'Making Money with Domains' Category Archive

Posted on Oct 16th, 2007

Searching for public domain works can be a tedious job and take several hours just to find one or two good publications.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of quality databases online you can use to search for public domain content, but are you aware of the places offline you can visit starting tomorrow morning and walk away with a handful of public domain publications you can duplicate.

The best part is you don’t even have to purchase the books.

I’m referring to your local public and university or college library. There are thousands of public domain books right on the shelves waiting to be revived.

This is by far the simplest way to get your hands on hard-to-find public domain works.

I did a quick search of my libraries database online and found over 20 interesting publications I think will be good sellers online such as “How To Speak And Write German”, “The Official Guide To Knots And How To Tie Them”, How To Play A 5-String Banjo”, How To Star In Baseball”, Gemcraft: How To Cut and Polish Gemstones”, Kites: Hot To Make and Fly Them”, Your Lawn: How To Make It and Keep It”, “How To Make Your Own Picture Frames”, and the list goes on and on.

Once you find public domain material you’re interested in conduct a quick copyright search to ensure these publications are in fact in the public domain.

Then visit your library, sign out the books and begin using the content. There are companies who offer scanning services relatively cheap so you can create a digital version.

You can also create audio and/or video portions of each publication and sell the videos under your copyright.

So now you have enough information to start your public domain search offline starting tomorrow morning.

Mike Hill is the creator of the Public Domain Sources Directory, dubbed: “The Most Profitable Book In The World” because of all the hard-to-find secret sources he lists inside this incredibly detailed directory. For more… http://www.publicdomainempires.com

Posted on Oct 14th, 2007

They’re pushing for a top level domain (TLD) exclusively for porn sites. I’m quoting from this article at http://www.babnet.net/en_detail.asp?id=1224: “There is also concern that the existance of .xxx will lead to legislation making its use mandatory for sexually explicit material, leading to legal conflicts over the definition of "sexually explicit", free speech rights, and jurisdiction.”

That’s like saying that the Louisville Slugger company in Kentucky shouldn’t make bats anymore because they can be used as weapons. Just because something can be dangerous when placed in the hands of one intent on doing harm, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist. And to tell you the truth, the adult industry and the government are already - and always - at loggerheads with each other when it comes to the First Amendment.

Let me start off by saying I agree with the article in this respect: the existence of an .xxx TLD would be a God-send to parents trying to prevent their children from accessing pornographic sites.

But the reason ".xxx" is not for me has nothing to do with the above-mentioned quote. Not that everyone thinks along the same lines that I do, but, according to the article, in order to use the .xxx TLD, you’d have to download certain internet explorer plugins; plugins that are categorized as spyware and adware. Spyware and adware? No thanks. Lord knows how many hours I’ve spent trying to rid my computer of popup-inducing software and applications.

And $60 to register a domain (I hear that in the UK that it‘ll cost about 40 pounds)? Unless you as a webmaster are trying to cover all your bases (e.g. you currently own mypornsite.com, my-porn-site.com, mypornsite.net, etc, and would like to own mypornsite.xxx), why bother paying that much? If you’re not purchasing a popular, high-traffic domain directly from another webmaster, any decent domain can be had for less than $20.

Moreover, “.com” is so entrenched in the layman’s mind, no other TLD comes even close to its popularity. I find that people don’t remember your website URL as well if it doesn’t end in a .com. I think that’s why, with all the television programming out there, .tv is not such a household name as far as TLDs go.

And, not to spread rumors or anything (so remember, you didn‘t hear it from me :-) ), I don’t think that the .nets, the .bizs, and the .infos of the world do as well in the search engines. However, the .orgs and the .govs, where the search term is appropriate, seem to have no problems ranking well in SERPs (search engine results pages). That’s just my personal and un-scientific opinion.

