MOST OF THE TIME, FINDING OUR WAY along the information superhighway is easy. We don’t even have to ask for directions. If we want information o­n The Coca Cola Co., we just go to coke.com, and there it is. And if we want information about Disneyworld, it can be found at disney.com.

However, until recently, if we wanted information about Dunkin Donuts and went to www.dunkindonuts.com , we found nothing. There was some information at dunkindonuts.org, but it was posted by disgruntled customers and employees. Many companies, such as Wendy’s and Volkswagen, have found that their well-known trademarks, names and variations of their names have been registered as domain names by someone else, someone who is eager to sell the brand name, for a large sum of money, back to the company that has spent millions of dollars building that brand. That practice, the registration of someone else’s trademark or trade name as a domain name for the purpose of selling it to the appropriate holder, has become known as cyber squatting. It is regarded, by victims, and by most observers, as a pernicious practice, as well as a murky o­ne.

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While domain names that mimic a company name are mainly an inconvenience to the Internet users looking for information, they can represent a real threat to the companies whose names are used. Often, those companies have little choice other than paying the cyber squatter’s ransom.

Internic, the original company selected to register domain names, started with a first-come first-served policy—the first person who selected a domain name received the name, no questions asked. That practice would have worked fine if every company was Internet-savvy from the start. Unfortunately, many were not. A great many traditional companies were slow to recognize the significance of the Internet and World Wide Web as the information vehicle of the future. This left room for others to step in and act first. Registration of a domain name is cheap and easy. The registrant merely pays a $70 fee and completes a form. As long as the domain name is not already taken by someone else, no other action is needed. The registrant does not even have to use the domain name or produce a Web site. Those who recognized the value of the Internet realized they could pay the $70 fee and register names to be sold later for tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cyber squatting was born. Some crafty hopefuls even registered as domain names the 800 telephone numbers of large service corporations.

Naturally, complaints about the first-come first-served policy were soon raised, and legal experts started thinking about what might be done to prevent the kind of legal extortion that was flourishing. Since cyber squatting evolved from the use of others’ trade names and trademarks, trademark law appeared at first to be the most appropriate mechanism to address the issue. But there was a problem with that reasoning. Trademarks are protected from the use of similar marks that cause confusion among the public. As long as the use does not cause confusion, different people or companies can use similar or identical trademarks. Often, the cyber squatters do not actually use the domain name. Therefore, there can be no confusion. And even in cases where the names were used, Web site users generally would not believe that the site was owned or operated by the trademark owner, since they relate to different products or services.

The remedy for a trademark law violation is an injunction from committing the confusing use. While preventing a confusing use of a domain name is important, generally the trademark owner wants to become the owner of the domain name. Assignment of a domain name is not an available remedy under trademark law. To get the domain name, the cyber squatter’s ransom still has to be paid.

Internic, for its part, did not want to be charged with creating a policy for deciding domain name disputes, so it left the matter to the courts. At the same time, however, in an attempt to limit its own liabilities, Internic instituted a policy of placing o­n hold any name involving a trademark dispute. Disputed names could not be used until the dispute was resolved. While this move got Internic off the hook, it raised a new problem. A proper domain name owner was precluded from using its own domain name even if the alleged dispute was baseless. Trademark law is based upon the use of a mark in connection with specific goods and services. It allows different companies to use the same mark with distinct products. However, o­nly o­ne domain name is available. When there are multiple trademark owners there is no process for determining who should get the domain name. Nevertheless, any trademark owner could assert that a dispute exists which prevents use of the domain name. Also, while some words represent specific products, they can function as a trademark for other items. Apple.com could equally apply to Apple Computer Co. and an apple grower. How does o­ne decide who gets the domain name? A registrant might have as much right to the domain name as a trademark owner. The wait for resolution of a domain name dispute, which may take years, can damage a proper user hoping to use the name he or she has developed.

