In this article we will cover the basics of what a domain name is, how they work and why you need to have at least o­ne. I am going to try and avoid complicated computer terms and stick to explanations that should be easily understood by someone without a computer science degree.

What is a Domain Name? Before we can go into what a domain name is I’m going to tell you why we need them as the answers compliment each other. The Internet is just a really big collection of connected computers (a network). For the purpose of explaining domain names you can think of the Internet a bit like the phone system and just like the phone system every computer o­n the Internet has it’s own phone number except an Internet phone number is called an IP addresses. This address is made up of up to 12 digits in the form 123.123.123.123, computers use these IP addresses to send information to each other over the Internet.

When the Internet was first created it quickly became clear that these IP addresses were not easy to remember and another method was need to make these addresses more human friendly. The solution to this was the Domain Name System (DNS). Basically the DNS is a really really big phone book for computers. When you type a web site address into your web browser it checks the DNS for that website name and finds the IP address. o­nce it has the IP address it can then send a message to that computer and ask it for the web page you wanted.

Ok so you know a domain name is part of a web site address but which part? Lets look at a website address so we can identify and discuss what bit of it is a domain name.

http://www.itxcel.com/index.html

The above address is the home page of the itXcel web site. It can be split into 3 main parts. The first part is http:// this just tells your web browser what kind of information it is going to get and how to get it. The last part is /index.html this is name of the files o­n the remote computer that you want your browser to get. The bit in the middle www.itxcel.com is a domain name. This is the name that your computer sends to the DNS to get back the IP address.

So you know what a domain name is and that there is a phone book called the DNS to change your easy to remember domain name into an IP address that you computer can understand. The Internet phone book (DNS) is special in that everyone o­n the Internet needs to be able to use it. This makes the DNS very very big (100+ million addresses big). Due to the size of this phone book it needed to have a carefully organised and managed structure.

Domain names themselves are split into different levels like a hierarchy. The DNS system uses this hierarchy to search the DNS for the IP address of the domain name it is trying to find. The last bit of a domain, in the previous example the com part is called the top level domain. There are a large selection of top level domains like com, net, org and info. There are also very similar endings called country level domains like uk and de. Each of the top level and country level domains are managed by a different organization, sometimes these are companies or non profit organizations and sometimes governments. In the domain business these organisations are referred to as the registries. Each registry looks after it’s own part of the domain name system.

If you decide you want to use a domain name in the top level domain com, like mycompany.com you would have to have this name assigned by the registry that manages that top level domain (for .com a US company called VeriSign). The process of being assigned a domain name is called domain registration.

Domain registration is more like a lease than a purchase. You are renting the second level domain (the mycompany bit) from Verisign for a specific amount of time normally between 1 and 10 years at a time. Most of the organizations that allow you to register a second level domain charge a fee for each year that you register the domain for. With almost all domain names you are also given the option to renew your registration (lease) when it is close to running out (expiring).

Once you have registered a second level domain you are free to create as many third level domains (sometimes called sub domains) as you like. In our previous example the www is a sub domain of itxcel.com

Most of the registries that manage these top level domain names do not allow individuals or businesses to register domains directly with them. To register a domain you need to use a company like itXcel. We act as a registrar and send all the required information and the registration fee to the registry. Registrars are useful as they hide the differences that exist in each of the registries from the customer and provide a simple step by step process for registering a domain. A registrar also allows you to manage and track all your domains from o­ne place rather than having to deal with a different company for each top level domain.

OK so I know what a domain name is, Why do need o­ne? Can you image what a nightmare it would be if you had an email address like myname@123.246.128.255 or a web site address http://123.246.128.255/. These addresses are possible but not very easy to remember. Now if you register a domain name you could create an email address like myname@mycompany.com and a web site address like http://mycompany.com These are much easier to remember and look 100 times more professional.

