Look out! The new domains are coming! “Dot-biz is going to be the next coming of dot-com,” I recently read in an article in the Denver Post. The buzz has begun. Seven new top-level domains have been approved by ICANN, the organization that governs domains, and could be available as early as spring of this year. The new domains approved are .biz, .info, .aero, .coop, .musuem, .pro, and .name. Pre-registration sites like,

PreRegisterYourDomains.com, already have begun taking applications claiming “3 million domain names will be registered in the first five minutes.” That same Denver Post article later says ‘If predictions from analysts hold true that dot-biz will rival the popularity of dot-com startups will no
longer have to settle for second-tier domain names.’ Hogwash! – To put it gently. Dot-com will always be the supreme ruler of all domain names. Here’s why:

Word Association. Ask anyone the first three words that come to mind when you say ‘Internet’ and o­ne will almost always be ‘dot-com’ along with ‘web’ or ‘surfing.’ Dot-com is forever chiseled into our brain directly associated with the Internet.

‘Old habits die hard.’ The new domains will confuse the average everyday web surfer. With so many suffixes it will be harder to find the information they are looking for. Out of frustration they will, most likely, resort to the old standby, dot-com.

Marketing. Big businesses like IBM and Microsoft have already spent billions promoting their dot-coms’ in print, and media advertising. Is Microsoft going to switch to promoting Microsoft.biz instead of Microsoft.com? This is highly unlikely.

Brand Protection. The same people who own the corresponding dot-com will most likely buy up most of the dot-biz (said to be restricted to business o­nly) and dot-info (open to anyone) to protect their valuable brand. Someone with fishland.com is not going to want someone else to own fishland.biz and fishland.info. The real winners here are the lawyers, who should be kept
busy for years with trademark infringement suits.

Meaning. None of the new top level domains meanings are as elegant or as classy as the dot-com, which can mean ‘communication’ or ‘commercial’. Dot-biz obviously stands for ‘business,’ but it sounds slangy and it also happens to mean sh** in the United Kingdom. ‘Information’, the meaning of dot-info, would be perfect if it was restricted to sites with a high concentration of information about a certain topic, but it’s not. This domain is unrestricted, and can be registered by anyone. Surfers will quickly lose trust that all dot-info sites actually contain quality information. Dot-pro and Dot-name will be effective but o­n a limited level. To register a dot-pro you must ‘prove’ you are a professional o­n the topic in the domain name. Dot-name will be for individuals name o­nly (good luck to all the John Smiths out there.)

Appeal. Sure the new TLD’s, especially dot-biz, will make it easier for smaller companies to get a web address that fits their business. But will it be as appealing as a dot-com? Those businesses that have a dot-biz domain may seem to be in a different class than the dot-com and it may be harder for them to compete. It may be worth it for them to invest more money in a dot-com domain that be ‘stuck’ with a dot-biz. Even with the recent doom of a few dot-com companies, there are many that are still going strong and they continue to breathe life into the dot-com world. The o­nly new TLD applicant that might have been able to rival the dot-com for appeal was dot-web. Unfortunately the application for dot-web was not approved by ICANN.

Bottom Line- Dot-com is established and respected. It has the distinction of being o­ne of the first domain names of the new Internet frontier and the most sought after. The new domains will make it easier to get a home o­n the web and will have their place in the city of Internet. But Dot-com will always be the beautiful white mansion up o­n the hill with the brand new Ferrari out front.

Domain name growth is starting to recover, but we are a long way from the rapid growth we saw in 1998 –2000.

I am confident that the market for domain names will move back into a growth phase in the next two or three years time, its true that the dot com boom was a “bubble”, but we are now seeing a maturing in the market with more businesses recognising the value of the web as an additional sales channel.

Domain names sales have been weighted towards the North American and European markets, but I predict that sales of domains outside this market will be the driver in the longer term, particularly as Eastern Europe and the far eastern markets recover. India and China are certain to grow strongly in the not too distant future.

The introduction of the new .eu the domain name for the European Union will also be very interesting, as this is likely to give the European domain market a boost.

Domain name registration services such as our own, offering both good value and helpful service will benefit the most. Customers don’t want to over pay for their domain name , they are however prepared to pay for support and recognise that a reasonable fee means the registrar is likely to be around in 5 years time.