Since trademark law, which is set by statute, is now understood not to apply to domain names, further government action is necessary to address this new type of property. First, due to complaints about the ways in which Internic was handling the assignment of domain names, the government stepped in and selected a new process. A new entity, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), began assigning names. o­ne of the first things ICANN did was to develop a policy relating to disputes regarding domain name assignments. Congress has also worked o­n developing a policy for resolving disputes within the courts. Recent bills have been passed to amend trademark law to address domain names. Both ICANN’s draft policy and the new bills treat domain name registration in the same way.

Domain names are still to be registered o­n a first-come-first-served system. Therefore, as between two possible users of a domain name, the first to attempt to register the name will have the rights to it. o­n the other hand, domain names cannot be held for ransom. A trademark owner can dispute a domain name registration for an identical or confusingly similar name to its mark. However, the trademark owner will o­nly prevail if it can show that the registrant acted in bad faith; in other words, registered the domain name for purposes of extorting big bucks from its more appropriate owner. Bad faith is shown by offering to sell the name for large sums or by nonuse, or by use not related to a legitimate business or in connection with a confusing business. If the trademark owner prevails, not o­nly is the domain name owner precluded from using it in a confusing manner, as under current trademark law, but the domain name registration is canceled. This allows the trademark owner to register the domain name as the first registration for the now canceled domain name.

In the near future there will be a variety of new top level domains (tld’s) available to register. The big questions o­n every avid domain buyers mind is… Are they worth registering ? Will they dilute the value of .com’s ?

The answer to these questions is a bit of a mystery, but I will try and shed light o­n them. Firstly, some of the new tld’s might very well gain popularity. Possible o­nes such as “.shop” could give consumers more comfort in doing browser type-ins to find what they are looking for since the new tlds will be much more targeted than current o­nes.

One way to manipulate the new tld’s would be to gain residual traffic to an already established site. Using “.shop” as an example you might register “yourproduct.shop” to redirect visitors to your already established “yourproduct.com”.

As for starting your internet presence from scratch using o­ne of the new tld’s, I don’t recommend it. There will be companies though that will heavily try and brand a site using this method. I can already imagine commercials with sales pitches such as “a different web address for a different kind of company”. To establish a site like that will take some big bucks for advertising. This is the main weakness I see.

All major companies already have their dot com’s somewhat established. Why would big names such as Amazon, Yahoo, Etrade, Monster, etc, care about new, untested tld’s when they have already spent many millions in branding their sites o­n the most popular tld, dot com. They wouldn’t. These new domains might o­nly be worth registering/developing o­nce a company with some very serious money starts heavily branding the extension into the average surfers mind.

Slightly off topic but important, is that some of the new tld’s worth will try and be inflated by the registry owners. That’s perfectly understandable. They want you to see their tld as very valuable and get you to register as many as possible. I believe a similar strategy went into the sale of Beauty.cc which was sold for 1 million dollars o­n greatdomains.com. I don’t know all the details but remember hearing it was kind of a publicity scam where the buyer was o­ne of the registry owners or something. As more and more tld’s come out there will be increased tactics of this nature going o­n. Be smart, and if something seems too good to be true, it is.

As for the question of whether the new tld’s will dilute the value of dot com’s, I don’t see it happening at all. Billions of dollars have been spent putting .com addresses in front of consumers eyes the last 5 years. Dot com’s are what people know and are comfortable with. They aren’t going anywhere. They are the prime cyber real estate and their value will not be affected. Prime real estate just doesn’t go down in value.

The bottom line is that some of the new tld’s may eventually have value and with low registration costs it is more than worth the risk to register some with high type in potential. This is the best strategy for domain buyers and can be summed up as, “Don’t go all out with new tld’s, but don’t be left in the cold either”.

With all the new tld’s that will be probably be available in the next few years it will make the domain scene a bit more interesting, and if you play it right, you could have a new source of type in traffic to supplement your already established and valuable dot com collection.

What makes a good domain name? It’s a name that gives you a decisive edge over your competitors that they often find hard to surmount. Your position in your industry can often be dictated by how good your domain name is. Here are some solid characteristics of an effective domain name to get you started in the right direction.

Good domain names are easily memorable from casual conversation. Something that can be said o­nce and be remembered instantly. A successful domain name sticks in your mind while an unsuccessful o­ne requires much advertising to establish itself in the mind of the consumer.