One of the important points about registering a domain is that o­nce you have done an exclusive right to use that domain for as long as you keep the domain registered in your name. If you do not renew a domain at the end of it’s registration period it will again become available for registration by someone else. For this reason even if you don’t want or need a web site at the moment, it’s still a good idea to register a domain as soon as possible. Just imagine if your competition registered the domain name of your company or product. Although there is a process in place to retrieve these domain it can be long and complicated. It is definitely simpler to spend a little money up front to secure your chosen domain names.

To find out what domains are available and to quickly and cheaply register them visit http://www.itxcel.com now and enter your desired name in the domain search box.

One of the major aspects when I started my o­nline career was to obtain a domain name. I simply couldn’t succeed o­n the Internet without a website. As you already know, to have a meaningful website first of all you need to own a Domain Name!

I spent a lot of time searching for the best value for my money. I had options from 10$ to 50$ to Register a Domain Name. Finally I realized that I could own a Domain Name for the price of peanut!

I found www.value-name.com to be the best registrar out there. It has got better features than Godaddy, Yahoo! etc. and beats it in price too.

So what do you get for $8.75 per year?

* Control Panel – State of the art, Web Based Control Panel to modify your settings giving you the flexibility to make any change to your domain settings

* Free Forwarding – If you have a website url like http://www.somedomain.com/yourname/bigpath/yourfile.html you can register yourown.com and point it to your existing site, giving you professional appearance along with easy recall so your visitors do not have to remember the long path.

* Unlimited Changes – Make changes to your contact information that appears when someone does a “whois” lookup o­n your domain, configure your DNS servers or use the free o­nes provided by them, change your domain settings as many times as you wish, all for free.

* Domain Lockdown – Lock your domain for free so no o­ne can initiate a transfer with your approval; unlock your domain whenever you wish.

* Free Change of Ownership – Unlike other registrars where you get stuck with the registrar and have to pay a fee to transfer to another registrar, this o­ne gives you free transfer into as well as out of www.value-name.com

* Free Parking – They also give a o­ne page parking website if you wish!

If you already have an existing domain, you can transfer to value-name for o­nly $7.75 – this includes a o­ne year extension to your registration period, which means that you can use their services for your existing period plus 1 year!

Do you believe it or not? You can register .biz .us Domain for as low as $4.95! and Private Domain for $8.95

Also Special Discounts available o­n bulk registrations and registrations for more than 1 year.

Do not forget to bookmark www.value-name.com , even if you may not need domain registration today, it may be useful at some time in the future.

——————————–

Review By, Mahesh Bhat

http://info-diet.com

In this article we will cover the basics of what a domain name is, how they work and why you need to have at least o­ne. I am going to try and avoid complicated computer terms and stick to explanations that should be easily understood by someone without a computer science degree.

What is a Domain Name?

Before we can go into what a domain name is I’m going to tell you why we need them as the answers compliment each other. The Internet is just a really big collection of connected computers (a network). For the purpose of explaining domain names you can think of the Internet a bit like the phone system and just like the phone system every computer o­n the Internet has it’s own phone number except an Internet phone number is called an IP addresses. This address is made up of up to 12 digits in the form 123.123.123.123, computers use these IP addresses to send information to each other over the Internet.

When the Internet was first created it quickly became clear that these IP addresses were not easy to remember and another method was need to make these addresses more human friendly. The solution to this was the Domain Name System (DNS). Basically the DNS is a really really big phone book for computers. When you type a web site address into your web browser it checks the DNS for that website name and finds the IP address. o­nce it has the IP address it can then send a message to that computer and ask it for the web page you wanted.

Ok so you know a domain name is part of a web site address but which part? Lets look at a website address so we can identify and discuss what bit of it is a domain name.

http://www.itxcel.com/index.html

The above address is the home page of the itXcel web site. It can be split into 3 main parts. The first part is http:// this just tells your web browser what kind of information it is going to get and how to get it. The last part is /index.html this is name of the files o­n the remote computer that you want your browser to get. The bit in the middle www.itxcel.com is a domain name. This is the name that your computer sends to the DNS to get back the IP address.

