A domain transfer is nothing but a domain registrar transfer, as it means the transfer of the name from one registrar to another. There was a time when all domain names were handled by Network Solutions, Inc. leaving you with no choice at all. But the monopoly no longer exists and now you can choose from over a hundred domain registers according to your needs and financial capability.

For transfer of domain, you should apply to the gaining registrar, as it is responsible for the operation. It is the duty of the gaining registrar to ensure that the application for transfer by the domain owner is a valid one. The validation usually is in the form of an email sent to the administrative contact that requires a reply. In some cases, however, signed faxes are used.

Losing registrars these days may resort to ‘double-checking.’ In this case, they will perform additional security checks if you seek transfer from them. The losing registrars may ask you to reply to an email, or dispatch a notarized letter.

As in the case of cheap transfers, you will find a number of registrars that will offer you free transfer of domain names. The process of transfer is not complex, but is comprised of a number of steps that must be followed. Although the transfer is free of cost, they nonetheless charge an amount (mostly less than ten dollars) as domain registration fee and adds one year to the current domain’s expiry date. Some registrars will also allow you to use their value added services.

Domain Transfer provides detailed information on Domain Transfers, Transfer Domain Registration, Cheap Domain Transfers, Free Domain Transfers and more. Domain Transfer is affiliated with DNS Hosting.

A good domain name can be like prime real estate; the most valuable ones — the ones with easy name recognition — may already be taken. With a bit of creative brainstorming, anyone can come up with a good, memorable, available name. Here are three tips to get you started.

====> 1. MAKE IT EASY FOR CUSTOMERS TO FIND AND REMEMBER.

o Can they say it?

o Can they spell it?

o Can they remember it?

o Shorter is better.

o Focus on names that end in .com and .net (and .org if you’re a non-profit)—all the other endings are useless.

o Be careful about punctuation and numbers: BlueToo, Blue2, BlueTwo, BlueTo, BlooToo, and Blue-Two all sound the same to the customer.

o Register common misspellings of your domain name.

Can’t think of a good name that isn’t already taken? Try this domain name suggestion tool: http://www.nameboy.com

====> 2. MAKE SURE YOU OWN IT.

I regularly talk to small business owners and even larger companies who are suprised to find out they don’t own the domain name where their own web site is located. Check "WhoIs" (http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/ or http://whois.opensrs.net) and see who is listed as the owner of your domain name(s). You should be listed as the owner, not your web site designer (although it’s fine if they’re listed as a technical or administrative contact). If your web designer registered your domain name on your behalf, get this resolved right away. Make sure:

o you own your own domain name;

o your contact information is correct and current; and

o you have the current login and password to your domain name registry.

====> 3. GET IT CHEAP.

o GoDaddy (http://www.godaddy.com) offers names as low as $8.95 per name, per year.

o 000domains.com (http://www.000domains.com) — the company I use -– offers names for $13.50 per year.

(c) Copyright Jamila White. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jamila White, "The E-Commerce Diva(tm)", helps small business owners attract new customers and sell more products on the Web. Get her free "Sell More Online" newsletter at http://www.ecommercediva.com

WANT TO PUBLISH THIS ARTICLE FOR FREE? Webmasters: You can "reprint" this article on your own web site or in your newsletter as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end and the copyright notice, but not this note), and you send a copy of your reprint to articles@ecommercediva.com.

To download this article for printing (HTML or text), go here: http://www.ecommercediva.com/articles/domainnames.html#download

Choosing a domain name can be a real exercise in frustration, but it is one of the most important decisions you will make when getting your business online.

Why so difficult you ask? Well, for a start, almost every word in the English language (and I’m willing to bet most other languages too), has been taken in the most common domains. If you make widgets, you’ll almost certainly find that ‘widget.com’ was purchased already back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the web.

To make matters worse, there are so many businesses out there with the same acronym as your business’, it’s likely that yours is gone too by now. Unless you are IBM, and can spend big money to either pay premium dollar for your domain, or sue for the rights to it, you’re out of luck there too.

So what does that leave you with? Your full business name is a good start, however with hundreds of thousands of businesses operating around the globe, you may very well even find that problematic.

