You offer web hosting services. Or web design services. Or both. When your clients need domain names for their websites, do you want to send them to another site, possibly to a competitor, to register one?

Of course not. That’s part of why domain name registration is a popular service to offer. Reselling domain names provides an additional service to attract and keep clients as well as another source of recurring revenue. You can offer domain name registrations on their own or bundled with other services you provide.

Features of domain name reseller programs

When you are a domain name reseller, your clients register domain names using the service accessed through your domain name reseller account. The domain name company bills you, and you bill your clients. Or possibly the domain company handles the billing.

You decide on the retail pricing, and you market your services. The wholesale prices you pay before you add your markup depend on your sales volume and on the domain name reseller program you choose.

All of the domain name reseller companies compared in this article offer a reseller API (Application Programming Interface), which enables you to use the features provided with the domain reseller program. When your clients register domain names or update records at your site, the API communicates with the domain name reseller program system. With an API at your website, you keep the appearance and branding of your site when you resell domain names.

Two of the domain name companies compared here offer website creation tools for resellers, which means that you can be in the business of reselling domain names within minutes of having your account set up.

Many domain name reseller programs require the domain name reseller to pay and regularly top up a deposit for domain names. By doing this, the domain name reseller is paying for the domains in advance while making a profit from them when they’re registered.

Domain name companies compared

The starting prices listed are the highest current wholesale prices for .com domains. Some other extensions may be higher, and the prices typically decrease with volume pricing.

See the company websites for more details about what each domain name reseller program offers.

BulkRegister

BulkRegister’s Domain Pilot tool allows domain name resellers to provide their clients with a unique URL and access code to make changes to the Whois data for their domains. Resellers can control which of the fields to provide their clients with access to. Registration can be automated or manual.

Resellers become BulkRegister members and are invited to take part in discussions about product ideas, upgrades, and updates. A $50 Overture advertising credit comes with the first year of membership.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $12
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: Yes

eNom

If you resell domain names through eNom, you choose between two eNom tools:

- Automated Registration Software (API), which allows your clients to register and manage their domains through your site
- PDQ, a site that you customize and eNom manages; they handle the billing, and you earn commissions

As an eNom domain name reseller, you can also offer your clients web hosting, web monitoring, SSL certificates, and other eNom products as a reseller.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99 if you use the PDQ website tool
- Deposit required: Starts at $199 for 199 eNom points
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.95
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: No

Tucows

A website builder, blogware, SSL certificates, and email services are among the services you can resell as well as domain names.

- Setup fee: $95
- Annual fee: No
- Deposit required: No minimum payment, but they recommend prepaying one month of credit in advance
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.85
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: No

Wild West Domains

Owned by The Go Daddy Group, Inc., Wild West Domains offers several reseller packages. They also offer other products to resell in addition to domain names, including hosting, website builders, email plans, SSL certificates, and merchant accounts.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: Starting at $99; $249 with the API
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $7.75
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: Yes

About the Author:

Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.

Are you the proud owner of your own website, meaning you own some virtual real estate on the Internet, including a domain name. Perhaps you have noticed the trickery of the Domain Name Registration companies, which use your credit card number at will to renew the domain name sometimes up to two months in advance. Obviously you are being cheated as the domain name is not due yet, but they have your money in advance.

This is not a new trick in business to cheat you out of your money, as it is the same trick that magazines do with their subscriptions. The best way to stop this from happening to you is to never give them permission to use your credit card to renew your domain name, even if they use scare tactics to tell you, that by giving them your renewal permission you will be sure not to lose your domain, website and the many hours you have invested in it.

If you do not allow automatic renewal the company will send you email notices of reminder. But be sure these renewal notices come from the actual company, as this is a way people will cheat you and use phishing scams. It would be nice if the FTC would take care of this scam, but let’s face it the FTC is as impotent as the Viagra Spam you get in your email box. The fact is the FTC is inept to scam and SPAM; you must protect yourself.