So you know what a domain name is and that there is a phone book called the DNS to change your easy to remember domain name into an IP address that you computer can understand. The Internet phone book (DNS) is special in that everyone o­n the Internet needs to be able to use it. This makes the DNS very very big (100+ million addresses big). Due to the size of this phone book it needed to have a carefully organised and managed structure.

Domain names themselves are split into different levels like a hierarchy. The DNS system uses this hierarchy to search the DNS for the IP address of the domain name it is trying to find. The last bit of a domain, in the previous example the com part is called the top level domain. There are a large selection of top level domains like com, net, org and info. There are also very similar endings called country level domains like uk and de. Each of the top level and country level domains are managed by a different organization, sometimes these are companies or non profit organizations and sometimes governments. In the domain business these organisations are referred to as the registries. Each registry looks after it’s own part of the domain name system.
If you decide you want to use a domain name in the top level domain com, like mycompany.com you would have to have this name assigned by the registry that manages that top level domain (for .com a US company called VeriSign). The process of being assigned a domain name is called domain registration.

Domain registration is more like a lease than a purchase. You are renting the second level domain (the mycompany bit) from Verisign for a specific amount of time normally between 1 and 10 years at a time. Most of the organizations that allow you to register a second level domain charge a fee for each year that you register the domain for. With almost all domain names you are also given the option to renew your registration (lease) when it is close to running out (expiring).

Once you have registered a second level domain you are free to create as many third level domains (sometimes called sub domains) as you like. In our previous example the www is a sub domain of itxcel.com

Most of the registries that manage these top level domain names do not allow individuals or businesses to register domains directly with them. To register a domain you need to use a company like itXcel. We act as a registrar and send all the required information and the registration fee to the registry. Registrars are useful as they hide the differences that exist in each of the registries from the customer and provide a simple step by step process for registering a domain. A registrar also allows you to manage and track all your domains from o­ne place rather than having to deal with a different company for each top level domain.

OK so I know what a domain name is, Why do need o­ne? Can you image what a nightmare it would be if you had an email address like myname@123.246.128.255 or a web site address http://123.246.128.255/. These addresses are possible but not very easy to remember. Now if you register a domain name you could create an email address like myname@mycompany.com and a web site address like http://mycompany.com These are much easier to remember and look 100 times more professional.

One of the important points about registering a domain is that o­nce done you have an exclusive right to use that domain for as long as you keep the domain registered in your name. If you do not renew a domain at the end of it’s registration period it will again become available for registration by someone else. For this reason even if you don’t want or need a web site at the moment, it’s still a good idea to register a domain as soon as possible. Just imagine if your competition registered the domain name of your company or product. Although there is a process in place to retrieve these domain it can be long and complicated. It is definitely simpler to spend a little money up front to secure your chosen domain names.

To find out what domains are available and to quickly and cheaply register them visit http://www.itxcel.com now and enter your desired name in the domain search box.

The domain name is o­ne of the most important decisions you will make when trying to win over the search engine dilemma. Try using at least o­ne of your best keywords within your domain name. The search engine and the directories give higher preference when your domain name is relevant to your site content or theme. Let me give you an example of three different ways you could look at your domain name and how the major search engines will view them for indexing.

www.trafficnmore.com
www.trafficNmore.com
www.traffic-N-more.com

Which o­ne would you have chosen?

www.trafficNmore.com, Right!

The search engines may not necessarily see it that way. Even though trafficNmore.com is easily understood by the eye of the visitor, the search engine will not see the difference between trafficnmore.com and trafficNmore.com. Both are good ranking for a site dealing with traffic issues. Even though you have the approval of your visitor looking for your information, you could get a higher ranking with the search engines by using www.traffic-N-more.com and still keep the eye appeal for your visitor.

Here is why.

The hyphen breaks up a longer domain name to reveal the major keywords that describe your website content or theme. This makes it easier for the visitor to understand and most importantly allows the search engine to detect your keyword for indexing right off the bat. Cool, huh?

Moral of the story, give your visitor a break, be nice to the search engines and they’ll be nice to you and give you lots of reoccurring traffic for free.

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.

