On my little search for free and or cheap domains I came across the site www.dnp.in. A thread had been started about .be, Belgium’s new TLD (top level domain); this struck my interest mainly because it was a free TLD. A few sites I tried out were:

www.ovh.com

www.eurodns.com

Eurodns is my preferred registrar of the two. Being that eurodns is in English not French. OVH.com may be viewed in English, too, but it’s one of the most confusing register processes I’ve ever been through.

Why are these sites giving away .be domain names? Well, it’s most likely to start a craze about the new option. I don’t believe it will be in demand as much as an .us or .de due to the fact I hardly see any Belgium related sites. Perhaps the option of having .be as a tld is great because you could mess around with the name. For instance I registered the domain bestyoucan.be, silly yes but it’s a potential sale for the Webmaster seeking a unique name.

I suggest taking up on the offer of a free TLD. Perhaps register a stockpile of dictionary term domains and sell them on eBay. Money is to be made from this. Sadly I don’t see much of a craze for it in the future.

In spite of my low expectations I’ve registered 30 .be domains. Don’t let the offer of a free TLD get past you! Someone may want to buy your oddly named .be domain name! If you can’t do anything with it simply just let the domain expire with the year passes. There’s nothing to be lost. You could even park the domain and make a few extra bucks off advertising.

Don’t let my opinion throw you off. Do what you like. Personally, I think it’s cool for now and it’s great to earn a few extra dollars this year.

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.

website content development

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!

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

International: www.smartads.info
Canada: www.smartads.ca
Web Designers Directory: www.3dimentionaldesign.com

In this article we are going to look at the thought process you should go thru to choose your domain name.

First of all let’s define what a domain name is.

A unique name that represents each computer on the Internet. (Some machines do have more than one domain name.) The DNS converts the domain name requested by an Internet user into an IP address.

The Domain Name System (DNS) helps users to find their way around the Internet. Every computer on the Internet has a unique address – just like a telephone number – which is a rather complicated string of numbers. It is called its “IP address” (IP stands for “Internet Protocol”).

But it is hard to remember everyone’s IP address. The DNS makes it easier by allowing a familiar string of letters (the “domain name”) to be used instead of the arcane IP address. So instead of typing 64.65.51.245 , you can type www.team-schuman.com. It is a “mnemonic” device that makes addresses easier to remember.

So what makes the best internet domain name?

First of all don’t pick a name that has nothing to do with your Web site. If you are selling flowers don’t pick a name like apples.com. Picking an oddball name makes no sense and it will just confuse your audience.

Don’t make your new domain name too long. The longer it is the harder it becomes to remember. Can you remember myflowers.com or lookatmyflowerswebsite.com?

Short names are not the way to go either. It is to your benefit to try and buy a domain name that has a few keywords that relate to the topic of you Web site when possible.

Keyword placement when choosing your domain name is helpful as your site develops a higher placement with the search engines. Having the name jeffsflowers.com will do better with a search engine than jeffssite.com. With jeffsflowers.com you know I have a flower website where with jeffssite.com you don’t know what kind of Web site I have.

When registering your domain name in some cases you will need to determine if you want to use hyphens in the name itself. Personally I have found this to be a great way to get a domain name that otherwise my not be available. The domain name myflowers.com might already be taken whereas the name my-flowers.com might be available.

Everything I have read says try to get a .com domain name first before going to a .net or .org etc. As more and more domain names are taken this becomes harder to do and I think you are better off getting a keyword rich domain name like my-flowers.org than you are to buy a .com domain name like jeffssite.com.

Is buying a cheap domain name a bad idea? Absolutely not. I do it all of the time. I get all of my domain names here:

http://www.godaddy.com

Then I transfer them to my hosting company here:

http://www.team-schuman.com/host4profit.

I can buy a domain name for less than $10 from Godaddy.com and transfer it for free to Host4Profit. This saves me $20 on buying it from the hosting company itself. A domain name is a domain name and you might as well save a little money where you can.

