A domain name is an alias for an IP address. Now what is an IP address? An IP address is a numeric code that signifies where to look through the Internet for content. An example of an IP address would be 22.226.141.25. Rather than typing in a long and easily forgotten IP address, a domain name helps you by typing an easily remembered name to access the same site.

For example, www.domainsatretail.com is a domain name that points to a specific IP address. People can remember a domain name such as www.domainsatretail.com much easier than they can a long numeric code.

Domain names are everywhere as many use it everyday. Think of search sites. Google and Yahoo both have corresponding domain names www.google.com and www.yahoo.com. If you have ever sent an email you have used a domain name. For example when sending an email to user@sympatico.ca, sympatico.ca is the domain name.

Now that we have a better understanding of domain names, we need to know which domain name to pick and where can we register it. The domain name chosen for a web site can be a very important decision of marketing your company on the Internet. Its quite easy to just say pick a catchy domain that everyone will remember to use and you are set. In most cases it is that simple and you are set on your way to register the domain. However, at times the domain name you want has already been taken. And then you must think of a secondary name that you wish to use that will be just as catchy as the first.

OK, now you have picked your domain name you want. What is next? You need to choose a registrar for you domain name registration. There are many registrars who sign up and are available for the year, but you get no service from them whatsoever. Here are two domain name registrars that I would recommend for completing your domain name registration.

1) Domains at Retail – registrar that registers domain names. We provide great service and have 24/7 customer support. .com domain names are normally on sale for $8.75 US / year, however they are currently being run on promotion for $7.95 US / year. Visit Domains at Retail at http://www.domainsatretail.com for Cheap domain registration and excellent customer service.

2) Domains at Cost – excellent registrar with very competitive prices. I use this registrar for my .ca domain name registrations and renewals. They offer an excellent price ($14.41 CDN per domain name registration) and I am always able to get someone on the phone and my questions answered. Please Visit Domains at Cost at http://www.domainsatcost.ca for .ca Domain Name Registrations!

Good Luck with your domain name registration process and your start to your online marketing!

Michael Kralj is owner of Emenki Web Solutions and Domains at Retail. Emenki Web Solutions are web site designers and programmers based in Hamilton, Ontario, providing businesses with an informative and strategic approach to establishing an online presence on the web.

Please visit Emenki Web Solutions & Web Design in Hamilton, Ontario on the web http://www.emenki.com

Please visit Domains at Retail - Cheap Domain Name Registration on the web: http://www.domainsatretail.com

The number of registered domains has reached an all-time high of more than 60 million domain names worldwide.

Figures show that country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) are the fastest growing market, while general demand for new domains remains strong. The most popular domains are still the com-domains. The growth of com-domains is tremendous.

Experts think, that the growing sale of com-domains reveal a revival of the "New Economy". Some experts even argue, that this growth of domain names is an early indicator of persisting economic growth in the USA and the whole world.

The com-domains remain the most popular domain with about a 45 percent market share.

New generic Top Level Domains outside of .com, .net and .org, become increasingly popular, including aero-domains, biz-domains, coop-domains, info-domains, museum-domains, .name-domains and pro-domains.

Oktober 2004.de 7.981.014 (Increment compared to one month ago: 89.793).at 367.987 (Increment compared to one month ago: 4.766).com 31.017.772 (Increment compared to one month ago: 750.631).net 4.999.073 (Increment compared to one month ago: 88.952).org 3.138.385 (Increment compared to one month ago: 37.607).info 1.919.331 (Increment compared to one month ago: 683.846).biz 1.041.432 (Increment compared to one month ago: 13.118).us 881.411 (Increment compared to one month ago: 6.395) 

http://www.com-domains.com

About The Author

Hans-Peter Oswald
CEO
ICANN Registrar Secura

http://www.com-domain.com; secura@domainregistry.de

What is a DETAGGED domain name? We get asked this question regularly.

Only UK domain names can be detagged. A domain name that has been DETAGGED is no longer hosted on valid name servers.

What happens if there are no longer valid nameservers showing against a domain name?

If no valid name servers are showing this means that any services such e-mail or a web site will no longer work.

Who can DETAG a domain name?