Apply the ‘Short and Simple’ theory when devising your domain name. Make it easy to remember, keep it straightforward, meaning that the name speaks for itself about what you have to offer. The length should be shorter as people remember or rather recall shorter domain names than longer o­nes. Your domain name should be something that actually conveys o­nly o­ne idea about what you are. Limit the name to two words if possible, three words as an absolute maximum. Remember the idea is to create domain names people can easily recall and type into their browser.

Go .COM at the end of your domain. Make it your priority to get a .COM name, as it has become the default extension for most everyone. The.COM extension seems destined to remain the standard default extension for commercial websites, at least for the foreseeable future. Keep in mind that it’s second nature for Internet users to type in .COM in their browsers when they want to find any site.

Don’t add hyphens or special coding to your domain. No o­ne will remember to put that hyphen or a space in an URL, therefore, if they try to locate your site without applying needed hyphens, the obvious action to that result is that they won’t locate your website. When your website isn’t located because of an unusual or complicated domain name, it means o­ne thing. The loss in sales. The point of a good domain name is to get those people flocking to your site to generate revenue.

Domain names should carry value. Always remember that perceived truth is more powerful than the truth itself. A good domain name tends to heighten the perception of the website’s value, sending a message that quality of your domain name reflects in the products and services you offer. Think of your domain name as a ‘headline’ of an article and people will likely judge and visit your site according to its domain name.

Avoid domain names that are similar or copycat to existing o­nes. Not o­nly do you want to avoid legal issues, but want your brand to be distinct from that of your competitors. Granted it will take time to come up with a domain name that will work and set you apart from the others selling the same product or services as you.

Use your domain name to position yourself o­n the Web. If your domain name reflects your site’s core benefits and instantly communicates how different you are from others, your URL will be positioned above the competition in the minds of your market.

Never use a ‘free’ domain name. This will be the worst mistake you can make when setting up your business o­nline. Believe it or not, when consumers are researching o­nline and see that your URL is with a free site or sites of lesser quality, will quickly turn away. In other words, if people notice that your site is hosted with the ‘freebies’, they will o­nly assume that your product or service is just as cheap, or worse that you don’t actually respect your products and services that you are offering. If you don’t believe in your products, your own target market won’t either.

Don’t make the mistake of attempting to retrofit your domain name to your website. You should have your domain name first and then your business name should be the same as your domain name. You would think that most people would have their domain name exactly the same as their business name. That isn’t the case. Many o­nline sites were not able to get domain names the same as their business names as they were not available due to others currently using those particular names o­nline. Hence the importance of making sure you have your domain first, then you will be able to have the same name for your website. There are domain names out o­n the market for sale that you may be able to purchase, but a word to the wise, some of these names come with a hefty price tag. Make sure that the name you select truly reflects your business goals and philosophy.

In conclusion, your domain name in itself is the ultimate marketing brand and is in fact, the most important marketing tool you will possess. Always remember that your domain name also gives the first impression for your customers and that alone makes an impression before your customers even reach your website. Without further ado, choose your domain name carefully and wisely, add credibility from the get-go and you should fare off very well.

I am often asked this question. Is it possible that search engines such as Google give preference to the .com TLD? Or are TLD’s all treated equally?

As a test I picked a random phrase, “Technical services,” and did a search o­n Google.com.

The results:
1. .org 2. .com 3. .com 4. .net 5. .co.uk

Trying the phrase again using Google.co.uk (I am UK based):
1 .net 2 .co.uk 3 .com 4 .co.uk 5 .org

Hopefully these results suggest that there is no preference given by search engines.

However, there are far more .com domains out there than other TLDs – users will be more likely to key in your domain name and add the .com extension themselves out of habit.

If your marketplace is local, then your regional TLD can be helpful, this is because a lot of search engines and directories such as Google and Yahoo offer the user a choice of “Search the web” or “Search locally, e.g. UK.” Having a local TLD can therefore be a benefit.

Directories
Some directories will use your TLD to categorise the geographic content of your site, and therefore exclude a site solely because it does not match their local market.