So how can you get your foot in the proverbial cyber-door? Here are some tips I have personally found helpful in the past:

- Start with your business name. If you’re lucky, it might actually still be available. If so, buy it now for every country you will be likely ever operate in. There’s nothing worse than preparing to expand into a new market, only to find that you have to operate under a completely different domain name in that country.

- Try some of the newer top-level domains. If you are a television studio, for example, you could register ‘MyTVShow.tv’ for your next series. Originally, there were seven top level domains, namely .com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, and .org. Over time, however, more have been created. Aside from the country-specific domains, you might want to consider .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .int, .jobs, .museum, .name, .pro and .travel if any of these support your business objectives.

- Create a new word and market it well enough to build brand identity. This is a more expensive choice, because it takes a while for people to start to remember your name. That said, once they do, they’ll associate your business with a unique identity. It worked for Google, so why not for you?

- Try word combinations. These too are notoriously difficult to find unowned, but if you are a widget maker, and ‘widget-makers.com’ is available, perhaps you are in luck.

Of course, as with many things, it is often prudent to consult the experts. If your site is being developed by a professional web development business, they should be in a position to advise you from experience what pitfalls to avoid, and how to best market your business for maximum exposure on the internet.

David Malan is an internet and e-commerce expert with over ten years experience in designing and developing enterprise grade online solutions for business.

He owns and runs RealmSurfer Consulting, based in Perth, Western Australia.

Website: Web Design Perth About: About RealmSurfer Web Design Perth

Determine where a domain name is currently hosted

Domain transfers are without a doubt one of the most confusing things to a domain name owner, especially if you’ve never done it before and you don’t have a clue as to where to start. Unfortunately; it’s a fact and I can’t make it easy for you. But I can try to ease it up a bit.

The first thing you need to do is determine where a domain name is currently hosted. To do this, I must do a whois search.

Go to one of the websites below:

http://betterwhois.com
http://allwhois.com
http://completewhois

For this example; I will use betterwhois.com. Type your domain name in the text box provided.

The whois database gives info about the registrant: administrative contact, the technical contact, and the billing contact; including addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. This is available to the public.

I want info about notreallyadomain.com for this example. This domain does not exist, so any information is for example purposes only.

This is what you will see:

Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.

Domain Name: NOTREALLYADOMAIN.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Nameserver: NS1.NOTREALLYANAMESERVER.NET
Nameserver: NS2.NOTREALLYANAMESERVER.NET
Updated Date: 07-jan-2004
Creation Date: 08-mar-1997
Expiration Date: 08-mar-2006

The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars.

So, to break the whois search down:

Domain Name: The domain name you have inquired about

Registrar: The registrar the domain has been registered with

Whois Server: Who is database this information was pulled from.

Referral URL: The URL of the Registrar - who you need to contact in order to change the domain from one nameserver to the other, either by physically talking to them or using control panel access.

Primary Nameserver: The first nameserver the domain currently resides on.

Secondary Nameserver: The second nameserver the domain currently resides on.

Two nameservers are generally used, if the primary nameserver breaks; then the secondary can take over the primary nameserver duties until the primary is fixed.

Updated Date: When the whois record was last updated.

Creation Date: When the domain name was created.

Expiration Date When the domain name expires.

This domain was registered thru an Opensrs registrar/reseller. Scan the who is database; you will usually find the Registrar contact info. In this case; the info was towards the bottom:

Registration Service Provider: Domainmonger.com, service@domainmonger.com +1.425-821-8032 http://www.domainmonger.com

I would then go to domainmonger.com.

Providing I have my userid and password; I could login and change my nameserver info, contact info or any number of functions. Once I have changed my nameserver info, there is generally a propagation period as the internet as a whole updates with new DNS information.

For a new domain name, count on anywhere from 12 - 24 hours. For a domain name that is already in existence, and has already been moved, it can take anywhere from 12 - 72 hours. There is no definitive time, unfortunately. I’ve had domains propagate in a matter of hours, and I’ve had a couple take two weeks or more.