Only a domain registration service or agent can DETAG a domain name. This happens if the relationship between domain name owner and agent expires, for example if the registration fee or renewal fee is not paid.

When are domain names detagged?

Domain names can be detagged at any point after registration. Detagging signifies the end of the relationship between the registration agent and the registrant.

It is not necessarily an indication of whether a domain name is paid for or not.

How can I tell if a domain name is DETAGGED?

You will probably notice that the email or web site associated with the domain name has stopped working.

You can check the status of any registration by doing a WHOIS look-up that will indicate that the domain name is DETAGGED.

How can DETAGGED domain name be retagged?

To restore a DETAGGED domain name, the registrant will need to pay a tag change fee of £15+VAT as of January 2004 to nominet via a registration service. Nominet charge a higher fee to deal direct with the owner.

Can I register a DETAGGED domain name?

A DETAGGED domain name is still registered to the original registrant, and it remains as such until it is either renewed by the current registrant, or it is cancelled. Once cancelled, it immediately becomes available for registration on a first-come, first-served basis.

How long does it take for a DETAGGED domain name to become available for registration?

Nominet contact the owner of each domain that is detagged and confirms if they wish to renew or allow each name to lapse.

If the domain is allowed to lapse then the domain name will be suspended after 21 days and then cancelled between 6-8 weeks after that.

For further information please visit Nominet http://www.nominet.org.uk

By Clare Lawrence 29th September 2003

Clare is the CEO of Discount Domains Ltd a leading UK Domain name registration service.

About The Author

Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to http://www.discountdomainsuk.com Clare can also be contacted on clare@discountdomainsuk.com

Choosing a domain name is a very important first step for anyone starting a business on the Internet. This name is the first impression that strangers are going to have about you and your business. You are going to need to give this decision some real thought.

It is very likely that you have a name in mind already. Something catchy, perhaps? Something that has meaning to you. Maybe you always wanted to name your business after you grandchild, or your favorite pet. I strongly urge you to reconsider.

In the very informative book, The Invisible Touch, Harry Beckwith has some unique ideas about naming a business. He touches on saying your proposed name out loud, slowly. How does it really sound? He cites the name Facial Aesthetics. Sounded out slowly, it becomes ‘fa shil ass thet icks’. Doesn’t sound so good now, does it? Get opinions from others, and then really listen to what they have to say, objectively.

The next thing to consider is whether or not your name says anything about your business. Some years ago, I was friends with a lady who had a business named “Heather’s Feathers”. So, what do you think that this business sold? Feathers? Birds? Bird products? Nope, it sold emu oil. And Heather was her 4 year-old daughter’s name. Consider what you would think of when you see a business name.

You may love your family name. If you are thinking of naming your business after yourself, however, you really need to give it some thought. I have never forgotten these two businesses, whose names I saw on billboards years ago: Crouch Equipment and Tick Insurance. Now you may say to yourself that I remember these names after years. True, but not for their products or their service!

You also run a risk if you choose a name that is too, let me say… mystical. You may know what you mean when you name your business Mystic Blue Nights, but how many other people will?

Don’t choose a domain name that reads like a book. It is difficult for the average person to remember long domain names. It may be descriptive to get lowcostdiabeticrecipesforalloccasions.com, but it is not going to be memorable, and you run the risk of people misspelling it and not being able to find you. Watch out for the use of dashes, too. People don’t expect them, so instead of visiting your site, Pickles-R-Us, they could wander to your competitor ‘pickelsrus’ instead. Trying to be clever and tweak a competitor’s name could backfire on you.

If the name that you really want is not available as a .com, go and look at the .com site before you choose .net, or one of the other extensions that are becoming available, such as .info and .tv. People think .com first, and if they are looking for you and put .com in by mistake, you sure don’t want them to end up at some porn or hate site.

You are going to have to live with your choice of domain names for a long time. Take your time and choose wisely.

About The Author

Sibyl McLendon is the owner of Spirit Web Design http://www.spirit-webdesign.net. She has been designing sites for 3 years. Visit Spirit Web Design for useful information on website marketing.

webmaster@spirit-webdesign.net

If internet is about interactivity between websites, domain name is the door for that interactivity. It is your online identity, very much like the name of your best friend, what is his very own personal identity.