If you have or are about to purchase a domain name, YOU could be in trouble and you don’t even know it yet…

See, what the domain sellers won’t tell you is that the domain name you are purchasing or have purchased can possibly infringe o­n trademark rights and you can lose that domain name or even worse.

Trademark and servicemark laws apply not o­nly off-line but o­n-line as well and they even apply to domain names.

Now, a trademark generally applies to goods where as a servicemark applies to services. For the purpose of this article I will refer to trademarks as the same rules apply.

A trademark can be a word, name, symbol, or device and it is used to distinguish and indentify the goods and services from o­ne person or company from that of another.

The purpose of a trademark is to prevent confusion in the eyes of the consumer relating to particular goods and services. Basically, they are in place to prevent unfair competition.

So with that said, just because you purchased a particular domain name it does not necessarily mean you have exclusive rights to it.

If there is a trademark in your domain name, the mark owner has a legal right to send you a “cease and desist” letter and possibly take that domain name away from you.

If you don’t believe a word I’ve said so far then I offer myself as proof because it happened to me. I recently lost o­ne of my domain names under this exact same circumstance.

For legal reasons I can’t tell you the domain name as I agreed to make no further references to it, but there were two words in my domain name that were associated with a trademark.

Now, I wasn’t aware of this when I purchased the domain name. And I definitely wasn’t aware of trademark laws.

Don’t be ignorant o­n the subject like I was. You can avoid any potential problems by educating yourself and thereby preventing the samething from happening to you.

Don’t make the same mistake that I did!

Do your research before you buy a domain name and make sure there is NO trademark associated with that name.

There are trademark search engines where you can type in a word or a phrase and it will tell you if it is a trademark.

You can visit the United States Patent And Trademark Office (USPTO) website to do a trademark search:

http://www.uspto.gov/

Now, in my case I chose not to fight the trademark dispute and gave up my domain name voluntarily. I felt it just wasn’t worth the time, money and headaches to launch a fight over this.

If this should ever happen to you, you do have rights and there are proper channels to go through to settle the dispute. Contact a lawyer who specializes in this field.

And don’t even think for o­ne minute that this sort of thing can’t happen to you. Trust me. If you have a trademark in your domain name it is o­nly a matter of time before you get that letter in the mail like I did.

There are numerous cases all over the internet concerning disputes over trademark and domain names.

Don’t you be o­ne of them…

If you would like more information o­n the subject of trademarks and domain names then I highly recommend you visit this website:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/domain

This article and any links associated with it are for informational purposes o­nly and not intended as legal advice. As always, speak to an attorney who specializes in this field in the event of a dispute.

Many individuals and businesses have a web site but few understand their rights to the ownership of that site, or their responsibility to maintain that ownership. I bring this up because of a call I received last week from an individual whose website was “stolen”. They went o­n the Internet the other day to look at their website and something completely different appeared. Someone else was using their name and promoting a completely different product than the original owners had. In this example, no crime was committed. I will explain.

When you create a website, there are three costs involved. The first is the purchase of your domain name or URL as it is sometimes referred. This is the unique address you type into the browser to find your site such as www.yourname.com or www.buymystuff.net. These can be purchased from hundreds of sites o­n the Internet and are not that expensive. You can purchase these for a minimum of o­ne year and for multiple years if desired. o­nce purchased, your domain need to be “pointed to” the physical computer that your website will reside o­n.

The second cost involved is the purchase of the hosting package. This is the money you pay to rent a space o­n o­ne of the thousands of web servers located all over the world. There are free hosting packages available but they have their disadvantages and I won’t go into that here. Most people host their site o­n an ISP (Internet Service Provider) that is in their geographical area although there is no reason not to host o­n a server half way around the world, if it is a good, inexpensive, and reliable hosting server.

The third cost is to have your website created and maintained by a website designer of your choosing. Many people like to do this part themselves and there are many programs and books out there to help you create your own website. Many times the customer will have a website designer take care of all three steps for them and just pay o­ne fee. The web designer sends your website from his computer where he/she created it up to the server and can take care of all the details regarding #1 and #2 above.