Go on and try it: search for popular and generic words on your favorite search engine, and see how many listings come up .tv, .net, .biz, or .info. Or maybe it’s the old “chicken and the egg” puzzle; maybe there are no results to be had because many prospective webmasters fear registering those less popular TLDs in the first place.

The author is affiliated with Sex-Toys-Videos.com, and writes regular porn and sextoy articles for his blogpage.

Posted on Oct 11th, 2007

Ever wondered why Walt Disney never got sued for intellectual property theft?

C’mon, the guy ripped off so many Hans Christian Anderson and Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales! And he never paid the said authors any royalty fees! Granted that they’re dead, but shouldn’t their families be entitled to proceeds from their works? Such would be a small price to pay, considering the accumulated wealth of Walt Disney’s billion dollar enterprise.

But alas, Mr. Walt Disney, you see, is a marketing genius. He knew how to exploit the allowable usage of public domain information, and he built for himself an empire in the process.

And if Walt Disney can do it, so can you! After all, we all have access to public domain information. We don’t even need a touch of that famous Disney magic. We just have to weave our own creative spin on things.

But first, the basics…

Public domain information is defined as any body of creative works and other knowledge that is not protected by US copyright laws. Copyright protection needs further verification, but by force of statute, works done prior to 1923 are public domain information. The law also includes works done prior to 1978, for as long as the life of the author plus seventy years does not exceed the current year.

The term “body of creative works and other knowledge” includes literary works, music, movies, artworks, scientific ideas, and inventions, just to name a few. So, quite literally, public domain information is an ocean of many promises and splendid discoveries for anyone who would decide to dip their feet in its inviting waters.

And public domain information is free. Everything that you’ll earn from it is net profit!

Walt Disney made good use of public domain information by making updating old classics into movies for the new, during his time at least, generation. That was the creative spin he used to market works that are quite archaic to make them seem new and fresh. He found his audience, and he made his fortunes. There’s no reason why you can’t do it.

Ah, budget constraints you say. But we are internet marketers, dear friend. That’s the beauty of the web, you see. Seldom do we have to spend a substantial amount to invest on something. Many avenues are available for us to make good use of free public domain information!

Here are some ways to use public domain information. They would surely earn you significant gains!

1. Republish old literary works as e-books. The classics you see in bookstores are prime examples of earning from public domain information. The publishers did not have to buy the rights for the books they have decided to distribute. You could do the same with e-books. Search your local library for old works, and scan them. Convert the images to text with a text bridge program, edit errors, package them nice in .pdf format, and you’re all set to market a royalties-free product!

2. Republish old articles as special reports. Granted that you’re not likely to find an internet marketing articles circa 1923, but there are still some interesting pieces from that era. Just the other day, I saw a person make 43 sales for a special report he made out of a 1914 article on dog grooming.

3. Make downloadable albums of old songs. Here’s your chance to make MP3 downloads that are actually legal. However, please bear in mind that only the songs are free game. The performances of certain versions (i.e. the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s version of a Beethoven classic) are separate copyrights in themselves. It would be best to make your own version from the public domain compositions.

4. Offer downloadable movies. Just like Walt Disney, Ted Turner has made a killing with public domain information. One of his channels, Turner Classics, shows pre-1923 movies which he can rebroadcast without having to pay any royalties. You could do the same by offering old movies for download.

5. Make posters of timeless masterpieces. You could also search the web for high quality images of classic paintings and sketches. These digitized masterpieces can easily be reproduced as posters which you could sell to the millions of art aficionados worldwide.

Cedrick Reese is the webmaster of http://www.eclectic-info.com, Start an easy Home-Based Business through Affiliate Marketing and Adsense. Other sites include http://www.Your-RealEstateCourses.com and http://www.PremeirHosting.com

Posted on Oct 10th, 2007

If you are totally new to the internet then you may not realize that the web address you type into your browser is known as a domain name. A domain name is an easy way for humans to understand and navigate the internet.

