What's in a Web Site Domain Name?

When it comes to success on the internet, no matter what business you choose, having the right domain name is a thing you should never over look as "Just one of those things"

A correctly thought out domain could easily make or break you in your marketing campaigns and more important your search engine ranking. The domain name is a vital tool in your marketing both on line and off line too.

How many times have you been talking to friends or associates and founds that your in a position to tell them about your business and have no laptop , business cards or products around you. Thats where your domain names come in very handy indeed.

Just imagine the conversation..."Oh yes John I have a web site...why not check it out" ...and John will say " alright I will...whats the domain name"....Your reply ( if not thought about will be ) mycrazyincome dot com/great/site/please/go here/

See what I mean?

No if you had a product or promotion for lets say a video product then you could quit simply say "check it out at globalvideosecrets dot com.

Just make it roll off your tongue and easy to remember.

Even if you don't have your very own product and your promoting affiliate products you can still have a re-direct or forwarding from your affiliate long domain to your smaller , easier to remember domain name.

So in summary here are the points you need to think about when creating your domain:

1. Think about your product when choosing

2. Make it easy to remember

3. Always try to go for a dot com

4. Avoid - or under score or numbers in your domain name.

5. Finally.....make it a keyword sourced title (make it want people to go there)

If you need help on this (ie Keywords) look at my bio for more details.

I hope you have found this useful.

5 Useful Tips For Newbies Registering Domain Names Online

Registering for a domain name, you have to be prepared that your personal information will be publicly listed in the WHOIS database. Web hosting company may hide your information such as telephone numbers, address and email if they provide privacy services. In this case, you still have full control over the domain name.

However, some registrar will protect your personal information from spam but might not able to do the same for law enforcement agencies.

What happens when a registrar goes bankrupt?

You will face difficulty to proof that you own that domain if your domain is registered under that registrar. In some cases, registrar will register their client's private details with a third party just in case they go bankrupt. By right, the one that owns the domain legally is the one who controls the domain username, password and other related details.

The ownership of the domain name is very straightforward. If an owner did not renew his registration, he will get a grace period to allow him to buy back his domain name. If he is unable to do so, his domain name will be auction. In this case, the owner could still get back his domain name but he will have to face a penalty for not renewing his account. This is until before the domain is drop by the registrar and release from the ICANN/Verisign database. If that happens, the previous owner will have to compete fair and square with everyone else. Well, all this hassle can be avoided if the owner keeps on renewing his registration on time.

In another situation, an owner of a domain may loose his control over the domain if there is an argument regarding trademark issues. If this sort of argument arises, it is often settled in court or resolved by agreement before any action is made on the domain by the registrar. Lastly, a domain registration is not refundable. If a registrar does agree on refunding, they will deduct the cost for the registration of the domain name from the refund.

Choosing A Domain Name

Choosing a domain name for your web site is a major step for any individual or organization. You need domain names that are sticky, short, meaningful, easy to remember and at the roll of your tongue!

It is very easy to choose a domain name but difficult to find a good name, simply because of the fact that most of the good domain names are taken up by organisations. These domain name organisations take up hundreds of thousands of domain names and treat them as investments. It is not as easy to choose a good domain name. Sometimes, even web professionals spend hours at their computers to find good domain names!

Domain name registrations are cheap to maintain and subscriptions typically last a year. The subscriptions are renewable and paid to registrars by the design companies.

The most common domain names end with .com, .net, etc. Country specific domain names will end with com.au, co.uk, .co.jp, etc. For organisations, domain names will end with .org or be country specific- .org.au, .org.uk, etc.

Domain Names - Successful Investments

Obviously, you know what they are looking for based on the keyword they are typing: Cell Phones and cell phone information. And listen up bucko, those visitors will type in CellPhones.com day in and day out, whether you advertise the site or not, just so long as you pay the $10/year registration fee.