Finding out what names are available is very easy to do. Let’s use Godaddy.com as an example.

1. Go here: http://www.godaddy.com

2. Click on the icon for Domain Names

3. Enter a domain name and see if it is available

4. They will come back with a list of available names

5. Decide what one you want and buy it

One last thing to consider. Protect your name by registering multiple extensions (.net, .org, etc.) This deters people from copying your name. For example, if you own my-flowers.com you can also register my-flowers.net and any other extension that’s available. As you build up traffic to your site if someone types in an version other than the .com version you can forward it to your .com site and not lose any traffic.

In closing it is important to spend a little time when choosing the best domain name for your website. Try and get some keywords in your domain name. Don’t stop at choosing just a .com version and save a little money by buying a cheap domain name whenever possible as long as it still contains some keywords.

Copyright 2004 Jeff Schuman

About The Author

Jeff Schuman is the creator of several websites. His Sites-Plus.Com website is a small business website that contains the best of everything you need to start and run your own small business. Visit it here today:

http://www.sites-plus.com

http://www.team-schuman.com

Registering a domain name is seen by many newcomers to the web as a really complicated, highly technical task that the average mortal cannot do.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

You only need to bits of information on hand when you register your domain name:

- What you are going to call this domain

- and your web hosting DNS values, these are give to you by your hosting company and look something like:

NS1.WEBSITEWELCOM.COM and
NS2.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM

They are almost always provided to you in pairs.

So first go to a reputable domain name registrar.
I suggest using either www.Better-Domain-Names.com or www.Godaddy.com

These may not be the cheapest registrars currently on the web but their service, and reliability are incredible. I generally work on the principle “You get what you pay for”, and never a truer thing can be said about domain name registrars.

OK, lets walk through the process of registering a domain name:

Using your web browser, visit a domain registrar. Usually on the front page there is a search option to check if the domain name you want is available.

Lets say for example, that you are trying to register a domain name for your Dog Training website.

So you type in dogtraining.com press enter, and it comes back that that domain is already take.
Now, I would suggest that you place prefix and or suffix words to the domain name you are after.
So you could try:

betterdogtraining.com
bestdogtraining.com
dogtrainingnewsletter.com
dogtraininganswers.com

You could also try placing dashes “-” in your domain names to separate words.
Admittedly, there are a group of search engine optimization people who currently believe that the search engines are now starting to penalize sites with ‘dashes” in them.
Another thing, sites that do not contain dashes and do not have any numbers in them, generally seller for a higher price.
So if you think you might sell your domain sometime in the future, then it may be advisable to avoid using both dashes and numbers.

Lets say, that you find dogtraininganswers.com is available.
So you move to the next page. Generally this asks you for the details of the person that is going to be the owner of this domain. Generally this will be your name, address, phone number etc.

Next the system will ask you for how long you want to register your domain for, the minimum period is 1 year and the maximum I have seen is 10 years. Most people go for the 1 year period, only because it costs the least.
On the Better-Domain-names.com screen and the Godaddy.com page, you will see a link that says:
“If hosting your site elsewhere, please click here to set name servers”

Please set your name servers now (using the name server values given to you by your hosting company), otherwise if you have to come back and change the default name servers at a later date. the problem is that it generally takes a long time for the name servers to propagate around the net and you could wait several days for this to happen. But if you set them now, they should propagate within a few minutes, maybe half an hour at the most.

Once you have keyed in *both* name servers values, you then move onto the payment screen where you key in your credit card details.

Here you may see an option called “Auto Renew”. Check this box!
This allows you to renew the domain automatically when its term expires. Any good domain name registrar should send you an multiple emails before the domain is set to expire, and if you take no action on these emails, then the domain will get automatically renewed.
If you don’t set this “Auto renew” option, then system will let the domain lapse and it becomes available for some else to purchase.

Once you press the “submit” button, it will take just a few seconds for that new domain name to be yours.

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.