Recommendations to keep your domain name maintenance hassle-free:

Never use your domain name as part of your email address on your contact email for your whois record. Use a web-based email like Yahoo or Hotmail. If you experience any kind of issue, you’ll be emailed at your contact email, and if it’s your domain name and it’s broken, you’re out of luck.

Use yourself as a technical contact on your whois record. Use a second email address as well. Hosting companies do go out of business, and this could hinder your access should you want to move the domain name.

Keep track of the email addresses you use as contacts, the userids and passwords. Keep track of your domain name - when you ordered it, when it expires. If you let the domain name expire, your website will not be accessible through the domain name. Keep track of any userids/passwords associated with domain name maintenance.

ELizabeth Ramer has been working in the web hosting industry since 1997. Visit Flawebworks Web Hosting for web hosting and articles.

What is a domain name?

The purpose of a domain name is similar to that of a street address or telephone number. The domain name directs customers to you on the Internet. The domain by itself is not your email or web address. The domain does form the base from which these addresses are derived.

For example:
Company Name: Websites 4 Small Business
Domain Name: web4business.com.au
Web Address: www.web4business.com.au
Email Address: info@web4business.com.au

Do I need to register a domain name to have a website?

The simple answer is NO. You do not need to have your own domain name. Your website can be created and hosted without it. Your website address will look something like this:

www.web4business.com.au/JBCleaning OR
www.ozemail.com.au/~JBCleaning

The only advantage of not registering a domain name is that you will save yourself A$70 per year (it costs approx A$140 for 2 years to register a ‘.com.au’ domain name). The disadvantages of NOT having your domain name include:

1. If you decide to change your Webhosting company or if that company goes out of business, you will lose your website address. Your website can be transferred to a new company, but your address will change. And that means re-printing stationery and re-doing all your advertising, notifying all your customers etc.

2. Website addresses that contain information other than your company name are long and hard to remember and do not appear as professional. Compare these two and see which one you are more likely to remember

www.ozemail.com.au/~JBCleaning OR
www.JBCleaning.com.au

So it is a good idea to register a domain name, even if it is just to protect yourself for the future. Say for example, your business name is JB Cleaning and you decide not to register your domain name for now.

Along comes Joe Bloggs who opens his own cleaning business and registers JBCleaning.com.au domain name. After a year you decide you want to have your own domain name, but since Joe Bloggs already owns it, you won’t be able to register it. Not to mention your customers who know your business as JB Cleaning may visit his website, thinking it’s your web address and instead hire Joe Bloggs Cleaning.

What does it all mean?

A domain name normally consists of 2 parts - your company name and the organisation type/region. For example with the domain web4business.com.au – web4business is the company name or a name derived from it. The .com.au indicates that Websites 4 Small Business is a commercial organisation in Australia.

.com.au Commercial Organisations in Australia
.net.au For network infrastructure and Internet Service Providers in Australia
.gov.au Australian government and semi-government departments
.org.au For clubs and various forms of affiliation groups in Australia
.edu.au Australian educational institutions
.asn.au Australian associations
.com Commercial organisations in the United States
.net For network infrastructure and Internet Service Providers in the United States
.gov US government and semi-government departments
.edu Educational institutions in the United States

Choosing a domain name

Domain name allocation is governed by a set of rules to ensure that no misuse of domain names occurs. Domain names must be unique within .com.au and should not contravene anyone else’s right to the use of the name. Domain names must be at least two characters long and contain only alphanumeric characters. Traditionally, Australian commercial domain names could not be common English dictionary words (e.g. lawyer.com.au or phone.com.au) or place names (e.g. Sydney.com.au). However, this system is under review and some such ‘generic’ names are becoming available.

The domain name that you request must closely resemble your existing registered company or business name (e.g. a company named Acme Oils Pty Ltd could register one of the following domain names - acme.com.au, acmeoils.com.au, ao.com.au, provided they are not already taken. Acme Oils Pty Ltd would not be able to register impact.com.au, oil.com.au or goodoil.com.au because they do not resemble the registered business name closely and they are common English dictionary words.

When you register your business domain name, the registering authority requires an ACN (for companies) or an ABN (for sole traders). Once the domain name is registered through a national body, webhost’s servers must then be set up to identify the domain name as a unique address, and to propagate it through the rest of the internet to ensure it can be accessed all over the world.