Selling domain names and web hosting is rewarding, particularly when your helping the smaller business customer who are often less familiar with the process.

If your looking for help and advice – get in touch. We would be delighted to help you add your domain to the following table!

The following shows the number of .com registered growth against time

July 15, 2003 23,633,877
June 15, 2003 23,354,574
May 15, 2003 23,071,842
April 15 -2003 22,832,760
March 16 – 2003 22,626,562
February 17, 2003 22,452,747
January 12, 2003 22,147,502
December 15, 2002 21,991,795
November 17, 2002 21,773,883
October 13, 2002 21,524,698
September 15, 2002 21,358,016
August 11, 2003 21,273,992
July 15, 2002 21,270,830
June 16, 2002 21,243,232
May 12, 2002 21,382,537
April 14, 2002 21,581,810
March 17, 2002 22,284,362
February 17, 2002 22,299,727
January 13, 2002 22,746,754
December 11, 2001 23,198,677
November 12, 2001 23,171,002
October 4, 2001 23,291,654
September 24, 2001 23,280,339
July, 14, 2001 22,845,079
June 12, 2001 22,702,074
June 6, 2001 22,670,915
May 31, 2001 22,624,608
May 24, 2001 22,606,495
May 16, 2001 22,496,480
May 9, 2001 22,470,923
May 2, 2001 22,475,976
April 25, 2001 22,409,745
April 18, 2001 22,366,367
March 29, 2001 22,186,938
March 22, 2001 22,160,178
March 15, 2001 22,123,487
March 7, 2001 22,045,648
February 23, 2001 21,915,624
February 15, 2001 21,756,189
February 8, 2001 21,592,167
February 1, 2001 21,439,059
January 30, 2001 21,387,603
January 18, 2001 21,185,015
January 9, 2001 21,023,720
December 22, 2000 20,652,200
December 12, 2000 20,401,837
November 27, 2000 20,033,920
July 2000 14,680,275
January 2000 8,006,100
July 1999 5,748,100
January 1999 3,425,625
July 1998 1,879,501

Earlier data is combined .com..org ,.net and .edu

January 1998 2,292,000
July 1997 1,301,000
January 1997 828,000
July 1996 488,000
January 1996 240,000
July 1995 120,000
January 1995 71,000
July 1994 46,000
January 1994 30,000
July 1993 26,000
January 1993 21,000
July 1992 16,000

Data Source: Zooknic (http://www.zooknic.com/)

If you need help with your domain name purchase, give us a call or click our link in the following resource box

Are you getting the service that you require from your domain registrar? Actually, thinking about it for a minute, it might be a better question to ask, do you even know what services are available? Are you aware that you can shop around and get better prices, more features and far better customer service?

Guess what? All domain registrars are not the same.

Okay, let’s back up a minute. Way back when the internet was young (maybe 5 years ago) all domain names were handled by Network Solutions, Inc. In those dark, evil days you had no choice. It didn’t matter what you thought of the process, it was unimportant that you were not getting service and the price, well, was a standard high fee.

A few years ago the government decided that Network Solutions would no longer be a monopoly. The government wanted to do this to deregulate the industry and encourage competition, and also perhaps to spur a little bit of growth into this thing called the internet.

Okay, so now you do have a choice. In fact, there are well over a hundred different domain registrars at last count. They seem to be springing up all over the place, and the level of support and service, as well as the price, seems to vary greatly.

You may not know it, but you can change domain registrars at any time. It’s actually not very complicated at all.

Here are some of the questions that you may have regarding domain transfers.

How much does it cost?

It depends upon the domain registrar. I have found that many will transfer your domain for no cost to get your business. Others will charge a few dollars ($5 to $20 or more), but will drop the fee if you extend your domain for a couple of years. Shop around and find a good deal.

What are the advantages of transferring?

You may not like the domain registrar you are currently using – perhaps they have poor support or cost too much. You can shop around and find the best solution for your needs.

Remember, though, that if you are like most people, domain registration is something you will not do very often, so perhaps customer support is not all that important.

What are the disadvantages?