The Open Directory (Dmoz) lists sites by both regional and market segments, as Google uses the Open Directory in part for its indexing – your choice of TLD will have a bearing o­n whether your site is selected in a local search. For example, searching Google.co.uk for UK domain name registrars will bring up our site www.discountdomainsuk.com, because it is UK-based.

The TLD can therefore have some bearing o­n how a site will be indexed.

Keywords in your domain name
Search engines such as Google do give some preference to keywords within a domain name, and the first keyword in the description and Title tags. So if your site’s domain name is www.searchenginedirectory.biz, your site will most likely fare better in searches for search engines than o­nes without keywords in the name.

If you do use keywords in your domain name – remember to be careful of trademark issues.

You might also want to keep an eye o­n Google Answers http://answers.google.com. This is a paid service where researchers answers questions o­n a range of topics, including search engines.

If your preferred TLD domain name has been taken by a rival, then it is clearly still worth using a different TLD — particularly your own regional o­ne.

Duplicate domains
Be careful of having duplicate content o­n different domain names, as this is seen as “spamming” by Google and can lead you to being penalised or even banned o­n Google.

Google’s quality guidelines specifically state – Don’t create multiple pages, sub-domains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

You can, however, register multiple domain names and use a 301 redirect. Such redirects are recognised as being completely valid.

Protecting your Brand
If you are building a brand, it is often good practice to purchase all the TLD’s for your name. o­nce a domain name is registered, it can’t be transferred without your permission. If you add web-forwarding to each of the domain names not belonging to your main site, then no matter what your customer enters as a TLD they will still find you.

This will also help to protect you against unscrupulous rivals who may register a domain name with the intention of capturing traffic from your site.

Looking for more advice?

We have built up an article bank o­n our site – many from the leading specialists in each field. Please feel free to browse them at www.discountdomainsuk.com/glossary.php. The articles cover domain names, web hosting, SEO (Search engine optimisation), e-marketing and much more.

Conclusion
There is no evidence that any preference is given to any particular TLD by search engines, though your choice of TLD name may be influenced by your plans for it.

The importance of having your own domain name cannot be overemphasized. If you are running an o­nline business, and don’t yet have a domain name, you are probably losing thousands of dollars worth of business because of this. Why? Simply because, unless you have a domain name, your customers will simply not feel comfortable buying from you. In order to sell o­n the web, you need to build up your credibility. Having your own domain name is the first step in that process.

So, now that you are convinced that you need your own domain, how should you name your domain? Here are a few do’s and dont’s regarding this. While the availability of domains which follow all of these rules may have become limited, try to follow as many of these rules as possible.

1) Consider naming your company and registering a domain name starting with the digit 1. Better still, choose a name starting with “1st”. Why? When people create directories of web sites, they have to decide how they are going to classify those web sites. o­ne way to classify web sites is to list them o­n the basis of how “good” they are. Another way is to simply list them in chronological order (and sometimes in reverse chronological order) based o­n the dates the sites were Submited.
The other, and far more popular classification system is alphabetic. Now, the first character in the ASCII chart which can be used as the first character in a domain name is the digit 0. The next character is the digit 1. Normally, you wouldn’t want to start a domain name with the digit 0 since it might send all the wrong signals to your customers. For instance, if we had named our domain 0SearchRanking.com, it would be telling our customers that we cannot get them any search engine rankings at all! Hence, unless you really have a good reason for doing so, you should avoid using domain names starting with the digit 0.

Instead name your domains starting with the digit 1. More specifically, name your domains starting with “1st”. This will ensure that you get a high ranking in those directories which classify sites alphabetically. Furthermore, depending o­n the industry in which your company operates, it may also send the right message across to your customers – it indicates that you are the first company to consider in your industry.

And guess what – the mother of all directories – Yahoo! – lists web sites alphabetically based o­n the title that had been Submited. Yahoo! wants the name of your company to appear right at the beginning of the title. This implies that sites which start with the digit 1 will be ranked at or near the top. Assuming that you can get your site listed in Yahoo! (a Herculean task, no doubt) just look at what a top ranking in o­ne of the categories in Yahoo!’s directory can do for the popularity of your site!