Domain Name Checklist

The following checklist will help ensure that your domain name is not rejected.
- You must supply the legal name of the organisation.
- You must supply your ABN, CAN or Business Number
- Domain name must be at least two characters long.
- Domain name must contain only alphanumeric characters (ie. A-Z, 0-9) and hyphens (-).
- Domain name must not start or finish with a hyphen.
- Domain name must be directly derived from the legal name of the commercial entity,

Once you have decided on the domain name that you would like, you need to check if it is available. To check, visit: MelbourneIT – www.melbourneit.com.au

Final Tips for Your Domain Name

- Under NO circumstances should you use your domain name in advertising material, office

stationery until it is officially approved.

- Try to keep the number of letters in your domain name to a minimum.

- Domain names are not case sensitive. But you can use upper and lower case to improve the

readability of your domain name. eg. Web4Business.com.au.

Ivana Katz is the owner of Websites 4 Small Business, a company specialising in the design and promotion of small and growing business websites. She believes that every business deserves to have a successful website, no matter what its budget is. For more information visit http://www.web4business.com.au or email info@web4business.com.au. To download your Website Plan go to http://www.web4business.com.au/WebsitePlanRequest.htm.

You may decide to transfer your domain for not getting adequate services for the money you are spending. A domain transfer is in effect a domain registrar transfer as it means the transfer of the name from one registrar to another. Nowadays you have got more than a hundred registrars to choose from.

For transfer of domain, you should apply to the gaining registrar, as it is responsible for the operation. It is the duty of the gaining registrar to ensure that the application for transfer by the domain owner is a valid one. The validation usually is in the form of an email sent to the admin contact that requires a reply. In some cases, however, signed faxes are used. Losing registrars these days may resort to ‘double-checking.’ In this case, they will perform additional security checks if you seek transfer from them. The losing registrars may ask you to reply to an email, or dispatch a notarized letter.

There are a large number of registrars that provide cheap rates for transfer of domain names. Most of them charge less than $10 for the first year and adds another additional year to your present registration term. Moreover, many of them have special prices for bulk domain transfers if you have more than one name to transfer.

Some of the registrars offer complete email for all new domain registrations, transfers and renewals. Get your own personalized email address and 25MB total storage. They are absolutely free. If the transfer fails for one reason or the other, they will refund your fee. The rate of discount sometimes depends on the domain you want to register because some domain extensions are costlier than others.

GoDaddy, TopBusinessDomains, LuckyRegister, IndiaInternets, Domain Names help4u, 2CreateAWebsite, Namecheap, and RegisterFly are some of the places where you can look for cheap domain transfer.

Domain Transfer provides detailed information on Domain Transfers, Transfer Domain Registration, Cheap Domain Transfers, Free Domain Transfers and more. Domain Transfer is affiliated with DNS Hosting.

If you own a website and are located anywhere in Europe, especially the U.K., you’re probably well aware of all the attention surrounding the Eurid offering of .eu domains to the public. .Eu domains have been long awaited and their popularity is expected to be similar to .com domains. These domains were originally only available in what was known as the Sunrise 1 and Sunrise 2 stages. Sunrise 1, the first of the three stages, began on December 7, 2005. To be considered for a .eu domain, applicants chose a domain name had to be related to a registered trademark. This policy greatly restricted the number of applicants that could apply for a domain. The Sunrise 2 stage was offered on February 7, 2006 and allowed applicants to reserve domains related to both unregistered trademarks and company names. The purpose of the Sunrise phases was to allow well established companies the first rights to their desired domain names. As with other types of domains, many times people will purchase a number of domain names hoping to resell them at an elevated cost. Unfortunately, some individuals have even tried using domain names that are similar to well known companies hoping to gain exposure for their product or business.

The last stage known as the “Landrush” became available on April 7, 2006. This final stage allows much greater flexibility for persons wishing to register a .eu domain. Basically anyone who resides in the European Union or who has a business located there can qualify for a .eu domain. Much like other domain extensions, .eu domains are now being assigned on a first come basis. This has caused many companies and businesses to scramble in an effort to acquire their desired domain name. If a domain name under the .com extension is not available, a similar domain ending in the .eu extension may be available instead.