Here is where you need to be a good consumer and know a little more about the process.

You are the owner of your domain name and the owner of your website. Although most people grant their website designer or website administrator the power to control all of this, and although most people do not understand the technicalities of domains and hosting packages, you should still have all the details readily available.

If you have a business website and delegated any of the work involved in setting it up to another person, you should still maintain complete control over its future.

Whether you or someone else purchases the domain name for your website (the www.yourname.com), make certain that you have the contact details from the company it was purchased from, and the corresponding username and password to access control over the domain’s use. Most importantly, make sure you are listed as the registered owner of the website, not the person or company that is creating your website for you. All registered domains have four contact individuals listed o­n the Internet. Your web administrator can be listed as the technical contact or the administrative contact but you need to be listed as the registered owner. This way, if any changes are made to the status of the domain, you are informed as well, and you should be notified when the domain name is about to expire.

This is how my friends’ website was “stolen”. He was not listed as the owner, and the design company that was listed as the owner went out of business. When the domain name expired (remember, you purchase these for a limited time and then have to renew), the owner did not know it and that particular domain name became available for anyone else to purchase – legally. Thus, my friends website was not really stolen. He was the victim of ignorance.

Now before you go reaching for your identification to check who you are, let me reassure you… I’m talking about your domain name.

Forgetting to renew a domain name can result in HUGE headaches, including paying additional fees or even having a competitor or domain name reseller grab your prized domain name.

Depending o­n their goals, they may use your old domain name for their site, they may agree to sell it back to you at an exorbitant price, or they may even completely refuse to sell the name back to you, essentially holding it hostage.

Sure, there may be legal action you can take if you have trademarks in place, but that takes time- and during all this time, your site and your e-mail are down!

So, how do we avoid all of this in the first place? Roll up your sleeves and let’s get started, shall we?

===============================
#1. First, let’s check!
===============================
Crank up your favorite web browser and visit the web site of the registrar for your domain name, or just choose o­ne from the list below. These are just a few of the registrars I could think of, not an inclusive list, and are simply in alphabetical order.

Dotster:

https://secure.registerapi.com/services/whois.php

GoDaddy:

https://registrar.godaddy.com/whois.asp

Network Solutions: http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml

Register.com

http://www.register.com/whois_lookup.cgi

Once there, follow the prompts to perform a whois search for your domain name.

Verify the expiration date for your domain name, and put a reminder o­n your calendar (RIGHT NOW) to renew it at least 30 days prior to the date given for the current expiration.

If you are already within that 30 day window, renew your domain name while you are thinking of it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

===================================
#2. The expiration process
===================================
All is not lost if your domain name has expired. There is a period of time after its expiration that you can still reclaim your prized possession.

Here’s how it works.

On the date that a domain expires, the registrar removes it from the root servers (the list of domains currently registered globally); therefore, any web sites or e-mail associated with the domain name will begin to stop working.

At this point, the domain has entered a 30 day period called the “Redemption Period”. The redemption period is a grace period that allows you to re-register your domain name in the event that you simply overlooked the expiration date, didn’t receive the expiration notice, etc.

You may contact your registrar during this period to renew your domain, but will nearly always have to pay an additional fee in order to retrieve your domain name from redemption.

The amount of the redemption fee could be an additional $50 – $90 (US), but each registrar sets their own fees for this service, some higher, some lower. Whatever the amount, it is in addition to your renewal fees.

After the 30 day redemption period, the domain enters a phase called “Pending Deletion”, which is approximately 5 days in length. During this phase, the domain is essentially “frozen”. It can not be retrieved by the original registrant and it can not be registered by another party.

At the end of this phase (which in practice may not be a full 5 days) the domain is o­nce again available to the first applicant that requests to register it.

==============================
#3. Don’t count o­n it
==============================
If your domain name expires, don’t assume that you can simply re-register the name again o­nce it becomes available, thereby saving the redemption fees.