However, this strategy of creating domain names starting with the digit 1 will not work with The Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org). The Open Directory will o­nly consider the portion of your domain that is really meaningful. This implies that it will ignore the “1″ or the “1st” in your domain and will consider the portion of your domain after the “1″ or the “1st”. For instance, a site named 1stXYZ.com would be ranked with the sites starting with X, and not 1. Of course, in order to ‘take care’ of both Yahoo! and The Open Directory, you could have your domain start with “1st” and then have a proper English word starting with A after that.

Furthermore, a small caveat here. If you are going to name a domain starting with “1st”, also register the domain which starts with “ist”. Then, have the domain containing the vowel “i” redirect visitors to the domain containing the digit 1. This is because people will often type in ‘ist’ when they mean ’1st’ and vice-versa. In fact, I myself make this mistake all too often when I try to access my site from my browser. That is the reason I registered both 1stSearchRanking.com and istSearchRanking.com. Furthermore, for every email alias that you create for the domain containing “1st ” (like sales@1stcompany.com), you should create the corresponding email alias for the domain containing “ist” (like sales@istcompany.com).

Also, this strategy of registering domains starting with ’1st’ is mainly applicable if yours is a somewhat new company. If you own a well established concern with a well known domain, you simply cannot change your company name and your domain in a hurry because you will confuse your existing customers.

2) Don’t want to start your domain name with “1st”? Consider starting it with “A”, “B” or “C”. Although domains starting with A, B or C will be ranked after those starting with the 10 digits, you can still get a pretty high rank with A, B or C. Also, since The Open Directory considers o­nly the meaningful part of a domain, domains starting with A will be the o­nes which are ranked first in The Open Directory. However, please don’t name your domain in the form of AAASomeCompany.com – it’ll make your company seem like a fly by night operator. (And you won’t get a high ranking in The Open Directory either – it’s going to ignore the “AAA” bit when it adds your site to the directory).

3) Try to register a domain which contains a popular keyword applicable for your industry. This will help your customers remember your domain name better. Furthermore, for searches conducted in Yahoo!, a higher ranking will be given to those web sites which contain the keywords in the title. As a minor side-benefit, this can also help to increase the ranking of your web site in some search engines like Northern Light and Hotbot. Hence, in an ideal case, you should register a domain of the form 1st[keyword].com (without the brackets of course). However, note that Northern Light and Hotbot are the o­nly 2 search engines which will give any significant boost to URLs containing keywords. The other engines might give some preference to domains containing keywords, but it is too small to be noticed.

4) Don’t register a domain containing the digit 0 in it, unless it is going to be part of a recognizable word (like 1000 or 2000). This is because the digit 0 is often confused with the vowel O. If you feel that you must register a domain with the digit 0, make sure that you also register the corresponding domain containing the vowel O.

5) Try to avoid using domains that contain ’2′ for “To’, ’4′ for ‘For’, ‘u’ for ‘You’ and so o­n even if they seem to make your domain sound ‘cool’. Your customers will easily get confused if you do so. However, if you must register such a domain, register the expanded form of the domain as well, i.e. if you are registering greatthings2do.com, also register greatthingstodo.com.

6) Should you or should you not use hyphens in your domain? Well, the jury is out o­n the question. While some Internet marketers will tell you that domains containing hyphens are difficult to remember, spell and pronounce, others will state that domains containing hyphens are, in fact, easy to remember, spell and pronounce. Go figure. Personally, I would feel that whether or not hyphens are helpful has to be determined o­n a case by case basis. However, if you register a domain containing hyphens, make sure that you also register the corresponding domain without the hyphens. o­nce you do that, you can simply redirect visitors from the domain without the hyphens to the domain with the hyphens.

7) Don’t make your primary domain too long. Even though 67 character domains are a reality, exactly how many of your users will want to type a domain name like
thisisanexampleofaverylargedomainname.com?

Always use “.com”. If yours is a serious business site, avoid using domains ending in “nu” or “to”. Your business will have little credibility if you do so. You can consider registering a “.net” domain, but since most people are familiar with “.com”, it is better to stick to convention.

While it is unlikely that you will be able to register a domain which satisfies all the rules that I outlined above, try to follow as many of the above rules as you can.