After the opening of the Landrush stage, the sale of .eu domains has skyrocketed. To date there are well over 1.7 million registered domain names and the numbers are expected to keep growing. Many experts believe .eu domains will some day come close to the number of registered .com sites. If current registration trends continue, this could very well occur.

Discount Domains, a company specializing in website design and web hosting, offers .eu domains to the public at an affordable price. They hope to soon become an accredited registrar with Eurid in order to provide additional high quality service to the public. Customers can purchase top level domain names from Discount Domains for their business or organization. The only requirement is that domain names must be registered for a minimum period of two years. The company also offers a wide range of services including domain transfers, web hosting, marketing expertise, and search engine submissions. Discount Domains offers many options for customers wishing to register a .eu domain.

When choosing .eu domains for your business, there are some important points to remember. As with any type of domain name, it is a good idea to choose a .eu domain that is the same or very similar to your business or website name. This will make it much easier for customers and clients to remember. Even if they forget your website address, by running a search on your company name, they can quickly locate your domain name and link to your site. Using your business name within you domain name is a valuable resource for search engine purposes.

If your requested domain name is not available, the provider may suggest similar domain names to the one you suggested. Be careful when considering this option. First of all you will need to make sure that your domain name is not easily confused with other similar names. When marketing your site, be sure to use the entire .eu domain name. This will help to alleviate any misunderstanding or confusion. Lastly, it is much easier to purchase your domain name first before designing a new business or choosing a company name. Trying to come up with a domain name for a well established company can sometimes be a headache. Often times the desired domain name may already be taken. If you plan on establishing a new website or opening a business in the near future, you can greatly benefit by choosing your .eu domains ahead of time.

Mark is the webmaster of Discount Domains a leading .eu domain registrar. Please feel free to republish this article provided a working hyperlink remains to our site.

Here we will try to give you some tips that may be help you to purchase domain names you need.

Purchase domain names in the extension that is as much relative to your business organizational model as possible. For example, .ca means your business is based in Canada and .de clearly explains your German location. However, there are global domains, such as .com or .net.

Be careful when choosing a domain name registration service provider. Some of them are scammers and after you tell them the name you want to register, they do it themselves and then make you buy it from them. They may also charge you for more money than you though from the initial offer. Do some research - scammers are usually mentioned at least once on the Internet. Telephone support availability is a good sign your domain name registration service provider is a serious business and it is simply comfortable to settle up problems instantly by placing a call. Besides that, look for accreditations, for example from ICANN. Serious companies try to gain as much accreditations as possible so that it improves their image and guarantees their security. If a domain registration service doesn’t have any accreditations, it shouldn’t be considered to be a scam or alike, but it is a warning sign.

Try using keywords when choosing your domain name. Some search engines, like Google for example, do take keywords in the domain name into account so this may help you rank a little bit higher in search results. However, choose the shortest name possible so that it is easy to spell and remember.

Make sure you purchase domain names that are not potentially dangerous to be sued for. Avoid trademarks infringement and don’t try to squat someone’s domains. This is simply not fair and may cause problems.

If the domain name you want is available in several extensions, we recommend you to consider buying as much of them as possible so that no one can take advantage of your success.

Let’s imagine you’ve found a company you like. Hit Google to search for example for "domain registration" or "domain names purchase". If you find information about the company your chose in the first several pages of results, it means the company has been operating in domain registration business for quite a long period of time. If you can’t find any traces of the company in search results and/or observe it only in AdWords, for instance, this is just another reason to check everything once again.

Therefore, when you purchase domain names, remember to go through careful planning and research. Choose the companies you trust not only because you want to. Register domain names that will appeal to your visitors and won’t infringe someone’s rights.

Kevin Dark is an online marketer. Read more on how to purchase domain names.

A domain name is an important factor in creating a web presence. Your domain is a very important decision you make with regards to building a website. It will make your website unique and make it easier to be found online.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind should you choose to purchase a domain name. You want to make your domain relate to your product if at all possible. There are several extensions that you can use to complete the name of your domain. I’m going to suggest that you stick with the .com extension even though they are several to choose from.