* If you have a crappy page, they still come.
* If you insult them with pop-ups and banners, they still come
* If you have poor navigation, they still come.
* If your prices are sky-high, they still come.
* If your selection is limited, they still come. ... all because of your domain! I'm not suggesting you do any of those things, I'm just sayin;)

I know it sounds amazing people would type in a keyword string and add a dot com, but they do. In fact, it's estimated that 50% of all Internet traffic is type-in, also known as direct navigation. And when you take out the obvious destinations people type-in like Yahoo, Google, and MSN, the number is still almost 20%. I didn't believe it myself, but worked with a search engine client a few years back and discovered two very interesting facts about online users that if you understand, will make you money:

1) 31% of all searches are done in the address bar.
2) 28% of all address lookups are done in the search bar. The fact is, we domainers make our bread and butter because nobody ever really learned how to use the Internet, it's all been through trial and error. That probably explained why "yahoo.com" was our number one searched term;)

So what's CellPhones.com worth anyway? About 125,000 hot responsive visitors a month! And what are they worth, pray tell? Well, if you park the page and get paid on click revenue, it might be worth $15,000 - $30,000 a month... just based on type-in traffic. If you were offsetting the cost of advertising for an affiliate promotion, a click for a term like "cell phones" might go for buck or so, so you'd come out ahead by over six figures per month.

And if you own a store that actually sells cell phones? Well lordy lord, you just hit the holy grail because CellPhones.com may be able to generate $2 - $3 million dollars per year in increased sales, especially because of the massive credibility the domain gives you. All of which make CellPhones.com a seven figure domain. The bottom line is that domains are more than simply a place to stick your site or a name you can resell for a profit. Investment-grade keyword domains are the very basis for an e commerce powerhouse that can pay you dividends and provide income until you sell the site.

How to Come up With a Good Domain Name

Your website is basically identified by a domain name. Therefore, it is of equal importance to allot a certain amount of attention and time to think crucially about what domain name is to be used for your business. You may opt at replicating a product or a service, or the site design that you want may have slight similarities with some other sites, but domain names must be particularly unique with the rest of the other domain names. Below are some of the useful tips that you can use in making a domain name:

- A domain name is considered a good domain name when it is easily memorized and remembered. A uniquely made domain name that stands out differently from the rest is an easily remembered and recognized domain name. As such, people will keep on re-visiting the site because they have a good recall of the site name.

- A domain name is considered a good domain name when it is a shorter domain name. Shorter domain names keep people from incorrectly typing the name, as it only requires fewer characters. Longer domain names are prone to being incorrectly typed on the address bar compared to shorter ones.

- A domain name is considered a good domain name when it is appropriate to the name of the business. The nature of the company activity must be well spoken by the domain name attached with it. Having a matching domain name with the business activity shows an air of relevance and consistency.

The Most Valuable Premium Domain Names

With all the headlines, and news coverage, about the record sales prices being paid, for generic domain names. One might think, these traffic favorites are the most valuable of all, the classes of domain names. In actuality though, the sales prices of the most valuable top domain names ever sold have been secretly withheld from the public. The fact is, many of the most valuable domain names never reach public auctions.

So why are we, the public, not privy to the highest prices being paid for these premium domain names? Actually it is because of a little known fact, that many of the largest corporate investors, prefer to make their purchases, of premium domain names, in strictly private transactions. These private transactions are used, to deliberately hide prices being paid for domain names. For this reason, many of the largest dollar values being paid for premium domain names, never hit the headlines, and are never reported!

Why is this so? Why do these corporate buyers and speculators not want it publicized, how truly valuable, some top domain names are? In a nutshell, they know increased competition, will inflate the market prices they pay for the names they covet. They do not want to draw any more attention to domain names, and their values, than necessary.

The last thing they want to do is compete for names they truly want and then possibly lose them to higher bidders. To avoid this they choose to operate in closed non public transactions, that are far removed from the public eye. In this cloak of secrecy, these corporate buyers, do not have to competitively bid for a rapidly disappearing pool of top domain names. This explains why they are clearly absent from most public auctions where sales prices are competitively bid and disclosed to the press and public.

