Once you have decided to develop your website, you must invariably register it with the domain name registrar. It is a company that has the authority to register Internet domain names. This registrar is appointed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN in short form) or by a national authority. There are some factors to be considered when you choose a registrar.
The domain registrar that you choose must be registered and accredited with the ICANN to register domain names; else you get in to trouble. The domain name registrar must have your name and contact information with it so that the activities of administration, control and billing are well taken care of.
When it comes to the price charged by the registrars, you have to keep in mind that there is a basic charge that is applied to all the registrars. If you happen to come across any domain name registrar that charges you less than this basic amount, then it is better to avoid risking a registration with such an entity. The reason behind this is that registrars that provide you with registration at a discount must in all probability be debilitating or robbing your website of something in some other manner. To remain competitive such entities provide you with a discount, only to make it up for something else. It may be too late by the time you realize it, if at all you ever realize.
You should also be on the guard against any hidden charges or abnormally high charges for normal processes. This comes to the fore especially in such processes as transferring your domain and updating your records. You will be wasting your money if the registrar charges you, even when your website is not going online right away. You should take care to find out any restrictions on the use of your domain. Some registrars charge yearly fees for maintenance.
It must be easy for you to support and manage multiple domains with the registrar considering the future possibility of expansion.
Needless to say, your registrar must provide adequate support and technical assistance in case a need arises. Registrars that provide only a single mode of communication are at best avoidable before the process of getting help turns out to be a big hassle. Ideally, a good domain name registrar should provide you with timely email and telephone customer service, an easy to use website and possibly a description of the commonly occurring problems and their resolution. Some of the other hit-below-the-belt strategies that you must watch out for are domain name gripping and domain forwarding.
Keeping in mind the fact that domain names are a very important factor in building an image and reputation, you should try to choose a registrar that has the domain name of your choice available.
These are some of the important factors that will do you a whole lot of good when you choose to make your digital presence felt to the online community. The bottom line is that not only must you have a good site but also a good registrar, as the two are dependent on each other.
It seems these days that everyone has their own website with their own unique domain. But how do you come up with a good domain name? What if someone already owns it? Here are some tips to keep in mind when registering a domain name.
Decide on several different options- While the name of your company may be a great place to start searching domain names it’s a good idea to have a few alternatives as well. For example, let’s say that the name of your company is ABC Plumbing. Well what are you going to do if ABCplumbing.com is taken? You could try something like abc-plumbing.com or you could then look into the .net extensions or .biz extensions. Though they aren’t as valuable in the long run, they do offer more options for domain names, especially if a .com is taken.
Do a background check on the name- The last thing you want to do is buy a domain that someone once had that has been banned from Google AdSense or has some other negative action attached to it. This is particularly important if you are buying an existing domain name, which we will cover later. Check with sites such as archive.org or dogpile.com to find out what your domain could have possibly been used for in the past and avoid those domains that could be connected to anything morally or ethically questionable.
Know what your domain is worth- There are a number of sites available online that will do a quick appraisal of your new domain for free. While not as accurate as a full business valuation report, it will give you a decent idea of what you can resell that name for later if you choose. After all, domains are nothing more than online real estate, and they can be just as valuable as the brick and mortar variety. Some highly sought after domain names can be worth millions, should you decide to sell and any savvy business person is always looking to the future. Remember that .com names are always worth more than .net or .biz or any other extension. The reason is because the population automatically defaults to .com. So say for instance your name is ABC Plumbing. If your domain is ABCPlumbing.com, chances are that more of your customers will find you. Most companies try to make their domain name the same as their company name and that is a really smart move. But if you end up with ABCPlumbing.net, you could end up with your customers going to your competitor’s website, and that is not good at all.
Once you’ve done all the leg work and you have a clean, unique domain name you can go to any number of sites to purchase it, the prices can vary widely between the sites so do a little research as to who offers the best prices. After you’ve registered your domain, make sure that you get a site up as soon as possible. A domain name doesn’t do you any good if there is nothing there to attract people. Remember that your domain is a powerful resource. It’s up to you how you make it work for you.
Introduction: With the growing popularity of the Internet, it has become a matter of necessity to own a website. The Internet is a collection of interconnected network of computers, which are again connected among themselves. Each computer connected to the Internet is identified by an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Each IP address is made of 4 groups of three digits each, thus making a total of 12 digits for an IP address. However these IP addresses being numbers are not very user-friendly in the sense that these addresses are quite difficult to remember. A search for an alternative mechanism for identifying computer gave way to the Domain Naming System (DNS). When a user types in a website address in the browser the DNS checks for that domain name and fetches the IP address. This IP address is then used to navigate to the web page you requested for.
The domain name is that part of the URL that is between ‘www.’ And ‘.com’. This name will be unique.
The Importance: A domain name is the identity for your website. Hence to attract the attention of others, you must make it as eye catching as possible. Here are some good practices for making your domain name as good as possible. On a very general note, it is good to keep your domain name same as that of your website name. This helps the users to easily remember your website name. This obviates the need for remembering a separate website name and a DNS name. Your domain name must reflect your brand name. If say, for example, you have a product to sell, then it is better to choose a domain name similar to your product name. This is because of the fact that people remember product names and not some other names.