Transferring a domain can be confusing. Also, there is no guarantee that the new registrar will be any better than the old o­ne. Again, remember that domain registration is not something that you should need to deal with very often (if you are like most people) so it may not be worth the effort to change.

Can any domain be transferred?

Yes, any domain registered with any registrar may be transferred to any other registrar.

What does a registrar do?

The registrar manages your domain name. They maintain security and the structures that make the domain work.

Does changing registrars have any effect o­n ownership?

No. When you change registrars you are o­nly changing managers. You still retain ownership.

Are there reasons why a domain may not be transferred?

Yes. Some of these are listed below.

- The domain name is in a legal dispute of some kind.
- The identity of the domain name holder is in dispute or unknown.
- The domain name holder is in bankruptcy.
- The domain has o­nly been with the registrar for 60 days.
- The registrar refuses to transfer for other reasons.

How is a domain transferred?

This varies from registrar to registrar. Some require a notarized form to be delivered to them, others can do it using a web site form.

How long does the process take?

The registrar will usually take five to ten days to review and validate the request. o­nce it has been validated and put into action, it will take a couple of days for the change to filter through the internet.

Will the web site associated with the domain be accessible during the change?

Yes. This normally does not effect access to your web site. The registrar is changed, not the web site address and other information.

The following are some of the important organisations in the domain name industry.

ARIN
American Registry for Internet Numbers is a a not for profit organisation established to handle the administration and registration of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in North America, some of the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa.

CORE Internet Council of Registrars is a not for profit organisation set up under Swiss law. Core is made up of domain name registrars handling domain name registration o­n behalf of customers.

IANA
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is the authority given the initial responsibility for the oversight of IP address allocation, the coordination of the assignment of protocol parameters provided for in Internet technical standards, and the management of the DNS.

ICAAN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions.

IETF
Internet Engineering Task Force is an open international community of network designers, operators, resellers, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the operation of the Internet. Membership is open to any interested individual or corporation.

Nominet Nominet is the UK TLD registrar responsible for the management and development of the .uk domain range.

W3C
World Wide Web Consortium is an international industry consortium set up to develop common protocols to promote the evolution of the World Wide Web and ensure its smooth operation. Services include; a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users; reference code implementations to promote standards; and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology.

The story of the domain name dispute between etoy.com and eToys.com uncovers an important issue facing all webmasters, should we register domain names that are similar to ours? In the eToys debacle, a group of artists registered the domain name “etoy.com” in 1995. Then in 1997, an o­nline toy store bought the domain name “eToys.com” and in 1999, chose to sue etoy.com for the use of a similar name.

At first, etoy.com was forced to shut down it’s site but thanks to public pressure eToys.com dropped it’s lawsuit in January. (For more o­n this, please read http://www.rtmark.com/etoyline.html) Of course, not all domain name disputes will lead to court but there are reasons why webmasters should consider registering similar domain names.Firstly, we spend a lot of time and effort marketing our websites. It would all go to waste if someone registered a similar sounding website and all your traffic went to them instead. Worse, if this site’s focus was completely irrelevant to yours, then users would be totally confused and will probably not return again. For example, if you had a site called AboutBigApple.com dedicated to the city of New York and there’s another site called AboutBigApples.com all about apples. A visitor expecting to find pictures o­n Central Park or the Empire State Building would be served up photos of Grannys and Galas instead. Rather disorienting don’t you think?

Another good reason for registering similar domain names is to use them as doorway pages to help improve your search engine position. So you could have each domain name pointing to a single doorway page which is optimised using META tags and descriptive titles. The doorway page then links to your original site either automatically or via a link or button which users click o­n. With this, you would have protected all permutations of your domain names AND helped improved your search engine rankings.

So how do we decide which similar domain names to register?

It’s entirely up to you but the following guidelines can help. Say you have a domain called xxxxxx.com, possible high-risk domain names would be :

xxxxxxs.com
xxxxxx.net
xxxxxx.org
xxxxxxs.ne
txxxxxxs.org

Or you can try this service at http://www.nameprotect.com mmonitoring.htm that helps trackyour domain name for possible threats. The service generates a free monthly report o­n yourdomain name and gives suggestions of high-risk domain names to register. It also has a feature that can tell you if anyone is trademarking a name that’s similar to your domain name.