Most legitimate domain name registration companies will email you reminding you to renew anyway and often two-three months in advance, do not email that far in advance as many times you lose the remainder of the time left. It is amazing that you have to keep paying to keep your domain name, seems like once you buy it you should own it for as long as your site is up and running. What a scam that is? But this is typical, you see most all monopolies are created by the government; this is no exception, as the domain name registration started out as a monopoly thanks to the government. Now that scammers are using it to phish you must watch your credit card number like a hawk. The companies themselves are cheating their consumers; you are forced to watch out for yourself. So, do not give the companies permission to automatically renew, they are abusing that privledge and do not renew too soon before the date of expiration and call your Congress Person as domain names should not expire if you are using them. Think about this.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; www.WorldThinkTank.net/

What is a Domain Name?

Imagine that everybody in the world used their telephone number instead of their name… If names didn’t exist, you’d be forced to invent them, or you’d never be able to identify your closest friends, let alone casual acquaintances you’d met only a couple of times!

Domain names were invented to fill a similar need on the Internet. Most computers connected to the Internet are identified by a unique number called an IP address (for instance, 234.208.12.129). IP addresses are neither intuitive (they don’t correspond to a geographical location) nor easy to remember.

If you type the IP address into the URL bar of your browser you will be taken to the web site it relates to. As well as being hard to remember, however, IP addresses are also FIXED (i.e. if you change web hosting companies you’ll need to get a new IP address for your site).

Domain names offer a more intuitive way to name and find a website. Each domain name replaces a string of meaningless numbers (an IP address) with a simple word or expression. That’s the theory - in practice, domain names can be pretty obscure too. A domain name is the label used to identify the Web site, for example "http://www.qualitylinkbuilding.com" It usually describes some aspect of the site and is easier for the visitors to remember than the Web address, also known as the IP address.

.com is the top domain under which the other domain name is registered. There are heaps of different top domains out there, from commercial (.com) through to non-profit (.org) and even country-specific top domains such as France (.fr) and Italy (.it). Every domain name is registered under a top domain of some kind. The top domain is often known as the domain extension. History of domain

When top-level domains were first implemented, in January 1985, there were six:

.com
.edu
.gov
.net
.org
.mil

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) currently classifies top-level domains into three types:

country code top-level domains (ccTLD): Used by a country or a dependent territory. It is two letters long, for example jp for Japan.

generic top-level domain (gTLD): Used (at least in theory) by a particular class of organizations (for example, com for commercial organizations). It is three or more letters long. Most gTLDs are available for use worldwide, but for historical reasons gov and mil are restricted to the government and military, respectively, of the USA.

infrastructure top-level domain: The top-level domain arpa is the only one.

A full list of currently existing TLDs can be found at the list of Internet top-level domains.

Domain Name System

When the Internet was being collaboratively developed by a substantially technical community around a growing but still manageable Internet Engineering Task Force, the Domain Name System (DNS) evolved as a hierarchical solution to the problem of keeping track of which computers had which Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

The Internet however, is based on IP addresses. Domain Name System (or Service or Server), an Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they’re easier to remember.

How does the Domain Name system work?

Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name http://www.qualitylinkbuilding.com, http://www.seo-professional-india.com , http://www.selldomaindomain.com might translate to 198.105.232.4

The DNS system is, in fact, its own network. If one DNS server doesn’t know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned.

Without DNS, we’d all have to memorize long numbers instead of URLs or E-mail addresses. What a mess that would be! Guidelines for the registering a domain names

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Ihe ICANN coordinates the assignment of Internet Domain Names, IP address numbers, protocol parameter and port numbers and identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function. Domain name guidelines:

1. The main part of the name (’yahoo’) can only contain the letters a-z, the digits 0-9, and a dash (-).

2. The dash can’t be at the beginning or end of a name.

3. Underscore (_) and other special characters are not allowed.

4. The name may not exceed 63 characters, excluding the characters used to identify the Top Level Domain (such as, .com, .biz, .info, .net, .org).

5. Upper and lower-case characters are equivalent: YAHOO.COM is the same as yahoo.com.

6. The end of the name (e.g. ‘.com’) is called the TLD (Top Level Domain). Conventions for TLD’s are discussed below.

What does it mean to "register" a domain name?

When you register a domain name, you are inserting an entry into a directory of all the domain names and their corresponding computers on the Internet.

Domain Name Registrar?

Registrars are companies that compete with each other and enter new or renew domains into a TLD Registry(s). 1. Domain Name Registrars can set their own registration and renewal fees.

