Tips for Choosing Domain Names
Intro To Domain Names
Each domain name consists of two parts - the Mid Level Domain (MLD), and the Top Level Domain (TLD). The Mid Level Domain is the Ford in Ford.com, the Concrete-Home in Concrete-Home.com. This part of the domain name can consist of up to 63 characters in .com, .net, or .org domains. Only letters, numbers, or hyphens are permitted; no underbars, exclamation marks or periods. The Top Level Domain refers to the .com, .net, or .org part of the web address. There are also country code Top Level Domains (ccTLD's) such as .ca for Canada, .fr for France, or .us for the United States. In most cases, you will need to reside in that particular country if you wish to purchase a ccTLD.
Choosing The Right Domain Name
Choosing the right domain name can be critical to the success of a website. Most Internet users remember websites by their domain names; your domain name can also affect the anchor text of inbound links; and your ranking in search engines. Let's take a few minutes to discuss the issues you must consider when choosing a domain.
Keyword or Branding?
Branding
Many of the most successful sites do not use keyword domains. These online businesses have chosen to go with a completely original domain, and brand it. A few examples are Yahoo!, Google, Amazon, Monster, and eBay. It's not that these large corporations don't know about search engine optimization; it's just that they are putting more emphasis on creating a brand name around their business.
Keyword
A keyword domain is a domain chosen to take advantage of search engine traffic. By choosing a domain that matches a keyword search, we are able to rank higher for targeted keywords and thereby benefit from added traffic and more potential for sales. For example, if you were a Las Vegas realtor, you might want to target the search phrase Las Vegas Realty by choosing the domain Las-Vegas-Realty.com. Looking through the Las Vegas yellow pages, many real estate agents have websites, but most do not target any specific keywords. It appears most realtors are simply naming websites after themselves; e.g., our fictitious friend, John Doe, is a real estate agent with Acme Realty; he chose john-acme.com. I don't expect he will be benefiting from a lot of free search engine traffic.
Whether you choose a brandable domain or a keyword domain is a choice you must make, and a choice you should make in accordance with your business plan. If you have a large offline advertising budget and the budget necessary to brand your organization, I'd recommend a brandable domain. If, on the other hand, you're working on a shoe-string budget, choose a keyword domain and let the search engines bring the customers to you. You might want to read up on the benefits of keyword domains in this thread entitled Domain Names - Keyword Or Brandable.
Seven Quick Tips
1. Don't include a specific location, unless you serve only that location. Even if you do ship nationwide, you may never get the chance to let the consumer know that; consumers from other areas are not likely to click through from search engines if your domain includes a location.
2. Cut to the chase, keep it simple. The shorter the better. It's easier to remember.
3. Two minds are better than one. Make a visit to a webmaster forum and ask for suggestions. You'd be surprised by some of the great suggestions that you may find in a webmaster forum.
4. Buy your domain from 123 Cheap Domains. 123CheapDomains is owned by Jonathan Lee, a great guy whose staff provides great customer service.
5. Buy the variations. If you go buy BlueFind.com, why not also pick up BlueFind.net and other variation to protect your brand?
6. Don't pay the big bucks. Some domains have sold for millions - don't do it. Those dollars are more effectively spent building up a brand and advertising your products and/or services.
7. Keep it legit. Try to avoid .ws, .tv, .biz, etc. Most respect is given to .com, .net, or .org domains.
Changing Domain Name Registrar
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.
Boost Your Traffic With Expired Domain Names
Until now you might have thought that expired domain names are excellent just for branding.
But do you know that by registering the right expired domain names you can significantly boost your website's exposure and traffic?
There is no doubt that Yahoo! is the world's biggest portal. It's no secret that many websites are making tons of money just from the fact that they're on Yahoo!. It's also nothing new that it's getting more and more difficult to get listed there.
Now, listen to this. There are tens of thousands of websites listed on Yahoo!. That's tens of thousands of unique domain names, some of which *expire*. Catching my drift?
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Example:
You own XYZ Web Hosting Corporation (xyzhosting.com) and you want to boost your website's traffic. John Qwerty once had a web hosting business too, with a domain name qwertyhosting.com. He even got listed on Yahoo.com and received some solid traffic from them over the years. Unfortunately his business flopped and he didn't renew his domain name, so it naturally expired.
Despite the fact qwertyhosting.com is available for re-registration, QWERTY Hosting is still in Yahoo! index. By registering qwertyhosting.com and pointing it to your xyzhosting.com, you'll get a steady flow of qualified visitors from Yahoo!
It's not just Yahoo.com that you can get residual traffic from. Some of the domain names that have now expired once were thriving online businesses linked from tens (maybe hundreds) other websites. Chances are that many of those links are still active, pointing to the now dead, expired domains. Now, if you can only register such a domain name, you can capture a stream of traffic that would otherwise go into a black hole.
To find such names, you need two things:
a) a list of expired domain names.
b) a link popularity checker to see whether a particular expired domain name has any links pointed to it.
With BizMint.com you get both things at once! After you signed up, you'd simply search for a domain name with a specific criteria and with one more mouse-click you'd instantly learn how many links there are pointed to a particular domain name.
Some people are getting hundreds of visitors every day thanks to these little-known tricks!