Even if it is a little known name, there are literally thousands of companies and individuals that may grab your expired domain the second it’s available, preventing you from re-registering it.

Companies that offer to send targeted visitor traffic to your web site often do so by purchasing other expired domain names.

Companies that resell domain names may snag your expired domain in hopes of selling it back to you at a premium or selling it to another party.

Someone else may have just really wanted the domain name you had and placed a back-order for it (a request to purchase if the name becomes available).

Most organizations and individuals that purchase expired domains do so using automated software, and therefore have a much higher likelihood of obtaining the name than an individual attempting to monitor availability by hand.

==================
#4. Summary
==================
Each registrar has their own policies regarding expired domains; therefore, the time you have to rescue your domain from the hands of others may differ from the schedule above. Check your domain name now, and keep a reminder to renew it. That way, you can avoid the potential issues and additional costs of an expired domain all together.

Too little has been told. The things that I’ve heard make it even worse. Better nothing, then worse. Tell me your Domain name and I will tell you how successful you are.

For the last couple of months I’ve heard many arguments claiming that my domain name should be based o­n keywords relevancy, you web-site focused o­n. Let me ask you why?

The answer is obvious, these SE “experts” project that this tactic will help to raise your Web-site SE ranking o­n several positions up. In other words, they advise me to pick up a name for my whole Internet Business as well as my Web-Site, with the o­nly aim to have a chance to suite, trickor cheat SEs. Wow, I must be hating my own business!

Let me ask you another question: why there is Coca-Cola instead of Candy Water or Mercedes Benz instead of Comfortable Car? Do you still want to name your eBook selling Web-Site something similar to eBookSell.com instead of a real Brand name for your business? Don’t you know why there is Google.com, Amazon.com and Yahoo.com instead of GreatSE.com, Bookshop.com or Index.com? Imagine that you are a real car manufacturer. Are you going to name your car “Fast Car” or give some really unique name?

I may guarantee you that these keyword tricks will bring you nowhere. While keyword based domain name or other tactics like expressive use of tags instead of may raise the relevancy for that particular keyword in the short-term prospective, you cannot rely o­n these tricks forever,because if you do, other guy will outsmart you simply by having more web-pages with more valuable information and your

tags along with white text o­n white background tricks won’t help.

Don’t forget also that SE indexing algorithms are constantly changing and what proved to working yesterday, may not work today.

Besides HTML code may be easily changed, bad domain name cannot, at least, for a year, so you had better give your business a domain name it deserves, with a strong Brand andUSP from the very beginning! There is no brand in “eBook Selling Site” or “Best Search Engine Traffic”, no o­ne will ever remember you! So be smart and chose the right name for your e-business. Done with that!

2. Next. No arguments that your business name should be relatively short. Your domain name does not differ, it should be the same or even shorter. If your domain consists of three or more words try to use appropriate acronyms or abbreviations. Don’t suggest you to use “hyphens”, “misspellings” or “numbers” (if your official business name doesn’t have them). These “eye-soaping” won’t positively influence your business image also.

Is it difficult to create another “Google”? No. Is it difficult to imagine “Overture” instead of PPC Search Engine? No, billion times “no”. What you need is time, wit and imagination. If you don’t have something of the mentioned, then ask someone who has. Tell you the truth, I have very small vocabulary, so for my next project I will search Webster, Latin dictionary or try to ask friends about some useful ideas o­n that subject. Just make sure your domain wouldn’t be translated as something stupid o­n the language of the country you are planning to work with. Can it be even easier?

3. Third point. How to check what you domain name is worth? Imagine that your business has reached a billion dollar status, you have a corporate skyscraper with an extremely big corporate flag 100-by-100 meters wide (3,000-3,000 feet wide) that is hanging o­n the very top of your building with the name of your business o­n it. So does the name that you have imagined suit that corporate flag of a billion dollar corporation?

The domains like Amazon.com, Overture.com, Google.com, eBay.com or even GoDaddy.com are perfect examples of what direction you should move. My-Cool-PPC-Search-Engine.com orBestOnlineBooks.com are the worst examples of the domain names you can ever imagine.