2. All Registrars are required to collect the same information.

3. The differences between Registrars are basically: price and service.

Some answers for Frequently Asked Questions

How do I register a domain name?

Domain names ending with .aero, .biz, .com, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, .net, .org, or .pro can be registered through many different companies (known as "registrars") that compete with one another.

The registrar you choose will ask you to provide various contact and technical information that makes up the registration. The registrar will then keep records of the contact information and submit the technical information to a central directory known as the "registry." This registry provides other computers on the Internet the information necessary to send you e-mail or to find your web site. You will also be required to enter a registration contract with the registrar, which sets forth the terms under which your registration is accepted and will be maintained. Domain Names aren’t free. But, if you are a serious about your business, a Domain Name is the best investment you can make. To register your Domain Name:

1. Determine what Top Level Domain (TLD) you are qualified to use: gTLD, rTLD or ccTLD.

2. Click on the TLDs Registry and select a Certified Registrar.

3. Conduct a WHOIS Search and determine if your domain name is availabe.

Fill out their form.

Double check your domain name spelling and extension. Click process link.

Will my name and contact information be publicly available? Information about who is responsible for domain names is publicly available to allow rapid resolution of technical problems and to permit enforcement of consumer protection, trademark, and other laws. The registrar will make this information available to the public on a "Whois" site. It is however possible to register a domain in the name of a third party, as long as they agree to accept responsibility — ask your registrar for further details.

How long does a registration last? Can it be renewed? Each registrar has the flexibility to offer initial and renewal registrations in one-year increments, with a total registration period limit of ten years.

How much does a domain-name registration name cost?

Each registrar sets the price it charges for registering names, and prices vary significantly among different registrars. In addition, some registrars offer discounted or free registration services in connection with other offerings, such as web hosting.

Can I change registrars after registering a domain name? Yes, you may change the registrar sponsoring your domain name (60 days after intial registration.) For details on the transfer process, contact the registrar you would like to assume sponsorship of the registration.

Regards,

Mirza Mohd Ali Baig
Seo Professional India
http://www.qualitylinkbuilding.com
http://www.selldomaindomain.com
Email: contactseo@gmail.com
Phone: 00919391136471

I have a Masters in Engineering and Changed my profession as an IT Professional. I have More than 3 years of Experience as a SEO Professional. If you are interested then ask for Quote for Seo Campaigns. My Website http://www.qualitylinkbuilding.com

How would you define the ideal domain name? Consider some characteristics that you might find in the dream domain name.

1. Not Registered Yet

Many domain names are not available. Someone else may have registered it for use with their own website. Perhaps a domain name speculator bought it hoping to sell it for a quick or high profit.

The ideal domain name would not have been registered yet and would be available for the less than ten dollars annual registration fee.

Realistically, you might have to settle for another name. Alternatively, you might offer to buy the desired domain name from whoever beat you to it.

2. A Dot Com

If you are operating a business, your ideal domain name would be one with the dot com (.com) Top Level Domain (TLD) name extension.

First of all, it is easier for people to remember dot com names. There is almost an assumption that your website is dot com.

To ask people to remember your website’s name is bad enough. If you expect them to also remember that you are dot something else, expect to lose some traffic to your dot com competitor.

As well, dot coms generally seem to resell for more money than other TLDs because they are perceived to be superior. (If you don’t have a dot com name, was it because you couldn’t afford to buy it? Perhaps your competitor had the foresight to register it first.)

Realistically, however, your dot com name may not be available. You must either pick another name or pick another TLD extension.

Additionally, there may be reasons why you prefer or must have a different TLD.

Perhaps you are a university needing a dot edu (.edu) name. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) might prefer a dot net (.net) name over dot com. Similarly, a non-profit organization might desire a dot org (.org) domain name.

As well, there are country specific domain names that you might prefer.

As an example, if your business was limited to serving customers located in Canada, you might want a dot ca (.ca) domain name.

In most cases, however, it would be preferable to obtain a dot com name.

3. Short and Memorable

The dream domain name would contain letters of the alphabet only. It would not have hyphens, underscores, numbers, or special characters.

The ideal name would be short and memorable. It would not have spelling errors or anything else that would make it difficult to remember.