A domain name is a string of characters used to make a name. There can be up to 63 characters in a domain name which can consist of all the letters in the English alphabet plus the numbers zero to 9 and the hyphen or dash symbol. The name can consists of a mixture of these characters but they cannot start or end in a hyphen. The hyphens are used to separate words within a domain name to make them more readable for humans.

All domain names must have a top level domain suffix. The top level domain extensions are the characters at the end of your domain name after the last dot. This extension is used to describe the country or type of website that the domain name represents. The most popular top level domain extension is com and this will probably continue to be so for some time due to it’s ingrained relationship with the internet. Web business’s are mostly referred to as dot com’s.

Domain names can be purchased from a domain name registrar. Domain name registration is a process of registering a domain name, much like you would register a new car or the birth of a new baby.

The cost of domain name registration will vary depending on the registrar and the domain extension that you choose. To register a dot com name you should expect to pay about ten dollars for a years registration. You can register a name for up to ten years and you would usually expect to get a small discount for this.

Allan is the webmaster at NameSearchDomain.com where you canfind out all about Domain names.

Posted on Oct 9th, 2007

It is annoying to find that you have a great idea for a site but when you start searching for a domain name to match you find every possible combination has been registered. Don’t worry all is not lost there are still the expired domains to check.

Not everybody reregisters their domain names. For whatever reason, financial or otherwise good domain names come back onto the market. These are expired domains and you can get your hands on them.

The first stage of an expired domain goes through is the registrar hold. This is a period of up to 45 days where the registrar may pay the renewal fee for the domain in the hope that the expired domains owner registers the domain name again. The registrar may wait the full 45 days or decide to let the registry know sooner that the domain fee has not been paid. This means the name goes into the redemption period.

The expired domain is now in the redemption period which lasts for 30 days. The domain is now back in the hands of the registrar as the original owner has not paid the renewal fee. For the original owner of the expired domain to get their domain name back they are likely going to have to pay a hefty fee to the registrar.

The domain is now in pending delete which is the final status. This means that expired domain is back on the market. On the 6th day on pending delete the domain name is now available to everyone.

The expired domain is back on the market. Now is your chance to grab the domain you are after. I will talk about the best way to increase your chances of this in my next article at Name search domain.

Allan is the webmaster at NameSearchDomain.com where you canfind out all about Domain names.

Posted on Oct 7th, 2007

Domain names are the hottest net-real-estate on the internet. It’s no wonder services like: "Domain Name Backordering" is available to the public. Can someone really backorder your domain right from underneath you? Guess again… So what is Domain Name Backordering?

This is a service that allows anybody on the internet to reserve a domain name if and when it goes up for sale! This doesn’t seem harmful does it? Guess again…

Companies all over the internet are ordering this service for website url’s that seem to be popular! What if by chance you just happen to forget to re-order your domain name? Let’s say that you go on vacation and neglect to check your emails that are now telling you to renew your domain name? In this case, another company on the other side of the planet sees the fact that your domain name is soon up for grabs, so they order a backorder on your domain name and simply wait to see what you do with it.

So here you are coming back from a very long vacation and what is this? Someone else now owns your domain name because you simply neglected your duty to keep your net-real-estate up-to-date!

Unless you own a Canadian domain name protected by the CIRA, or you have a trademark on your domain name or business name, you are "really" out of luck. Once you are at this point, it may take months before you can prove to the courts that you simply forgot to renew your website address.

Should This Service Be Allowed?

That is a very interesting question. Some would say yes simply because there are literraly 1000’s of websites that aren’t going to be renewed next month. On the flip side, some of those websites are simply a mistake. I think the point here is; avoid making that mistake and renew your domain name for atleast 5 years.

Google is apparently looking through the "WHOIS Data Base" to see which websites have the staying power online and are serious by registering their domain name for more than 1 year at a time.

Again, should domain backordering be allowed?