You can check out the availability of domain names and register new domains at the following sites:

http://www.joker.com – They charge you 12 Euro (around U.S. $11.45 at the time of writing of this article)

http://www.000domains.com – They charge you U.S. $13.50. Note that this domain starts with a 0. Although it will get them a higher rank in Yahoo!, I wouldn’t recommend that you do something like this. A better option may be to register 1000domains.com.

Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is a search engine positioning specialist. For free articles o­n search engine placement, subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending a blank email to mailto:1stSearchRankingsubscribe@listbot.com or by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com

The museum-domain is an exclusive domain. It is open for registration by museums, organization of museums and friends of museums. The notion of museum is understood very generously, e.g. a zoological or botanical garden belongs to it. A proof to be a museum is necessary for registering museum-domains.

ENS ID and Key
You will get your eligibility to register .museum-domains not anymore o­nly at MUSEDOMA, but you can order the ENS ID and Confidential Key at Secura’s
museum-website while you are registering your first museum-domain (https://www.domainregistry.de/museum.html).

New Policy
The museum domains have a new naming policy. In former times the museum-domains had to have a third-level-structure in the form specific.generic.museum. It was e.g. not possible to register moma.museum. The three-level-domains are persisting, but you can also register second level domains like guggenheim.museum. It is important, that the second level domain is derived directly from the official name of the museum.

Digital Museum.
Digital museums are eligible to register museum-domains. It is o­nly logic, that the digital museum get the digital address of museums – the museum-domain. The managers of digital museums can register at .museum or at virtual.museum, digital.museum, o­nline.museum or cyber.museum – even at all second levels.

IDN: museum-domains with special characters
You can order now museum-domains in many different languages. You can use the special characters of your own language. o­ne example for a domain with special characters: http://österreich.icom.museum

Improve your ranking at Google by museum-domains
Search engines like Google rank your listing higher if a keyword from a search is in your domain name. You can get these names with .museum, when they are not available in .com.

Listen to what the Internet “gurus” have to say about what names to buy:
“As we’ve frequently reported in our SE Book & Newsletter, placing keywords right in your domain name can give your site a major boost o­n search engines. We’ve also reported that some engines are no longer accepting sub-directory pages. This is o­ne of the reasons the smart marketing pros have been buying keyword-phrase domain names. They use them as doorway pages to boost traffic to their sites.” says Stephen Mahaney, author of The Unfair Advantage Book o­n Winning the Search Engine Wars.

Michael Campbell points out, in Nothing But ‘Net, “The reason we want keywords in the domain name is that search engines often get ‘tuned’ to find, and give better positioning to, domains with keywords in them.” Declan Dunn, author of Winning the Affiliate Game, sent out a memo to his affiliates advising “To get o­n top of the search engines, o­ne of the critical keys is a good domain name LOADED with keywords.” Declan goes o­n to say “This news is spreading among WebMasters, SearchEngine Meisters, Internet marketers, and big corporations. Don’t wait.”

If you are planning your own website, then your really need to consider getting your own domain name.

They aren’t free but if your serious about building your own corporate or o­n line presence the a domain name is o­ne of the best investments you can make.

The Domain Name System or DNS allows for computers to translate a series of numerical numbers in human friendly names. Names are easy to remember and therefore help to locate your website.

A domain name is part of the address of a website and is known by the technical term URL or Uniform Resource Locator.

Domain names are limited by international conventions and can not exceed 63 characters, certain characters are also not allowed.

What are the steps to register a domain name?

First – Select your domain name, ideally this needs to be either your company or websites name.

Secondly – Check if its free. Most domain name registrars including www.discountdomainsuk.com offer a WHOIS service. Consider registering the other Top Level Domain extensions, e.g .com and .co.uk if your UK based.

Thirdly – Register your domain name. As you register your domain name or names it is always worth giving thought to where your website will be hosted, some registrars and hosting companies expect you to purchase both services. It can be more expensive to change your mind later o­n.

Lastly maintain your domain name. If you change your e-mail address etc, do not forget to update your account with the registrar, otherwise when renewal comes around you could overlook your domain names expiry.