Realistically, sometimes only the hyphenated version of a domain name is available.

4. A Proper Name

For branding purposes, you should probably use your business or company name as your domain name. After all, doesn’t your company name differentiate you from your competitors?

As well, if you have trade names, product names, slogans, and so on, you might want to protect them from unauthorized use by registering them as well. You can simply have your domain registrar point (or re-direct) these names to your main site.

You might be tempted to register generic names like computers.com, flowers.com, or accountingfirm.com. However, proper names (such as your company’s name) seem to outperform generic names (such as widgets.com).

For example, when you think about computers, who comes to mind? Apple? IBM? Dell? You likely don’t think of computers.com.

So, your dream domain name has not been registered by anyone else, is dot com, is short and memorable, and brands your business by its proper name.

RESOURCE BOX:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For more information about domain names, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/domain-names.html

For profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit: http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

Everyone likes a bargain. It’s even wise to keep one’s costs down. On the other hand, you can be so cheap that you cut your own throat.

Here are two ways to register a domain name for free and some reasons why you might not want to.

1. You Must Have Your Own Top Level Domain (TLD) Name

Your business website should definitely have its own top level domain (TLD) name. This means a name like yourcompany.com. It doesn’t mean a subdomain of someone else’s domain name, such as yourcompany.someisp.net.

Sometimes persons hesitate to register a proper domain name because of cost, lack of knowledge, or indecision. However, paying the nominal fee charged by the domain registrar for your own domain name can reap rich dividends.

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or Internet address like (ignoring the http part) someisp.net/hosting-accounts/yourco/, or yourcompany.someisp.net, just doesn’t look as professional as yourcompany.com. It might be free (as in included with your web space) but it just doesn’t cut it.

Consider: If you put your URL on your letterheads, business cards, signs, et cetera, which Internet address looks more professional?

If you mention your URL on your radio advertising or to a customer over the phone, which one will be easier to remember?

As well, what if your web host goes out of business or you decide that you want to change to another provider. Now, you need to notify everyone that you have now changed to yourcompany.someotherisp.net. You will also need to change all your stationery, signs, and advertising to reflect the change.

On the other hand, the domain name yourcompany.com, could be transferred from one web host to another simply by informing your domain name registrar of the change.

So, to avoid losing business and incurring unnecessary additional costs, be sure you have your own top level domain name.

2. Should You Get a Free Top Level Domain?

It is possible to get a free top level domain from Dot TK (@www.dot.tk). (You may also get paid dot tk (.tk) domains from them.) However, there can be disadvantages to using a free top level domain name.

Here are some of the restrictions noted on the Dot TK website.

You may register no more than three free domain names.

The ownership of the free domain remains with Dot TK. This means that you can’t sell it. (Of course, if you pay for the domain you do own it and can transfer it to a new owner.)

Also, if you don’t have 25 visitors come to your home page within a ninety day period, your free domain name registration is cancelled.

You need to have existing web content somewhere so that your dot tk name can be forwarded to it.

There may well be other disadvantages.

Apparently, Dot TK uses frames to show your website. This being the case, you may have issues with navigation (bookmarking or finding specific pages) and search engine friendliness.

Therefore, for serious business use, consider carefully the true cost of free domain names.

RESOURCE BOX:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For more information about domain names, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/domain-names.html

For profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit: http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

Do you need a domain name for your business? Here are just a few ways of purchasing one.

1. Think Up and Register Your Own Original Domain Name

Think up your own original name and register it at a domain name registrar. Although this seems obvious, many people feel that all the good domain names are already taken.

It is true that it won’t be easy to come up with a suitable name that has not already been registered. However, with some careful thought, you may come up with your own original domain name.

For example, I once was going to buy a certain domain name but someone else beat me to it. Upon reflection, I came up with a comparable (if not better) domain name myself and simply registered it.

2. Buy Already Expired Domain Names

Sometimes you can find the domain name you want from a list of already expired domain names. (I did!)

Visit whois.net (or a similar site) to "Search through deleted domains" by keyword.

This way you pay no commission (just the nominal domain name registration fee) as you are simply registering a "new" domain name.