I say no! Just like a patent for an invention, you should have up to 1 year to claim that domain unless you transfer the domain name to another company or individual. This way we would have less domain name theft and less "hick-ups" from companies who simply forget their important responsibility.

Protect Your Net-Real-Estate!

Your website address is the most important commodity you have online. It is as important as your business name itself. It is what ties your company offline to online. People know you through your domain name. Potential clients may end up visiting your website later on, you woudln’t want some other company in your place?

Please be careful when give out the access information for your domain name to anyone that isn’t within your trusted circle.

I hope this article has helped you out!

About The Author:

Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads helps small to large companies with their offline and online marketing needs.

International: http://www.smartads.info
Web Designers Directory: http://www.3dimentionaldesign.com

Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article only if it remains the same.

Posted on Oct 6th, 2007

Registering a domain name is a pretty straight forward process. In fact the hardest part of registering a domain name is coming up with a name that has not already been registered. There are some people who have never registered a domain name, they have left it up to a third party or have always used free hosting. Here is simple explanation of how to register a domain.

The first thing you need to come up with is the name itself, this believe it or not is the hardest part. As there have been so many domain names registered there are not many choices left for keywords to use in your domain name. There are two routes you can go down for choosing your name, using keywords or thinking up your very own word.

Which ever route you choose you are going to need several ideas for a name so jot lots of ideas on a piece of paper first. Write down a list of keywords that you can use in any combination or come up with a list of your own made up words. I chose NameSearchDomain for my site but only because most other combinations of the words that I wanted to use had already been taken. You could of course try making up your own word such as Google, it’s both catchy and memorable.

Once you have a list of possible names you will need to find out if they are available. To do this you will need to visit a domain name registrar. I use Godaddy but I would not recommend them to a first time user as they offer too many extras which could easily catch out a newbie during registration. I would suggest you check out a few forums such as DN forum for recommendations, visit a few sites and see which you feel comfortable with. For dot com names look to pay around ten dollars.

Having found a domain name registrar then you need to go through your list of names to see if they are available. To do this just type the name into the search box and select an extension, it is usually best to use .com because of it’s popularity. If a domain name you have chosen is available for registration then you will be given the option to register it. All you need to do now is follow the on screen instructions and the brand new domain is yours.

Once you have registered a new name you will need to point it towards your web space, this is presuming you are purchasing the name to create your own site. To do this you will have to provide some DNS information, you can get this from your web host. You should have two addresses, probably both starting with NS, probably NS1 and NS2, you need to add this information into your domain name registration account under Domain name servers. You will usually need two, a primary server and a secondary server. This will take a while to propagate through the internet servers, usually anywhere up to 72 hours. Once the DNS information has propagated then you will be able to type in your domain name in a web browser and arrive at your web site.

This is pretty much an overview on what you need for domain name registration. It should provide you with a grounding for being able to register your own domain. An important word of advice before you register your domain, all sales are final, that means once you have purchased a domain name there is no refund. A final tip, the longer you register as domain for the more discount you usually get. I would advise only registering for a minimum of 1 year initially in case you get cold feet later, you don’t want to be stuck with a useless domain name for 10 years.

Allan is the webmaster at NameSearchDomain.com where you can find out all about Domain names.

Posted on Oct 5th, 2007

When you are choosing a domain name you will probably be looking for a .com or maybe a .net. This on the whole is sensible advice, but if you are offering something a little bit different on your website and you want to stand out then there is another path you can take.

First let me give a quick and simple explanation of the different parts that domain names are made up of. Let us start with the top level, this is the end part of any web address such as .com or the myriad of other top level names that are now available. The part next to the top level domain is called the second level domain. The second level domain is the part that you register with a domain name registrar. For my site the second level domain is NameSearchDomain.

The part at the from of the web address is the third level domain, this is excluding the www part. The third level domain is often referred to by your web host as the sub-domain, it is just a sub-domain of the second level domain name. You can set this part up with your web host if it allows you to use sub-domains.