From a user’s point of view, a domain name is what he types in the address bar of his web browser to get a certain web site. For example, domain name of our website is www.kigoobe.com and one can get access to this site using the domain name www.kigoobe.com.

However, the scene behind the screen is not exactly the same. Though we see that computers use domain names to communicate over the internet, the basic things that they use to communicate is something called Internet Protocol Address (also called IP address). It is something numerical and a simple IP address can be like 10100011.00011011.00010101.10010011

This kind of combination of zeros and ones is called binary number system. To make things easier for people IP addresses are translated from binary to decimal numbers and the result becomes something like: 189.01.23.255 This looks simpler, but when thousands and millions of websites are in question, this kind of number system, though better than the first one, was still posing problem and then at last in 1983, the University of Wisconsin came forward with a solution to it, and that was to replace these numeric values with suitable text formats.

So here starts the story of www.kigoobe.com or www.yahoo.com or www.microsoft.com. Of course you will agree, that this is much easier to remember than all these 1 2 3 4 etc.

Another term important in this context and what you may come across quite often is URL. An URL (Uniform Resource Locator) can be said as the exact address that holds your domain name. For example, URL of the domain name www.kigoobe.com will be http://www.kigoobe.com. To see that in action, open another window and type in www.kigoobe.com in its address bar. If you press the enter key after that, you will see that kigoobe.com has been changed to http://www.kigoobe.com as the page loads. That’s the URL. The browser changes it itself.

If we break this in different parts, we will find http, www, kigoobe, and com.

http: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Protocol stands for a set of rules for these kinds of communications. Transfer we all know. Hyper text stands for texts that contain links to other texts, and which is not constrained to be linear only. It can thus hold text, graphics, images, sound, video, and other multimedia files, etc.

Now if we take all together, http or hyper text transfer protocol stands as a set of rules that come into being during transfer of those kinds of hyper text files over the internet.

www: World Wide Web. It refers to all the publicly accessible websites of the world. Besides it also includes ftp (file transfer protocol) files, usenet newsgroups, etc.

kigoobe: It can be anything, something that you choose yourself. We have chosen Kigoobe, somebody else chose one day yahoo, you can choose yourname, or yourbusiness, whatever.

com: The most commonly used first level domain name. Other first level domain names include .org, .net, .edu, .gov, .us, .fr, etc.

Got more questions? Why don’t you simply write to us and we will try to reply to your question! You will get our contact details at Paris web design.

Happy surfing. Cheers.

A Master in biological anthropology, the author is the owner of a Paris based web designing firm ‘Kigoobe’.

If anybody else is publishing this article, please let us know, there is no restriction, but we would love to know where our articles are getting published. A link back is also requested towards Création site internet Paris

What’s your domain name worth?

Perhaps it is better to ask how much a potential buyer would be willing to pay to acquire your domain name. If there was some interest in your domain name, you ought to, at least, have some kind of idea of its value. Generally, is the domain good or bad? If good, how good is it?

If you were to visit any domain reseller sites, you will find literally thousands of ridiculous names. If you scrutinize their asking prices, it will leave you shaking your head in amazement. They run into the thousands and even millions. Names like ApeChatsWorth.com…..It would be better to let them expire or sell cheap if you can find a ‘fool’.

So how do you tell if you have a winning name?

I know someone will be quick to say, "That’s easy. Get them appraised."

Well, you could do that. But the problem with domain appraisals is that there are no industry standards. And you simply cannot put a market value on it and give an accurate appraisal by any standards. Perhaps, in that sense, a domain name is different from real estate because it is not something you can see or touch.

There are numerous companies and sites on the web that will evaluate your domain and give you their opinion on what your domain name is worth. Their services cost anywhere from between $10 to $50. They give you a nice certificate online. But let me tell you that, an appraisal certificate may not necessarily do anything for your domain name.

As can be expected, a single domain name can have vastly differing values when evaluated by different appraisers. Values can differ by tens of thousands of dollars.