3. Buy Domain Names on eBay

Another source of domain names is eBay. Look under both of these categories:

• Computers & Networking: Other Hardware & Services: Domain Names; and

4. Approach the Domain Name Registrant

Perhaps the name you want has already been registered by someone else. Why not approach the domain name owner and make an offer? The owner’s contact information may be available on their website or from the domain name registrar.

5. Search the Internet

Visit domain name brokers, for sale and classified sites, forums, newsgroups, expiring domain names websites, search engines, auction sites, and other websites to find your domain name.

These, then, are just a few suggestions on where to buy your domain names.

RESOURCE BOX:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit: http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

For more information about profiting from domain names, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/domain-names.html

Domain names are the first step in implementing your Internet marketing business plan. Domain name represents your brand. Many people know very well the importance of brand in the “offline” but even those can make mistakes in their Internet brand management. Domain name is the first step in successful Internet brand management.

Choosing a domain name

It is not easy to register a good domain name (especially dot com), these days. According to domain name statistics on the most popular web site for whois searches Whois Source there are more than 57 million active generic top level domains registered as of September, 2005. Majority of these domain names are .com names. You can view this statistics if you visit http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/

It is sure that you can’t register a classy one-word domain name but with a little knowledge and appropriate services you can find a decent one, especially if you are not interested only in .com names. Useful site for finding decent domains is above mentioned Whois Source - http://www.whois.sc There you will find a free service that will give you 20 domain suggestions based on your keyword. Also, on the Internet you can find software that focus on domain names. Using free software Domain Name Analyzer you can make a list of domain names and this software will check availability of all included domains so you won’t have to check one-by-one which is time-consuming. Also this program will give you useful suggestions.

Another useful thing in find decent domain names is using expired domain name or back-ordering services. Using the first service you will get the list of expired domain names where you can find some really nice names with a little luck. However, it is not easy because many people use those services and some companies have special infrastructure that check availability of certain domain names every second and register them. You will have better chance to get your desired domain using back-ordering services. These services will monitor for domains you want to register and once they expire they will make register them on your behalf. Popular services are SnapNames.com and Pool.com.

It is recommended that your domain name be short, catchy, brandable and most important – easy to remember! You can register a domain name that has no obvious connections with your business but that is cool. Then you will have to invest more money in branding. With good domain name you will save thousand and thousand dollars in advertising, especially in TV advertising. If you are an email marketer domains are also very important because getting email subscribers without well designed web site is not recommended. It is recommended that the name of your domain be the same like your email newsletter name. You can make “teaser” articles in your email newsletter so that your readers will have to visit your web site in order to read complete articles and vice-versa. You can put “teaser” articles on your web site and require that people subscribe to your email newsletter to read complete articles.

Also, in order to find out popularity of certain keyword combinations you can use keyword suggestion services. We can recommend you these services:

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox

Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

You can use Google, enter your keyword combination and see how much results you will get.

If you are in process of registering a domain name we can suggest you these two great companies:

Go Daddy – http://www.godaddy.com

Namecheap – http://www.namecheap.com

Internet brand management

We will take our company Infacta, Ltd. as an example. Infacta is Ireland-based company so it is logical that we registered www.infacta.ie. However, although we are Ireland-based company we focus globally. This can prove the fact that we have clients in more than 130 countries world-wide. So, it is also logical that we have a domain name in .com extension, too. Dot com domain name is considered as a global domain name for companies. Many people think that it is enough to have 2 domain names. For successful Internet brand management it is not enough. Beside, .ie and .com domains, Infacta owns domains in all major generic top level domain extensions (gtld) like .net, .org and .info. This is to prevent people or companies to use other Infacta name in other extensions that can confuse our customers and make harm to our brand. Beside that, we registered domain names for our products GroupMail and GroupMetrics in different domain extensions. Other famous companies have literally hundred and even thousand domains in their portfolio for each country where they have a presence and for their services. That is called a professional brand management.

There is also one more thing that can show how serious one company is regarding their domain names and Internet presence, in general. That is domain expiration date. Domain names expire. After that (preferably before that) date domain owners have to renew them. When you make whois inquiry about certain domain name, for example at www.whois.sc , beside registrant info you will see an expiration date. Imagine that you want to see an expiration date of your email marketing software company and you see that the expiration date is the next year or even this year. This doesn’t sound promising if you want a reliable business partner that will be in the business in the next 10 years, too, that you can count on. It is not only important because of whois searches and credibility, it is important because of search engines. Google gives better placement for companies that have domains registered for longer period. It is a sure indicator that it is a stable business and that they won’t go anywhere. Infacta domain name www.infacta.com expires in 2011.