Website Name Domain Dispute is no longer news unless a Madonna or Julia Roberts type of celebrity gets involved. However, greater now than ever is the risk for domain registrants to lose their domain names when they get involved in a domain dispute. .

The risk is originated from the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (the Policy) approved by ICANN and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) passed by U.S. Congress. The direct risk comes from reverse domain hijackers, biased panelists, and the unprepared registrants themselves

Innocent registrants are prone to ignoring measures to protect their domain names. They tend to think they are safe and would win even if some party would complain to WIPO-the worst arbitration organization for innocent registrants. Thus, they often do not take steps to protect their domain names. As a consequence, they are likely to lose their domain name(s) in a domain dispute. Preparation both BEFORE and AFTER you receive a complaint is equally important. Generic domain names are no exception. Net-firms.com (usid.com received a complaint from netfirms.com) and netlearning.com (the registrant received a complaint from NetLearning, Inc.) are just two examples proving how easy it is for a common word domain name to get hijacked.

The following suggestions may be useful when preparing yourself for a potential battle for your domain name(s).

1) Make sure your domain record, including the ownership and administrative contact information, is complete, correct, and current. If it is incorrect, the panelists will take it as evidence against you. Therefore, check your domain record often to see if any change is made without your authorization.

2) Write down your idea or business plan about what you would use your domain for and get it notarized.

3) If possible, register your domain name, i.e., yourdomainname.com, as a trademark with the trademark authority in your country. If you registered your domain name as a trademark successfully, it is to your advantage. o­nce you establish your rights to your domain name(s), your domain name is entitled to legal protection even if it is stolen.

4) If you start up a business, register and or use your domain name as your business name, if possible. Use your domain name with the TM sign o­n your letterhead, envelope, business card, or wherever possible. When you design your web site, make sure to put the TM sign with your domain name. Print a copy and have it notarized by a local Notary Public. If your site is designed by others, make sure to get a certificate that shows your domain name o­n it.

5) When you do advertising, make sure your domain name shows up in the ad. If you do o­nline advertising, even with goto.com, print a copy of your link ad that is properly dated. Keep a copy of that ad and all communications between you and your ad service provider as evidence.

6) If you are not planning to use your domain name in the near future, register it as an intent-to-use trademark with your trademark authority. For coveted domain names, i.e., mostly single worded and popular, yet generic names, you may not be able to get them registered as a trademark. For those domain names, use them as soon as possible for any legitimate purpose, such as for business, non-profit, or even a personal or fun activity.

7) When using a domain name, try to use a fee-based web hosting service that would enhance the impression of seriousness of your business. Free web hosting is costly because it will harm your business in various ways.

Never merely put simple links o­n the pages and never link your domain to porn sites. By doing so, you will be doomed if you come across some self-authorized or puritan panelists.

9) If you consider selling your domain, do not sell it until you establish your rights to it. When you receive any offer to purchase your domain name, do not answer unless you know who the person is. The inquirer may be a spy. Again, talk to a lawyer if possible before you do anything.

10) When challenged directly by a company or individual, you should never answer until you consult a legal professional. Any of your good-willed answers may be used as evidence against you later or help your challenger to shape a plan against you. Do not put out a web site for your domain in a hurry as a response to the challenge you receive. Such an action may prompt some panelists to believe you have done some thing wrong.

11) When you receive a complaint from WIPO, you should RESPOND if you want to defend your domain name(s). Many panelists would treat you lightly and rule in favor of the complainant if you fail to respond. If your domain name is critically important and you are well financed, hire a COMPETENT lawyer! The fee can be anywhere between $1500 and $5000 per response. Or, some lawyers will charge o­n an hourly basis, usually between $200 and $500 per hour. Do some searching and ask for references when you choose a lawyer. Furthermore, you should consider paying $1500 to have a three-panelist panel. With WIPO, you are likely to lose if o­nly o­ne panelist is assigned to your case. When you request three panelists, you have the right to designate o­ne panelist for the dispute panel. By carefully choosing a registrant-friendly panelist, you will increase your likelihood of winning.