What happens if there’s already somebody else with a similar name?

The best thing to do is to co-exist with this other site. Most of the time, whenever someone registers a similar domain name, it’s done completely innocently. For example, our site at www.payingads.com started receiving emails from visitors saying that they couldn’t get intotheir accounts using their username and passwords. A quick check in our databases revealedthat these visitors were not our site’s members but members of a site calledwww.payingad.com. This site pays people for viewing ads while our site is a global exchangefor people looking for paying web ads to place o­n their websites. Our businesses are differentso it was obvious that payingad was not trying to usurp our users. So we’re content to justleave things as they are.

However, we still get user complaints o­n our site mistaking us for the other site, typicallyaround 2 to 4 a day. If you find yourself in this situation, deal with it carefully. Though some ofthe emails can get quite irate, remember to always be courteous and take time to clarify thesituation to them. It’s bad enough that they keep getting “Invalid password/username”messages whenever they try to log o­n even when they’re certain it’s the right password orusername. It’s like being told you have brown eyes when you know your eyes are blue. Politelyexplain that there is a site of a similar name and direct them there. Also, explain more aboutyour own site as they might also be interested in your own services. Who knows, you mighteven come away with a few more new visitors to your site.

As a worker in the domain industry, I was surprised by the difference between this year and last in the Super Bowl. No, I didn’t necessarily care about the teams involved, but I am an avid watcher of the commercials every year, and took note of the fact that it seemed about half of the ads o­ne year ago were for .com companies. This year, therewere very few by comparison…

Traffic. The Internet game is all about traffic. It’s a simple equation-visitors = $$. Whether they are buying your products or driving up your ad revenues, visitors to your website are the key to your success. There are, of course, many ways to increase traffic to your site. It would appear, though, that spending more than a million bucks o­n a 30-second commercial is not a cost-effective method, as many of those companiesin the 2000 Super Bowl discovered.

One method that is cost-effective is not effectively utilized by many webmasters. Most webmasters I know have just o­ne domain name for their site. As a simple rule, though, the more ways there are to find you, the more you will be found.

Your company name, obviously, is a great place to start. I, like many other contemporary websurfers, am a “web-guesser”. If I’m looking for The Widget Company, Inc., I’ll type in “widgetcompany.com” and get their website more often than not. If the webmaster for The Widget Company is smart, though, he’ll also have “thewidgetcompany.com”, “widgetcompanyinc.com” and “thewidgetcompanyinc.com” pointing to the same site. Real-life example- Coca-Cola. Their official website iscoke.com. They also own, however, cocacola.com, coca-cola.com,coca-colacompany.com and thecoca-colacompany.com, along with a whole host of others.

One offshoot of the company name is variants. Have you ever lamented the state of education in America today? What would happen if someone typed in “wiGDetcompany.com”? Misspellings of your domain count just the same as the correct o­ne. Poor spellers, after all, need your services as much as the good o­nes do. If you’re in doubt, find some people that don’t already know your company’s name. Tellthem the name, and then have them write it out o­n paper. You might be surprised at the creative variations of your name they’ll come up with. Reserve those “mistake” names- they’ll count as hits, too. Real-life example- Hewlett-Packard. Not the easiest name to spell, right? Their official website at hp.com can also be reached by hewlettpackard.com, hewlittpackard.com, hewlitpackard.com and other assorted misspellings.

OK, you make widgets. You should have “widgets.com”. If you make red widgets, you hould also own “redwidgets.com”. If you make small widgets, you should get smallwidgets.com” and so o­n. You spend your time marketing these product names, ou should expect that someone would remember it and go looking for it o­nline. eal-life example- Procter & Gamble. P&G owns around 200 domains, includingpampers.com, pringles.com, tide.com, clearasil.com, folgers.com and many, many ore.

Having these domains gives you a competitive advantage. You can get more traffic just rom these simple tricks. I’ve seen webmasters spend a lot of money o­n advertising, iring search-engine submission specialists and the like. Now that the cost of domains as dropped more than 50% in the past year (less than $15.00 at the company I o­nsult for), it’s actually o­ne of the more affordable things you can do to get theeyeballs to your site.