You have probably heard it being said over and over again that a domain name is only really worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. Or what the buyer and seller can agree on to make a deal. So even if a domain name has been evaluated at $2,000 but if no one wants to pay out more than $200 for it, it is obvious the real value of the name is far less than the perceived value that it was originally appraised for.

If you have absolutely no idea what your domain name is worth, getting a professional appraisal may be useful as well as to give you a basis for an asking price if there was indeed someone interested in the name or simply to decide what you want to do with the domain name. A potential buyer already interested in a domain name you have, may be further swayed towards your position by an independent appraisal.

However, let me caution you to be careful. There are a number of thriving scams on the internet designed to play on your emotions and get your money. One instance is when a so-called "buyer" feigns interest in your domain name but requests first for an appraisal from a particular appraiser, just to be sure of the market value, he claims. Then, insists that no other appraisers will do. It doesn’t take a genius to see through this. If you pay for the appraisal, the so-called ‘buyer’ suddenly disappears, no doubt to fleece his next victim. Many fall for this cruel trick in their ecstasy imagining that finally, there was actually someone wanting their domain name. Before you spend any money, check out feedback on the website’s services from other customers. You can do this at Alexa.com. Simply enter the name of the website and you can see reviews and feedback from other customers.

A genuine buyer who wants your domain name is interested in it, NOT because some appraiser says it is worth a princely sum. But only because he himself sees it’s intrinsic value and/or has specific plans for the name. Keep this in mind.

There are a number of free domain appraisal services you could try just to test the waters around your name.

A number of domain name forums have active appraisal boards where you can post your domain names and someone will evaluate it for you. A search on your favorite engine will give you several options.

You may also have come across automated computer scripts online that give you a free instant evaluation of your domain name when you put in certain required details about your name. Those give you a ballpark figure but sometimes do grossly inflate the value. It is after all a script.

If you do decide to get and pay for a professional appraisal, make sure you are engaging a reputable company or you would end up blowing your money.

If you’re still undecided, let me take a look at your domain name and I’ll evaluate it for free. No obligations. See http://www.OpenForSale.com/ to submit your domain name.

Copyright 2005 Edwin John

Edwin John is the author of the top-selling domain ebook, "How I Sell My Domain Names." A guide that teaches domain owners how to find buyers for their domain names. Visit: http://www.OpenForSale.com/

Read this brief article that reflects what we learned about subdomains and their important role in effective internet marketing.

A sub-domain is a section of your main web site, set up and recognized as it’s own cyber real estate. There is usually no cost or very low cost to set up multiple subdomains on your hosting account. Sub-domains are folders located within a directory of your main site and carry a pre name to your existing domain.

Example ..

http://www.masteradvertising.com is our main domain name.

But we use many sub domain names for our research areas, script testing and growing development areas.

Such as ..

http://traffic.masteradvertising.com

(for our traffic exchange)

http://mail.masteradvertising.com

(for our members free mail service)

http://team.masteradvertising.com

(for our admin team members) and so on …

To best utilize your subdomains, it is important that they all remain o­n the same subject area or theme. Our site pertains to online advertising. It would not benefit us to launch a pet store under pets.masteradvertising.com.

Each subdomain can serve as another gateway into your main establishment, for visitors, testing marketing strategies, and search engines too!

Since creating content for a website takes time, often webmasters simply modify the existing text of the main site and reuse it on the subdomain site. It is important that the content is not exactly the same and that the subdomain does not simply redirect to the main site. Otherwise, search engines may not index them and you may even may even get tossed from the engines database.

Subdomain websites can be submitted to the search engines just like your main site. If your website is doing alright in the search engines, then imagine having five more websites out there for the spiders to find. Five more listings means that web surfers have five times as many ways to find yournetwork of websites.

More and more search engine algorithms take into consideration the number and ranking of sites that link to you. By linking your sub-domains to your main site and to each other, the ranking of all of your sites is improved.

Your subdomains provide a great area for testing banner exchanges and other advertising resource mediums, without cluttering up the main site. Each sub domain will carry it’s own traffic statistics, and campaigns can be tracked efficiently by ones self with server stats or other preferred tracking methods.

Get creative and branch your services and products out between your subdomains yet centering them around and connected via your main site. It will increase your keyword density and rankings per sub domain and most consumers are more comfortable working with a specialized area then a o­ne-stop shop.