Pre-Owned Domain Names
I don't know about you, but sometimes it seems like all of the best domain names have already been taken. On more than one occasion, I've come up with a great domain name for a site, only to find that someone else had already purchased it. I can live with that, but sometimes I've found that it has been purchased by some scum domain scavenger, and that's really annoying.
A domain scavenger is someone who purchases a whole bunch of domain names under the theory that people will want to purchase some of them during the year or two that they own them. These people are bottom feeders, as they hold many useful domains, demand huge prices, and do not provide any real value. It's not uncommon to find that a domain name is not available, to check the WHOIS information and find it is owned by "this domain is for sale". In fact, some of these scum have been known to purchase thousands of domain names made of up the first and last names from a phone book, in the hopes that at least some of the people will want their names as a dot com.
Anyway, domains are only purchased for a specific time period, and they do come up for renewal regularly. Quite often they are not renewed, and at that time the domain names may be purchased by others. Even the so-called "good names" are occasionally not renewed.
Sometimes domain names do not get renewed because the business that owned them is no longer operational. Sometimes the business still exists but has found it no longer wants or needs a domain name. Quite often the bottom feeders will allow their unpurchased domain names to expire because they don't have the funds to purchase them again or they feel the domains are no longer marketable or profitable.
Occasionally, the domain name holder has died or lost interest in their business or the internet. Once in a while a domain is allowed to expire because it has attracted some maliciousness and it cannot be maintained, and most often of all, the domain name holder simply does not realize that it needs to be renewed. In this last instance, the domain name is unintentionally expired and someone can purchase it before the owner realizes it.
In any event, regardless of why a domain name expires, you can often find yourself in a position to purchase one that has been previously owned. Note that in addition to expired domains, you can also purchase domain names on the after-market (by making bids) or from the domain name resellers (the bottom feeders mentioned above).
Some Advantages Of Using Pre-Owned Names
The name was part of a link exchange - Webmasters work hard to get their sites involved in link exchanges. This means the domain names are listed on other sites, and this is useful for getting traffic. If you take over a domain name, you can inherit these incoming links and the resulting traffic.
It was listed in Yaho, DMOZ and/or Looksmart - A small industry has sprung up recently, which consists simply of selling tools and reports to allow people to quickly find domain names which are listed in Yahoo, DMOZ, Looksmart or other directories yet have expired. By expiring, these domain names are up for grabs, and all of the resulting benefits for the original site transfer to the new site. For a well placed entries, this can literally mean hundreds of thousands of hits per month.
There are hundreds of thousands of sites listed in Yahoo and millions in DMOZ. Anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred expire each month. Eventually the expiration would be discovered and the entry removed. However, if someone purchases the domain name quickly enough, the entry will remain and you will gain that traffic.
It has a good page rank in Google - Another thing that webmasters work very hard on is gaining page rank with Google, the number one search engine. A high page rank implies that the site appears nearer the top in search results pages. When you purchase a domain, you can inherit the resulting page rank and traffic. Note that you will need to duplicate the page or pages referred to by Google in order for this to work properly.
The Downside Of Using Pre-Owned Names
You inherit spam - If the previous owner received spam email, then when you take over the domain you may very well inherit it. Why is this? Well, when you own a domain name, you get the email sent to every single username on that domain. Of course, most email servers are smart enough to "bounce" email messages for users who do not exist, but that email still gets sent to the server. For a domain which received a lot of spam, it could mean a significant amount of bandwidth used just for junk messages to non-existent users.
You can inherit robot activity - I got a domain once which someone had listed with a number of robots (programs which perform automatic functions). These robots were exceptionally active and caused a tremendous amount of traffic - so much so that I had to give up using the domain for a couple of months until the robots stopped visiting.
You might inherit enemies - Sometimes people give up domain names for a reason. One of those reasons might be an enemy - someone (or a group) that is targeting the name for some malicious act. For example, the name might be the target of email bombs or denial-of-service attacks. In these instances, you could find yourself inheriting these issues.
The domain could be banned - If a site gets involved in spamming search engines (attempting to fool them for higher placement on the results pages), it can be banned. By purchasing these old domain names, you might be similarly banned. This normally would not effect your existing domains, but it might reduce the value of the domain name that you purchased.
Things to do before giving up a domain name
Be sure you really want to expire the domain - Once someone else purchases your domain name, you may find it impossible or very expensive to get it returned. You will lose access to the use of the name entirely. So be sure that you want to give it up before you actually allow it to expire.
Be aware of expiration dates - Keep an eye on your domain name expiration dates as you may not get notified by the registrar before expiration. This can happen because email is not a perfect delivery system, because of a glitch in the registrar system or even because you didn't check your mail or email for the renewal. Don't accidentally lose your domain names.
Change your email addresses - Once you lose access to a domain, you will lose access to any email that is going to that domain. Think of all of the private emails that you get, and imagine them going to strangers. Well, once someone else gets the domain he may receive those private emails.
Change any links that you can - If you are allowing a domain to expire, be sure you salvage any links that you might want to keep. While you can do this after a domain name expires, it makes more sense to do it beforehand. For example, if you had owned three domains that all went to the same web site and you allowed two of them to expire, you might want to spend the time to change the links to the domain name that you keep.
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