Domain Name Basics Many Don't Know!
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Sammer Hakim May 17, 2006
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Sammer Hakim |
Sammer Hakim has been instrumental in helping business owners select appropriate domain names through his site http://www.free-domain-name- articles.com.
A copywrityer by profession, other topics he's extensively written
about include website promotion, boosting response rates from sales
materials and advertising. |
Sammer Hakim
has written 1 articles for DomainInformer. |
View all articles by Sammer Hakim... |
Computers talk to each other via numbers; in this case it’s called
an IP number. You have probably seen or heard of it when setting up
your e-mail program. It looks something like this: 209.15.63.7. So when
a user wants to access your site, what they basically do, is give their
computer a signal to locate your computer’s fingerprint IP. You
don’t see this happening; the computers do this whole process while you
see the pages load on your screen. So every online machine anywhere in
the world is programmed to recognize ‘mysite.com’ with its IP number
and will take you to that site.
There are two (or more) parts to your domain:
· Top level domain
· Unique or second level domain.
So in the example mysite.com, .com is the top level domain and ‘mysite’ is the second level domain.
The Top Level Domains The previous example
of .com as a top level domain is one of many. Consider:
.com = commercial . net = network . edu = educational .org =
organization.
Another thing you can do is state sub domains (commonly known as
hostnames) of the domain mysite.com. An example would be
mypage.mysite.com. This will direct to another section of your site.
Technical Information All
domain names registered are profiled in a database which details
everything about the domain name and personal details like address,
contact, billing details and your domain name server (DNS). Here are
the steps how accessing a website works:
1. User requests site via browser (a particular IP address) using a domain name 2. The local host queries the local name server
3.
If the local name server does not find the IP address on its local
database, then it will query other available name servers, which in
turn will perform the same steps.
4. Finally, the user is
given the IP address (website) or error message.
What can a Domain Name contain?
· Letters
· Numbers
· Dashes (-).
They can’t contain any spaces or symbols anywhere in the domain and
they can’t start or end in a dash. Including the top level domain (like
.com), you have 67 characters to work with which gives you lots of
opportunity to register a keyword rich and audience specific domain.
But try to keep your domain as condensed as possible as some browsers
return error messages if the domain name exceeds 58 characters. Example:
Acceptable Domains:
þ mymarketingcenter.com
þ 1resource-marketingcenter.com
þ 1-stop-marketing-center.com
Unacceptable Domains:
Q -mymarketingcenter.com
Q 1resource-marketingcenter.com- -
Q 1 stop-marketing centre.com-
Why Should I get a Domain Name? If you want
your site found on the Web, you need one. But apart from merely
identifying your site, your domain name represents your business and is
the first stimulus search engines use to draw visitors in. Many people
are misled thinking they will get their domain/s when they have a need
for it or when the right time comes. The problem is when they finally
get around to it, their domain has been taken long ago, and they start
again from square one. Many have recognized this trap so they register
their domains immediately to reserve them until they are ready to use
them. So for a few dollars, they protect their next business idea.
If you are a company, its even more reason to reserve your
domains immediately. If your company relies on a number of brands for
its majority of sales, then it would be wasteful if not tragic to
discover your best brands are being held hostage to a guy working out
of his living room in hope you will pay him big bucks to get your
domain back. Even if you win the legal battle, why have it in the first
place?
On last count, there were over 30 million registered domain names with
thousands more joining daily. You just know there are thousands of
people glued to their computer screens searching the availability of
every imaginable domain that could make them rich tomorrow. You can
guarantee that as soon as somebody finds that undiscovered, potentially
lucrative domain, they will instantly register it. So
delaying even for a few hours already puts you behind the 8 ball. Test
this for yourself. Open your browser and think of your favorite hobby.
Now type in the name of your favorite hobby followed by .com. So if
your hobby was tennis, you would type tennis.com (it’s taken). You will
struggle to find a domain name that hasn’t been taken. Now considering
the CIA (yes, the intelligence guys) projects online users to increase
to 1.46 billion by 2007 (it’s now estimated at 945 million) your
chances for getting the domain name you really want rapidly decreases
by the day!
Your Personal Website Domain name selection
for your personal site is a whole lot easier. You can just name the
site after your name like maggiebruce.com or after your profession like
dryourname.com. You probably have a higher chance of getting your exact
name as a domain if it is less common than Smith or Jones. With
software programs such as FrontPage you can build your own website with
zero HTML skills, zero programming skills and not really have much of
an idea about websites at all! These programs do the coding and
programming for you. All you do is put in the text and graphics which
you can easily cut and paste from other applications and it will
automatically generate your site for you. You can get lots of help from
free online sources and support from specialists who often give free
tips and advice in exchange for their names being promoted to the
network’s members. Your Company
Trademarks There are now
tough regulations from ICANN and InterNIC that forbid you from buying
other people’s trademarks and registering them as a domain name. For
example, Wal-Mart is a trademarked name so anyone who owned the name
previously would be forced to hand it back without any payout to
Wal-Mart. The same goes for just about any trademarked name.
We strongly urge you to keep clear of trademarked names and costly
legal battles.
Stick with relevant domain names for your business. You can buy as many
as you like and they reinforce your company’s image as an industry
leader. Your business is far better off buying its domains now rather
than later which can cost several thousand dollars. Remember, the
online community is exploding at staggering rates and won’t wait for
you to make up your mind. Active-Domain has domains available from as
little as $9.95 per year – a minute investment that could pay handsome
rewards.
Your Products and Services This
is one of the most powerful ways you can unleash your brand name on the
Web. Many companies reserve a domain name based on future projects not
even completed yet. They rely on market research and forecasts to
anticipate demand for their particular product or service. So they name
their domain name after their product or service. When it officially
hits the market, it creates a buzz and people swarm from all over to
buy it. Viagra is a great example. Search engines shoot it up to the
top of their lists and keep it there as long as the traffic and search
term requests are consistent.
So if you have a product or service you know is destined for success,
buy its domain now and keep it hidden from the public eye until you are
ready to launch. That way, you can focus on your project and not have
to worry about if your perfect domain will be taken by somebody else.
Investors It’s hard not getting excited and
have $ signs glaze over your eyes when you see domains like
business.com sell for $7,500,000. We are not saying all domains will
fetch huge sums of money but you may strike it lucky and get a good
buyer if the domain has a high value.
Despite the potential for loss, masses of people still actively search
to buy and sell domain names. One can only speculate that the
relatively cheap cost of buying domains today combined with the
moneymaking potential far outweighs the risk of not making anything at
all. So people will still take their chances. You will always miss 100%
of the shots you don’t take. |