About The Author

Dawn Wentworth

http://www.masteradvertising.com

Resources and Research into Traffic Generation

submit@masteradvertising.com

Every day thousands of domains ‘expire’ and are put back into the pool of available domains that anyone can register. They can be very valuable if you are looking for a quality domain for your online business, or if you want to re-sell them for profit. But wait! There is another huge advantage to a domain that was previously owned — Instant Traffic!

As I said above, expired domains have all been owned by someone in the past. Many of these previous owners built Websites for these domains, advertised them, registered them with search engines, and even exchanged links with other sites. All translating into traffic to that domain name.

Now, why would someone who took the time to do all that work let the domain expire? It could be one of several reasons:

* the author simply lost interest * an online venture ran out of funding * poor management of the domain * they couldn’t afford the fees

Whatever the reason, it happens. And you can reclaim some of the wasted traffic and use it to your advantage. You can either point it to your existing site or use it to jumpstart and add value to a new site.

How do you know if an expired domain has traffic?

While there is no way to gauge the actual amount of traffic going to an expired domain, you can find out its link popularity in the major search engines. This will tell you the number of Web pages listed in a particular search engine that link to that domain. The more links, the higher link popularity and the more traffic that domain is getting (in some search engines, the higher ranking, too).

A free online tool to help you find the link popularity of an individual domain at five top search engines can be found at http://www.Webofsuccess.com/popularity/popularity.cgi

Another way I recently discovered is to use this powerful software program called Popular Domains. Among other features, it allows you to import a list of expired domains and automatically check the link popularity of each one. To learn more about it, check out http://www.Webofsuccess.com/domainsweekly/popular.html

As you can see, this can be an affordable way to gain instant traffic to your site. Be nice, though, and do not abuse this technique, make sure the site you are sending traffic to relates to the domain. For example don’t register the expired domain ‘ehairplugs.com’ just because it has a high link popularity and then forward the domain to your site about Internet marketing. Other than that you may use your new domain with ‘built-in’ traffic however you wish!

About The Author

Wayne Ford, info@domainsweekly.com, is the founder and president of DomainsWeekly.com the leading supplier of daily expired and soon-to-expire domain lists. He also publishes a free weekly newsletter packed full of domain-related information and a list of quality available domains. You may subscribe by sending a blank email to domainsweekly-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Just like any business, your identity is very important. On the World Wide Web, your domain name is your identity. Of course, you can opt for a subdomain name that comes with many free web hosting like http://yourdomain.netfirms.com. But if you are serious about being successful on the Internet, you have to get your own domain name, like http://www.yourdomain.com.

Top 10 reasons to have your own domain name

Please note that all domain names listed in italic are ficticious:

1. It is cheap and easy to get your own domain name (less than $15/year in most cases)
2. You own the name (as long as you pay the annual fee)
3. You are not dependent on one web hosting company to let you use a subdomain, or worse, a subdirectory
4. Your web site promotion effort does not go to waste if you change your web hosting company (because the domain name remains the same regardless of what host you use)
5. The domain name can be optimized to your business, like www.best-used-cars.com
6. Your web site is more professional
7. The domain name is easier to remember. For instance, www.best-used-cars.com rather than www.geocities.com/web/public/business/auto/best-used-cars/
8. It is much easier to sell a web site with its own domain name
9. A good domain name can be an asset
10. It is cheap and easy to get your own domain name (this one is worth repeating)

How to register for a domain name

Please note that all domain names listed in italic are ficticious:

1. Think of appropriate name for that suit the theme of your web site. For instance, an online dating service may find domain name like www.loveconnection.com, more desirable than say www.best-used-cars.com
2. Search for domain name availability. Every domain name registrar will provide you with a search tool; although some search tools are better than other. You will have to do a lot of searches because a lot of domain name that you wish to have is probably already owned by someone else (very common).
3. As you come across available domain names that you like, jot them down. Keep searching until you have about 3-5 different domain names to choose from.
4. Choose a domain name and register it at a domain name ICANN Accredited registrar.