In this controlled market place these professional buyers look for unique names that stand out in the crowd and signify an image that differentiates their company from the rest of the pack. They also search for names that are short, that are easy to spell and remember and at the same time describe their particular market niche with Clarity and professionalism. In short, they look for a name that makes a statement about them and their company.

Most of the qualities these professional buyers look for in a top name can be clarified by understanding, what a premium domain name is. So lets take a look at, the actual definition, of a premium domain name. "Premium domain names are often valuable and have particular characterizations: The names are short and memorable, may contain words that are regularly searched on search engines or keywords that help the name gain a higher ranking on search engines. They may contain generic words, so the word has more than one meaning, and they may contain typos". An excellent example of a Top premium domain name, I own, is USeBiz.com. It fits the definition of a premium domain name perfectly, makes a statement, and in many experts opinion is truly a most unique and valuable six letter domain name.

Another good example of a previously undiscovered and unknown gem is Android.com. Google bought this name in the secondary market, from a previous owner. This name is now being developed as their flagship address, for an open source software Alliance, for the wireless industry. Now that this name, is under Google's development, we would really have a tough time valuing it as its sales price was not revealed to the public. But we are sure its market value would be in the millions of dollars. The competition for good quality names, such as these, are increasing at a frenetic pace.

Due to this growing competition, there is an ever increasing demand for premium domain names. The catalyst, that is driving this demand, is the explosive growth of new business start ups, on the internet. This growth has been breath taking, to say the least. So much so, that the worlds one billionth website, is already in place. It took 36 years to reach this water mark ! Amazingly enough , the number of web sites are expected to double, again in the next 8 years!, to 2 billion!

With all this expansion, the worlds major corporations, are in competition with thousands of new start up companies, who are feverishly positioning themselves to master, this thing they call e-Biz!.It's no wonder that as a result of all this expansion. There is a huge pent up demand, being created for well branded, easy to spell, and remember domain names. This highly competitive market place has created an exponential increase in the values of good domain names. In fact, some premium domain names are commanding six and seven figure price tags!

The most encouraging aspect of this business, is that there are many undiscovered names that are destined to become internet powerhouses, that are still available in the secondary market! This is what makes investing in the domain name business, so exciting! There quite simply is no glass ceiling here, and the sky truly is the limit. Now more than ever, the visionary leaders who keep their focus on investing in premium domain names, will be a part of the futures most successful investors!

For all these reasons and more the secondary market place for domain names is the fastest growing investors asset class on the planet! My advice for any interested investors, is to start collecting and controlling the letters of the alphabet today!One word of advice though. Look for hidden values within the secondary market and do not bother with any other extension other than the .com extension, it's the Predominant choice for most of the worlds top corporations. That is where the real money is!


Jeffrey A. Schneider
Former Marketing Analyst / Rockefeller Foundation

How to Transfer Domain Names

Transferring domain names was like a foreign language to me up until recently when I sold one of my businesses. Then I had to take a fast track in learning how to transfer a domain name quickly!

And I’m assuming I’m not the only one out there that wouldn’t be sure on how to transfer a domain name. So if you are thinking of selling off some of your domain names but weren’t sure on how to do a domain name transfer, you may find this article helpful.

My experience with domain name transfers was with godaddy, so I’ll step you through the process I took to transfer my domain name to someone else using godaddy.

Make sure you have all their details, eg. Full Name, Address, and email account, phone number…

Then you just need to follow these 5 easy steps!

First Step. Log into your godaddy account

Second Step. Go to “Domain Names” and click on “My Domain Names”

Third Step. Click on the domain name you want to transfer

Fourth Step. In “Manage Domain Names” click on “Change Accounts”

Fifth Step. Scroll down and fill in the “New Registrant Name”

That’s it! All you do now is what for the new owner to “confirm” on his or her side.