There are some services that can help you in Internet brand management, to monitor that someone else is not using your trademarked names. One of those companies that offer brand monitoring services is NameProtect, Inc. at http://www.nameprotect.com Also, it is highly recommended that before you register your domain name to visit http://www.uspto.gov to check if your name that you want to register has been trademarked to avoid possible problem and law suits later. USPTO is official web site of the United States Government for patents and trademarks. Here you can also register your patent, trademark or service mark.

If your company’s name has a good, generic name and you want to register a domain, it is most likely that the .com domain will be taken. Sometimes, it is good choice to buy it from the actual owner. Also, you can buy domain names that are highly connected with your products and services and that will help you in Internet marketing.

The most popular web sites for buying/selling domain names are:

Sedo - http://www.sedo.com

Great Domains - http://www.greatdomains.com

Afternic - http://www.afternic.com

Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

Buying a good domain name is only one step in making a successful investment. In the world of virtual real estate, the domain name is the land and the actual website is the structure. There are thousands of high-grade domain names that point to a very shabby websites, this opens up opportunity doors to willing investors.

Our main objective is to find out what makes a fixer-upper domain name, and which ones would actually make a good investment. There are a few tricks that we can use to make a valuable decision.

When finding a fixer-upper domain name:

1. Look for areas of the market that experience growth. For example, if real estate is booming hot, then real estate domain names will be also increasing in value.

2. Once the market which is experiencing online growth is pin-pointed, think of high-class domain names that have unspectacular web presence. Check the domain name auctions such as Sedo.com to see if any domains in that market range are for sale, and make a bid. Today’s domain economy is extremely "SELL" based, so you might get away buying a top-notch domain for a really low price. If you come across a really good domain name with a dying website, you possibly hit the jackpot since the owner is no longer interested in maintaining the investment and will likely sell at a good price.

3. Put together a short plan on how you or your team will improve the site, or even consider tearing down the entire site and building a new one.

4. If you see potential for a profit, make an offer to purchase the domain name from the owner.

It is important to have a plan of the website or “structure” that will be placed under the domain name. Just like in real estate, it is not logical to simply buy a home, tear it down and then try to sell the land alone. What attracts domain name buyers is the type of traffic that visits the website, so make sure that your fixer-upper domain name and the new attractive web-structure attracts lots of traffic. This traffic has to be unique, and it cannot come from paid advertisements.

Fixing up websites is not for everyone, it requires specialized skills and vision. Remember, you must be ready to spend some money to be successful in domain name fixer-uppers. Not only do you have to invest time and money to develop a jaw-dropping website, but you also have to make sure you research the market so that you’re developing in the right zone! But if done correctly, huge profits are usually claimed.

For more information on domain name investment visit http://www.planswork.com

Domain name investing is the only game in which you have absolute control over the fate of your investment on a global market.

Many amateur domain name investors are scrambling into the market, hoping to make a high gain from offering just a few domain names for sale on the auctions. This of course is how most of us began, but in the end you will either sink or swim. To become a major domain name player you must first learn the art of buying, selling is considered unpopular among top domain name investors.

So what does it take to make it to the top? Well, first of all it takes guts, and second it takes a vision. Some major domain name players simply wish to conquer a certain market by buying off thousands of domains which will put them in control of demand, and demand controls the price. Slowly feeding these domains back on the market they are almost guaranteed a golden nugget. What do they do with the rest of the thousands of domain names? Just park them and watch the revenue roll in by serving Pay-Per-Click advertisements to the millions of visitors the domains generate each month. An example of such brutal market sweep happened on Monday, Feb. 23 2004 when Thunayan K. AL-Ghanim, widely known as Elequa, owner of one of the world’s largest domain portfolios (containing about 35,000 domains), closed out the last three-letter .info domains. Just 48 hours later he came back and wiped out the entire remaining stock of three-letter .biz domains in one day (approx. 4,600 domains). If you feel like this is your style, several hundred domains will get you into the door, but you will need several thousand to have a seat at the table.