Other factors to consider

• Initially, you will want the .com version of your domain name. If your internet business takes off, you may want to consider registering other first-level domains (i.e., .net) of your domain name and perhaps even similar domain names to prevent mistaken identity
• Use domain name registrar that will register the domain under your name under all contacts information (perhaps with the exception of technical contact). It should be clear that you own the domain name.
• Use domain name registrar that provide good online account support.
• Use automatic domain name renewal if you are planning to own the domain name long-term

Pinyo Bhulipongsanon is the owner of GreatNexus Webmaster Resources offering visitors with features such as webmaster forums, webmaster directory, webmaster dictionary, programming scripts, and webmaster articles.

A good domain name is, and will always be, essential for any online business. If you ask me, the internet is still only just evolving from infancy. It’s a long way to maturity.

Still the world has come a long way since Ken Olson, president & founder of Digital Equipment Corp. etched his name in history, when he proclaimed less than 30 years ago, "There’s no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home."

How technology has changed our lives within a span of a single generation. Sooner rather than later, more and more businesses will want to go online and cater to a global market instead of being content with the local neighborhood. And one of the first steps after deciding what business you want to do, is getting a good domain name for your business.

A domain name can make or break an online venture. A domain name is a company’s identity online. It is your brand, your personality, your trademark. So, choosing the right domain isn’t easy.

BuyDomains.com argues that:
"Today .COM and .NET names have established recognition and can identify your company on the Internet forever. For this reason, they have considerable resale value and serve as excellent investments.

Over time, most, if not all companies will conduct a considerable portion of their business over the Internet. A domain name that is easy for your customers and prospective customers to remember is the key factor in generating new business and conducting business on the Internet.

Having relevant "keywords" to support your domain name is also an important consideration and will enable customers to find your online business effortlessly through Web based search engines.

Another excellent marketing tactic you should consider is to have multiple URL addresses (including your domain name) point to the very same Web site. This is very simple …..This will allow you to keep your legacy domain name, while multiple new e-business names conduct commerce and are listed in the search engines, significantly increasing your Web site’s overall traffic."

A web site is a worldwide advertisement that runs 24/7. For the price of one print ad, or one-tenth of a 30 second commercial, you can have a solid web site designed and running every single minute of every single day. Show a company how a few thousand dollars invested in a domain name & a web site now can translate into 100 years of sales and effective promotion, and they will all be scrambling to get in line.

Most companies, even small ones, will tell you that having a web site is no longer an option. It offers the business owners the opportunity of having potential customers view their products or services day or night, without needing to an outlay of huge sums of money.

But then, many small and medium sized businesses that are already online have poor or difficult sounding domain names. Names that they would readily change in an instant if they had the right domain name. So there will always be people and companies who will be looking at the domain resale market for a better name for their business. This is key.

When Anysoft, a Massachusetts company, acquired any.com for $30,000, their vice-president, Emily Shain, said it was worth the money because the domain name was such a vital marketing tool that would help customers find them easily.

If you are at the right place at the right time with the right name, you could find yourself pocketing some nice cash.

Even governments are getting in on the act. The New Zealand government shelled out NZ$ 1 million for newzealand.com. As a result, there was understandable criticism in the NZ parliament over the purchase as being a waste of tax payers money.

What was the government’s response? Mark Burton, the NZ Tourism Minister had this to say, "There is no question that this domain will provide an invaluable portal for… commercial entry into New Zealand for those interested in tourism, commerce, and industry.

The South African Government offered US$10 million for southafrica.com. It has also been reported that korea.com was sold for US$5 million to True Net, Korea’s largest Internet service provider."

Author, Tariq Ghafoor writes, "I feel that there’s still reason for optimism in the domain aftermarket but in order to profit there’s a crucial need to alter one’s perception and strategy just like our brethren have been forced to do in other web-based businesses."

It’s true. The heady days of the domain gold rush has seen its final sunset. We are seeing shifting trends in the arena. To cope with the changes, a domain speculator needs to see himself as a domain entrepreneur and begin to organize his domain names and increase their value and prepare them for prospective buyers.

Edwin John is an author and webdeveloper
He is the author of "How I Sell My Domain Names"
http://www.OpenForSale.com

Find out if your domain name is wanted:
http://www.DNames.org