This is a very high level overview of how a web address is made up, there is more to this but for our purposes this is all we nee to know. To clarify here is an example using Google.

  • Second Level - Google.com or www.Google.com
  • Sub-domain - News.Google.com or www.News.Google.com

You do not need to enter the www part of the address in your browser, just typing in Google.com will take you to the website.

Now you know how a web address is made up you can use your imagination to come up with a clever and distinctive web address. If you take a look at del.icio.us you can see an interesting use of the available domain names to spell the word delicious. Here they have registered the domain name icio.us, the us part is the top level domain that represents North America. A sub-domain of del has been created on their web server which completes the creation of a catchy web address.

Why not use the same principal to create your own web address, there are many top level domains to choose from, far too many to list here. As many of the less well known top level domains are not used there will be a lot more domain names to choose from. You can use this method to create a distinctive web address and become more memorable to your visitors.

Allan is the webmaster at NameSearchDomain.com where you can find out all about Domain names.

Posted on Oct 3rd, 2007

Domain names are being snapped up all the time so if you have thought of a cool domain name for a future project then it might be wise to register it now. There is a chance that if you leave it too late someone else may register it. While your planning your site you can park the domain name.

Domain parking is a process where you register a domain and do not enter the domain name servers of your hosting company. Usually the domain registrar will park your domain by default on their server, this means that if you type your domain name into a web browser you will arrive at a default page provided by the registrar.

If you are going to hold onto the domain for a while or not develop a site straight away then you may want to consider a domain parking service that offers you revenue from your parked domain. Domain parking services such as Traffic parking and sedo offer revenue sharing from your parked domain.

Revenue sharing from a parked domain works by traffic being directed to a search page or pay per click page where any visitors to your parked domain may click on the ads and you receive a percentage of the revenue from this.

Traffic parking claims that a parked domain receives on average 8 hits per month but a popular domain name may get thousands of visitors due to direct type ins and miss typed domains. Unless you have a popular domain name it probably isn’t worth the effort to use a revenue sharing parking service and just use your registrars default parking page.

So domain parking is a process where you register a domain and leave it until you are ready to use it. You may or may not have a parking page where any stray visitors will see a default host parking page or if you use a domain parking service an ad targeted page.

Allan is the webmaster at NameSearchDomain.com where you can find out all about Domain names.

Posted on Oct 1st, 2007

The one thing that annoys me most about the topic of domain names is when trying to find a domain name for a new site only to find most of the names I come up with are already taken. Even more annoying is that these names are not being used for a site that relates to the domain name.

Domain squatting or cyber squatting is the term used for someone who registers a domain with no intention of using it, that would otherwise be used for a site relating to the domain name.

Let me give you an example, recently I came up with an idea for a site and there was a couple of domains that were ideal, keyword1keyword2.com and the plural version, so I checked to see if they were available. I found that both the names I thought would be perfect were taken. Both domain names were directed to a generic search page whose sole purpose is to make money off of direct type ins.

Now I haven’t given the names as I don’t want to give away my idea and I don’t want to give the sites any free advertising. This is not a one off incidence but something that happens quite often, especially with domain names with good or popular keywords. This activity is not illegal unless you use a trademark name, but it is against the ethics of what the internet is about.

There is a difference between domain squatting and domain parking and that difference is intent. If you register the domain with the intent of using it in the future for a purpose relating to the domain name then you have just parked the domain. If you register a domain with the sole intention of making money from reselling it or getting revenue from people typing in the domain name then that is domain squatting.

As I have explained it is not illegal it is just unethical, it is a free market economy and people are motivated by profit. I do not agree with domain squatting as it forces webmasters like myself to use domain names that are far from perfect, take this site on domain names, this name was far from my first choice. It also misleads internet users as the expect a site to be related to the keywords in the domain name making the internet less user friendly.

Find out more about domain names and get some advice before registering your next domain.

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