Other domain name players take on a very different game. They treat each domain name as a precious jewel and need only a handful of top-notch domains in their vault to fulfill their appetite. Their goal is to develop each domain into a money-generating cow from scratch. This approach requires just a couple domains that could cost anywhere from just a few thousand dollars up to anywhere close to the million bench-mark (depending on how huge the vision is). Chris Chena, a whiz kid from Paraguay took on this strategy after failing a few times in domain name investments. He went after the finest Spanish domains such as Juegos.com (games in Spanish) and Viajes.com (travel). After successfully developing them, he maintains gold streams of hundreds of thousands dollars in monthly revenues which more than paid for themselves a few times over.

So, lesson learned from the big guns. Become skilled at sustaining a revenue stream from your domain name investments. And when you are ready to grow up, mass register hundreds or even thousands domains, or buy off a few exclusive broad-market domains. Make a goal, and enjoy the game.

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Registering a domain name with malicious intent or in bad faith is popularly called Cybersquatting in WWW. This is usually done for monetary reasons whereby one books a domain similar to a registered trademark or copyright of any known company and then tries to sell it to the concerned company at an exorbitant price.

For example, if one registers a domain nike.net and then attempts to sell it back to Nike, it is cybersquatting. It will be in addition a violation of law if he/she puts up a website on nike.net describing Nike products and services in bad taste. On the other hand, if someone own a company trademark like Nike Foods and host a food website on nike.net, there is no cybersquatting or violation of law. So, it is the intention and not just the name which amounts to cybersquatting.

Cybersquatting was made illegal by the passage of a federal law in 1999 known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. The law became necessary because numerous large companies were forced to pay large sums to buy their domain names from third parties. These companies included such notables as Panasonic, Fry’s Electronics, Hertz and Avon.

Cybersquatting is quite common specially against the popular brands but most of the time, the victim company doesn’t know about it. How do you know if a company is a victim of cybersquatting? Type in a name that is a trademark or copyright like Sakshay preceded by "www" and following by ".com", ".net" or ".org". If you get a valid web site which looks like it is related in some way to the domain name, then there is no cybersquatting in effect (although this could be a simple trademark violation). However, if you get one of the following results, then this could be a cybersquatter.

- Can’t find server

- under construction

- page with no relationship to domain name

Of course there could be a reasonable explanation for each of these results, so they do not always mean there is cybersquatting occurring. It’s a good idea to contact the domain name owner before taking any legal action to find out what’s going on.

Since there can be many reasons both in favor and against cybersquatting in any specific case, how can one prove someone is cybersquatting?

- The domain name registrants intention was to profit from your domain name in bad faith

- Your trademark was in effect and widely known at the time the domain name was registered

- The domain name is identical to your trademark

- And you have actually registered the trademark

How do you know there is a bad faith intent? Well, there is probably no bad faith intent if one of the following is true:

- domain name is the same as the person’s name or nickname or company providing services or products in different domain.

- They are actually selling or intend on selling something on their web site - They have registered the domain prior to your trademark registration and have been using the domain name for some purpose or other.

- Does the web site owner actually have a legitimate use of the domain name? This would be, for example, true for a company named "Nike Foods". They would have a legitimate reason for owning the "Nike" domain name.

Some clues that cybersquatting is occurring include:

- The domain name owner has put up a web site which in some way harms your company. For example, if you had somehow purchased "TATA.ORG" and created a web site about how inferior are TATA products, you are cybersquatting.

- If the domain name owner never legitimately used the domain name and simply offered to sell it to you, he is cybersquatting. If a person buys up a lot of names and has sold them over and over, there is a pattern of cybersquatting.

- If the domain name is the same as a very famous trademark, then it has a greater likelihood of being considered cybersquatting.

What can happen if someone is found guilty of cybersquatting is they can be ordered to hand over the domain name. In addition, if the domain was purchased after 1999, they can be ordered to pay monetary damages.

Dr Ravi Chamria is the CEO, Sakshay Infosystems Pvt Ltd. He can be contacted at ravi@sakshay.net or you may visit http://www.articlesworld.com and dhandaulat.com