Answer another question. Does your domain leave some “taste” in the minds of your visitors, or it is “just another o­ne” name? Does your domain as well as WS transfer any hidden or obvious message or is it “flat” and simple as a log? Remember: your branding policy of the WS and Domain name should provoke emotions, thought, curiosity or desire. PayPerClickSearchEngne.com is pay per click search engine. I know that, you know that, what next? Overture.com tries to make your subconscious imagination work. It has unique abstract inner meaning. Wake me up in the middle of the night and I will tell you that Overture is the best PPCSE, despite the fact that Overture’s meaning has very slightconnection to what a PPCSEs really are.

4. The domain name you choose shouldn’t offend your auditory and be liked by You. In other words, try to avoid “angels” in dealing with public and make your name you are proud of. The last notice is very important. Everything that is connected with your company even including the look of PC you are working o­n should arouse positive and pleasant emotions o­nly. You should be proud of your own business like the majority of Americans are proud of The United States.

Well, like I said, your business goes the same way it is called. Are you fond of your name? I hope you are.

On Feb. 6th, 2003, websidestory Inc., [websidestory.com], a web analyzation company released a report showing that the majority of websites are now visited by direct navigation, instead of using search engines and web links.

Direct Web Navigation is when a visitor locates a site by typing the domain directly into the browser or from a using a bookmark.

According to websidestory.com, in 2/2001 48.14% of sites were found through direct navigation and the other 51.85% through search engines and weblinks.

As of 2/2003 that percentage has risen to 64.43% and o­nly 35.55% were found through search engines and links.

This study however does not diminish the importance of search engines and links for initially finding a website.

But it does give evidence that a domain and site that a visitor is able to remember will be returned to directly in the future.

Note I said ‘able to remember’ and not ‘worth remembering.’ Sure your site should be of such value that it is worth remembering, but if you don’t have that solid brandable domain that sticks in the brain like glue than it won’t matter.

How many times have you wanted to return to a cool site, but couldn’t remember the domain to get their? Of course you could search for it at a search engine, but this takes more time and effort. The more steps you put in front of your prospects, the less likely your site is to be found.

This is why domain branding is so important. For a very low investment any o­nline business has the power to intensely leverage their marketing.

Think about it. Your Domain name is the most important marketing tool you have. Your domain is the first thing your audience sees and your first chance to generate a response from a consumer. Do they visit or move o­n? This decision is hugely impacted by the effectiveness of your domain.

The entire basis of marketing is getting someone’s attention and your domain must do just that. It becomes extremely powerful to use a brandable domain name to leverage your marketing to the maximum.

Put simply a quality, short, memorable domain will always lead to an increase in sales.

Nobody knows this better that large corporations who have spend millions o­n solid brandable domain names. In o­ne famous example venture capitalists in California paid $7.5 million to acquire Business.com. Even forsalebyowner.com fetched $835,000.

A little off topic but still interesting, is Ex-marine Darryl Pollock who registered the domain IraqiFreedom.com and has received offers into the thousands (Note: He has been qouted saying that if he were contacted by the pentagon he would ‘completely cooperate with them.’)

Crazy isn’t? But big business knows that these domains are worth because that domain will bring in sales for years and years to come. They can build it, promote it, brand it and it will work for them forever. Even two word, hyphenated domains are grabbing some pretty prices, checkout these recent Afternic and Ebay sales:

Internetbank.com $92,800
E-Privacy.com $35,080
eloans.net $6,060
Ez-HomeLoans.com $4,725
venture-capital.net $14,510
officetravel.com $2,625
qalaxycafe.com $1,890

When you are marketing your site, business, product, service, you must be seen, heard and remembered by your audience. Consumers are bombarded with messages all day every where they travel. You must stand out and the most cost effective way to do this is logical domain branding.

So what domains are memorable and what makes a domain brandable?

Find out and see examples in Part 2 of our special domainbranding articles series.

Get Part 2 now, by sending a blank email to
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