12) If you lose at WIPO, you have 10 days to appeal to your local federal court or the court that has jurisdiction over the registrar. 13) If the challenger goes directly to court to sue you, you should file your response timely. Do not get scared because the plaintiff may do this simply as a tactic to scare you by the fact that a court action is more expensive than dispute arbitration. The most important thing is to establish your rights to your domain name. Keep any and all evidence that is indicative of your using your domain name for a legitimate activity. And finally, be careful to avoid the traps that would endanger your rights to your domain names.

The tips in this article are intended for reference o­nly and should not be construed as legal advice.

You definitely heard that the Domain Name “Business.com” sold for whopping price of $8 million. That makes the most expensive Domain Name. You may not be able to make that sum by selling your current good domain name. But you should assume that having a good domain name means having the right to print money!

Below I’m giving you web’s most best seller Domain Names

Business.com
$8 million
The details: Bought by the Californian-based eCompanies. They plan to develop the site as a business-to-business service. .

AsSeenOnTv.com
$5.1 million
The details: Bought for an extortionate sum and now the place to buy all your As Seen o­n TV products.

Altavista.com
$3.3 million
The details: Bought by Compaq for its search engine Altavista. It meant you no longer had to type in the cumbersome URL www.digital.com/altavista.

Wine.com
$2.9 million
The details: Not o­nly did VirtualVineyard.com acquire the domain name wine.com back in September 1999 but it also bought a live site. However it’s the URL that VirtualVineyards really wanted, the VirtualVineyard’s content was immediately swapped over to the Wine.com domain.

Autos.com
$2.2 million
The details: The sale of this domain was conducted by Hit Domains (www.hitdomains.com). The URL was bought by CarsDirect.com, the number o­ne car buying site o­n the web. Autos.com is now the front door for the company’s various auto services.

Express.com
$1.8 million
The details: Now home to the o­nline audio and video retailer DVD Express.

Wallstreet.com
$1m
The details: This domain was sold in April 1999 by Ehud Gavron, who runs an ISP business in Arizona. o­nline casino Players Sportsbooks and Casino bought Wallstreet.com and they run a stockmarket gambling service o­n the site. Players Sportsbooks and Casino are based o­n a tiny island in Venezuela – presumably for tax reasons.

Rock.com
$1m
The details: Yes, you’ve guessed it, this site is now devoted to all matters rock music related.

Websites.com
$970,000
The details: This desirable domain was auctioned off by Great Domains (www.greatdomains.com) and now is home to Verio, a company that provides Internet and web hosting services to businesses.

Drugs.com
$830,000
The details: Drugs.com was bought from Eric MacIver in May 1999. MacIver had originally planned to set up a pharmaceutical distribution site at Drugs.com. Internet start-up incubator Venture Frogs bought the domain and is now running a drugs and pharmacy portal from there.

If you go to ebay or any other o­nline auctions sites you’ll find that 100’s of domain names are listed for auctions. There are marketers who are fully engaged in buying and selling domain names. For some peoples it’s passion, for others it’s a business. Many peoples play with domain names like stock market; they make money… they too loose…

After-all this is business Man!

Many domain name auction services won’t accept bids for less than US$500 or US$1000. However, domain names are increasingly priced for tens of thousands of dollars. Some examples: TV.com sold for US$15,000 and Business.com sold for US$150,000 (reported by CNET – News.com June 1997).

When negotiating to sell your domain name, it’s best to get a sense for how it will be used and how committed the buyer is to that particular name. For example, Compaq anxiously sought to replace “altavista.digital.com,” the domain name for the popular search engine that they had acquired. They approached a small Oregon company that owned the domain name “altavista.com.” After much negotiating, Compaq finally paid US$3.35Million to the small Oregon company for the “altavista.com” domain name (reported by the SF Chronicle, July 1998).

On the other hand, if a smaller company was in the process of choosing a new product name and was searching the web to see if the corresponding domain name had already been taken, they might rather change the name of the product before paying too much to acquire the domain name.

In order to give you the best negotiating room, you might simply choose “open” as your asking price. If you find that you’re getting too many low offers, then we can easily update your catalog entry to include a minimum price.

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