Domain names can technically be of any arbitrary length. The maximum length is limited to 67 characters. Given this, what should be the ideal length of your domain name? Should you choose a long domain name or a short one? It is widely believed that a short name is preferable to a long name provided it is not a difficult one to remember. There are good reasons to limit yourself to a short name. The main point is that shorter names are obviously easier to remember than longer ones. Secondly, it is much easier for a user to type a short name in to the browser than a long name.
There are two schools of thought regarding the use of hyphens in domain names. While some consider that the usage of hyphens will add to the uniqueness of your domain name especially in the context of search engines and keywords, some believe that a hyphenated domain has more disadvantages than advantages. It is easy to forget the hyphen in the name. During verbal communication, it takes extra effort to clarify the position of the hyphen in the domain name. This is pronounced especially in the cases of telephone conversation.
Some of the other good practices in domain naming are to use plurals in the name if there is a possibility of name clash. Another consideration that you may want to take is the extension. Here, it is recommended that whatever be the extension you choose, it must reflect the nature of your website. Also, it would be good if you adopt country specific extensions only if the intended visitors of your site are not the international community, but rather citizens of your own country.
Once you have your domains hosted, it is necessary to renew the domain name on a continuous basis so that your online ‘presence ‘ remains valid. Renewing is basically the process of extending the validity of your domain name mostly with the same domain name registrar. The process of renewing involves some expenses in the form of renewal fees, but there is a silver lining to it. You get to choose the best available bargain at that point of time. In today’s extremely competitive market, domain name registrars are vying with each other to provide better quality of service at cheaper rates. So in all probability, you will end up getting a better offer of cheaper service without compromising quality. Another advantage is that you will get a lot more of features than you did at the time of initial registration of your domain. This is due to the rapid strides made in the field of technology, which is perhaps what differentiates the field of software and Internet technology from most of the other fields. There are some players in this field who offer you discounts on renewal for such conditions as bulk renewals and transfer and subsequent renewal.
The failure to renew your domain name can lead to your domain name being taken up by someone else. Given the number of factors that you might have considered while choosing your domain name, this situation is something, which you should be avoiding. Expired domain names are a favorite of speculators because of the reason that such domains will already have some traffic in them. So this proves to be an advantage in search engine optimization and other Internet activities.
Some registrars send you reminders well before your registration is to be renewed. If the reason you forget to renew your domain name registration is that you rarely use it or if you have bought a domain for future use, then you can prevent it from being inactive by the process of domain parking. Domain parking is employed commonly by those who have a portfolio of domains registered, but some of these are inactive at present and will remain so for a considerable period of time.
Some methods used in domain parking are the inactive domain(s) pointing to an active domain, displaying appropriate message that the domain is currently not under use or redirecting the traffic. To have the passive domain generate some income for you, it would be worthwhile to have some advertisements displayed in the page. There are several ‘Pay per Click’ programs available that help you generate money when user(s) click on an advertisement place on your website. The revenue generated from such programs will directly depend on the number of people visiting your site i.e. the traffic. So to attract more people you should keep optimized words and relevant advertisements. A catch in this approach of generating traffic is that it should not be fake, which is produced by some unfair means. The pay per click programs run by companies have special software to detect such spurious activities.
Thus the practices of regular renewal and domain parking can help you stay up-to-date and generate revenue.
These days, it can be very tough finding a domain name that works for a website. As so many people have complained: all the good names are already taken! So, what do you do if you want your website to have a name that isn’t long, complex, and hard to remember? These are key elements in successful advertising and marketing. One way is to add a one (or more) letter prefix to the domain name. Have you ever heard of the website iTunes?
So, adding a prefix is an option. Yet, the question arises: which letter do you add that will be the most effective? By and large, the two best letters to choose from are “E” and “I”; people tend to associate them with the Internet, which makes sense. “E” is often taken as short for electronic, and “I” is short for Internet. So, a domain name like: iTunes, iReport, and so on are perfect. At the same time, websites such as eLoan, eBanking, eRealEstate etc. are equally popular. The domain name eBrooklyn was recently sold for $2,500; not a lot, but when you consider that a domain name typically sells for anywhere from $8 to $30, that’s not a bad return on your investment. That brings up the option of registering domain names that might not have anything to do with your line of work; you can look upon them as a potential investment.
All of these types of domain names have the virtue of not needing the suffice “.com” to identify them; that feature is intuitively obvious. Whereas a website called LendingTree pretty much needs to bill itself as LendingTree.com, the “E” and “I” sites do not need that. This comes in very handy when it comes to ads and promotional efforts. In advertising, the old saying: brevity is the soul of wit, is very appropriate. If you can get people to remember your product, your company name, quickly and easily you are that much closer to a sale. So, being able to list your site as iTunes or something similar is very advantageous.
A secondary plus to these names is that they can be similar to or built upon a popular name, yet be different. Also, there is no rule that says you have to use only an “E” or an “I”; those are merely the most popular, respectively. Also, by using a dash (as in “e-Banking”), you can create yet another domain name. Now, this does have a drawback. If you come up with a really great “E” or “I” domain name, you pretty much have to register the “E-“ or “I-“ version, to prevent others from taking it.
Finally, if a one letter prefix does not work out for you, maybe because it is already taken, there are multiple letter combinations that are good too. The domain name “WebMD” is a perfect example of this. With such a name (again), the “.com” aspect is implied. The one thing to consider when using any of these prefixes is that the domain is assumed to be “.com”. If you have to go with a “.net” or some other domain, then the full website name has to be listed.