People are used to typing in dot com. You don’t want to try to have to retrain the way people are used to thinking. Dot com is already established and as a new website, you want to have as much credibility as possible.

A word of warning. Be sure to stay away from trademarked names. Unless you want to end up in a lawsuit, don’t try to copy or mimic a popular brand or website.

What Is A URL

What exactly is a URL? Well, it stands for uniform resource locator and is pretty much an electronic web address. Every URL is unique to each page you visit on the web and provides a fast efficient way to access websites.

What Is A Domain

A domain is a part of a web address. For example, www.gettingstartedbuildingwebsites.com is a domain that is part of the url http://www. gettingstartedbuildingwebsites.com

What Is A Subdomain

A subdomain is basically a subdivision of a larger domain. For example, "mail.yahoo.com" is a subdomain of "yahoo.com." A subdomain can be anything that appears before your master domain in the URL, i.e. http://yourchoice.masterdomain.com.

It’s also a cost effective way of splitting a primary domain into specific sections and creating separate sites. Note that in a subdomain, the www is usually not present.

There are significant benefits that you can gain by having your own domain name. You can change hosts without losing all the traffic you’ve built to your site. Plus, your site looks more professional and you can have your email branded with your new domain name.

If you’re interested in buying a domain name, head on over to your favorite search engine or hop over to Godaddy.com or namecheap.com They are both great online domain registrars and offer fast and inexpensive domain registration.

Discover A Goldmine Of Free Money Saving Tools And Resources Online To Help You Build Websites With Our FREE CyberTools Resource Toolkit. Claim Your Complimentary Copy While They Last At http://www.GettingStartedBuildingWebsites.com

As many people have found out, you can buy domains with high pagerank (PR) such as PR4 or higher on auctions such as eBay.

Why would anyone pay a significant amount of money for just a domain that doesn’t even come with a business, website or hosting?

Well, the primary reason is so that people can take this high PR domain and use it to host a website primarily for the purpose of linking to websites with lower PR or no PR. Since search engine spiders visit high PR sites more often than low PR sites, the idea is that the spiders will visit the high PR site and then follow the links to lower PR sites.

This strategy may enable the lower PR sites to become indexed faster by the search engines, and with enough links from higher PR sites, the PR of the linked sites could increase.

While this may sound like an excellent idea, there are a few things to watch for in purchasing high PR domains:

1. Unscrupulous sellers have been known to fake PR. Without going into how this can be done, you should use free online tools such as http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html and http://reladvance.com/metrix/find_metrics_results.php to independently verify the PR of the domain you are thinking of buying. Also, you should install the Google toolbar http://www.google.com/tools/toolbar/ on your computer so you can always see the PR of sites you visit.

2. The PR may not last past the next time Google computes PR. Sellers never guarantee the PR will last any length of time, and for good reason. How Google exactly computes PR is mystery and changes frequently. A PR5 domain could be a PR0 domain the next time Google runs their PR algorithms, and oops — there goes your investment.

3. If you do find a legitimate domain with high PR that lasts, a backlink from that domain website to a lower PR website may not be all that effective. Search engines look at "relevancy" of the backlinks, and if the high PR domain is about "cameras," then it will be able to provide relevant links only to sites about cameras.

4. One backlink from a high PR site is like a drop in the ocean. It takes many backlinks to get and maintain a high PR and consistently high indexing over time. Buying a lot of high PR domains to get a good ranking and indexing could end up being a very expensive proposition.

So look before you leap when considering the purchase of a high PR domain. There are so many other less expensive ways to attain indexing and PR that you may want to consider before laying out money for a domain whose PR may in the end do you little good.

Karen Kirby has over 25 years’ experience in the computer industry, an MS in Computer Science, and a BA in Honors English. She has been helping people with Internet marketing since 1995. For tips on Internet marketing, see http://www.belowtheeight.com/7-Surefire-Ways-To-Increase-Your-Website-Traffic-Starting-Yesterday.htm and be sure to get a free copy of the "Internet Marketer’s Guide to Free Traffic" at http://www.aimbright.com/survey2.htm

Copyright 2006 - Karen Kirby. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.