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Branding Your Business (or Yourself) with Your Own Exclusive Domain Name

It's hard to see why anyone today would NOT want to register their own personal domain name. This is your piece of "Internet Real Estate!" Grab the perfect name, word or phrase that best describes you or your business. Registering a domain name is easy, very inexpensive and can greatly increase your level of professionalism. This is especially important if you are advertising an affiliate program or replicated website. Sub domains and trailing slashes "/" can weaken your image.

Also, instead of a long URL (web address) like: "http://www.ipodiums.net/members/proleads/newmember.html", you can register something short and catchy like: "www.ProLeadCapture.com". Of course, you'll have to see if your domain choices are available. This brief article will address some of the benefits of registering your own domain, tips on choosing your domain name, and ideas on how you can get the most out of having your own personal domain name.

BENIFITS of having your own Domain Name:

* Eliminate the "/" from your website address and make it shorter

* Brand yourself and your business... and look more professional

* Easier to verbalize and remember (when telling someone to visit your web page)

* Looks better in print (on business cards, labels, letterhead, etc.)

* Brand your email address to match your domain name (ex. if your website was "www.yourdomain.com", you can use the following as your email address: "info@yourdomain.com" or "yourname@yourdomain.com"). Most domain providers offer free e-mail forwarding with your domain registration. You can use your domain email and have your messages forwarded to your primary email account. (ex, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.). You'll want your prospects to see YOUR domain name in your e-mail address, instead of giving "AOL" free advertising.

TIPS on choosing a Domain Name:

GOOD Example: "www.ProLeadCapture.com" BAD Example: "www.Generating-efficacious-Leads-4-U.ws"

* Keep it simple, short & easy to remember

* You may want to avoid numbers and letters in place of words (like in the example above). If you verbally give someone your website, you'll have to remember to tell them to use the number "4" and the letter "U" instead of the words "for" and "you".

* Try to use words or name that are easy to spell ("efficacious" may be easily misspelled and therefore you might lose a customer. For example, "Google" also registered "Gooogle.com" just in case someone typed an extra "o" and they didn't want users sent to another site).

* Avoid hyphens ("-"). Unless you are only using the domain for Internet marketing, where prospects are only clicking links, people who type your domain may leave the hyphens out and inadvertently go to a competitor's website instead.

* Try to get a ".com". This is the most common extension. If you can't find a ".com" with the name you want, the next best option would be a ".net". But, make sure that a competing site isn't using the ".com", because people you send to your site may mistakenly go to someone else's website instead. A ".com" should always be the first choice. I would rather settle for a longer domain name than choose a shorter one with a different extension. The following are some of the most common extension choices available: ".com", ".net", ".org", ".info", ".biz", ".ws", ".us".

IDEAS on how you can get the most out of your Domain Name

Once you register your domain name, you can easily "Forward" it (or re-direct it) to any URL web address you want. Most domain providers have free forwarding services included with their basic domain registration, which, by the way, should NEVER cost you more than $9.99 per year (unless you're adding on web hosting). If you have a replicated website or an affiliate page, you do NOT need web hosting because you're just forwarding the domain to a page that is already being hosted on the web.

Another FREE service that most domain providers offer is "E-mail Forwarding", which I like to call "E-mail Branding"! This lets you brand your email address with your domain name. This way, every time you send an email to someone, you are advertising your domain... and your website. For example, if your domain was "www.YourDomain.com", your email address can be "YourName@YourDomain.com". And, you don't have to get another email address. Your "domain e-mail" will simply forward all your e-mail messages to your "AOL" account (or whatever e-mail service you are using). It looks much more professional to have your "domain e-mail" and your "domain website" on your marketing materials than displaying a free e-mail address, like AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc..

Generally, with "e-mail forwarding", you have two options: "Catch All" or specific e-mail forwarding addresses. There are pros and cons to each:

PRO: With "Catch All", if someone sends an e-mail with anything before the "@" sign, it will still get forwarded to your main e-mail account. This is especially beneficial if someone misspells your name in your e-mail address, because the message will still get forwarded to you. For example, if someone sends an email to: "John_Do@yourdomain.com" instead of "John_Doe@yourdomain.com" it would still get delivered.

CON: "Catch All" e-mails are more susceptible to being SPAMMED because SPAMMERS can easily get a list of domain names and just put common words like "info" or "contact" in front of the "@yourdomain.com" expecting that many of their solicitations will get delivered.

SUGGESTION: Use a "Catch All", but only advertise a single e-mail address. This way if someone misspells the word before the "@" sign, it will still get through to you. And, if you find yourself getting too much SPAM with other words being used before the "@" sign, you can always switch back to a single e-mail forwarding address using that single word. This way you'll be able to stop the SPAM and won't have to worry about missing e-mails from all the other e-mail addresses you might have advertised. Another tip, if you're not using a "catch all", is to avoid common words that SPAMMERS use to SPAM domain names. For example, "info@yourdomain.com", "webmaster@yourdomain.com" or "sales@yourdomain.com". You may want to use something less common, like your first name (ex., "Jim@yourdomain.com"). This way if someone sends SPAM to "info@yourdomain.com" it will NOT clutter up your inbox.

There are still lots of good ".com" domain names available. Take your time looking for those that are just right for you... and grab them while you still can!

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