A Nationwide study shows that nearly half of U.S. adults are
looking into owning their own businesses. While every business
is not an “e-business’ or “click and mortar” business, there are
growing numbers of brick and mortar businesses that are
advertising, and even selling their goods and services online.
It’s a well-known fact that any business needs an operating
station, or in this case, a “domain name”.

Have you ever tried to find a domain for your business,
organization or just plain personal use? In most cases you would
have to come up with an idea, check if it’s available, and if
its not, then you’d have to go through the entire process again.
Because you would have to find a name not in a list of 40
million dotcoms, this becomes a tedious and timely process.
There are now well over 56 million domains registered out of the
global tlds (top level domains), which are .com, .net, .org,
.info, and .biz. So how do you find a quality domain that
somebody in the world hasn’t already thought of? You don’t.
Anything worth using has probably already been registered at one
time or another. However, there are some things that you can do.
You can either find someone who is selling a domain that you
like and try to buy it at their asking price (which is probably
very expensive), or you can save your money and use a different
method for finding a quality domain.

Everyday over 20,000 domains become available. How does a domain
become “available”? When a user registers a domain name they are
actually renting it in one-year increments, if a user does not
renew their domain at the end of their period it goes through an
expiration process and then becomes available to the public once
more. However, even though 20,000 domains are re-entering the
market each day, the domain industry is still growing and
rapidly. As of April 22, 2005 the global tld registrations broke
50 million. Today, about 6 months later, there are over 56
million registered. This means that there are even more than
20,000 that are taken each day. In fact, most of the domains
that come back on the market are immediately taken. So how does
one know when and which domains come back on the market? The
answer is a special type of search engine known as a deleted
domain search engine. This domain search engine allows users to
search through millions of domains that have recently come back
on the market and are currently available.

There are many paid and free domain search engines out there. A
good free one is pcNames.com. pcNames.com has created a domain
name search engine that caters to anyone looking for the
simplest domain name, to those that are in need of a more
“complex” name. Over 20,000 domain names are added to this
domain name search engine everyday. For those users that go into
a domain name search with no idea what they may want,
pcNames.com offers suggestions for each keyword that appears on
the right while searching. Finding the domain to fit your needs
is made easier with this search engine. Upon finding your
“perfect” domain name, pcNames.com allows you to purchase the
domain name quickly.

pcNames.com has many features that even most paid domain search
engines lack. They have recently released a filter, which
removes all domains from your results that are not 2-words.
Meaning, when you type in the word car, every result that
appears contains the word car and only one additional word or
acronym. This removes all the misspellings and long awkward
looking domains, leaving only quality domains for you to choose
from.

This free deleted domain search engine can be found at
http://www.pcNames.com. With over 4 million recently deleted
domains currently in the database, there is sure to be a domain
for everyone. Now you can easily find and purchase quality
domains without the large price tags.

First, you need to buy a domain, preferably a .com and as short as possible. We recommend using GoDaddy for the registration because their prices are incredibly low.

Tips for choosing a domain :
- lenght : it must be as short as possible but it should mean something not like kjs.com
- extension : preferably a .com or .net because the other extensions are worth less
- traffic : it’s good if it already has traffic and links to it
- keyword : some keywords are worth more than the others ex : casino

Then, you can either park your domain on a parking program like Sedo or develop a website on it. If you decide to develop your domain, make sure you have a good webhost, a good design and good content. If you have a cheap host, you may have a lot of downtime or a poor technical support. In the meantime, you can list your domain for sale on some websites. Sedo also offer that kind of service.

Finally, you sell your domain or website to end-user or to another domainer. End-user will often offer more than domainer but they are harder to find.

Webmaster of DomainVP.com - Domain valuation professionals

Having been in both the insurance business before websites existed, and then in the real estate business when websites became the rage, I saw years ago how very effective the Internet would become for agents and businesses.

Although I didn’t recognize how very significant websites would become, I bought my first website domain, a dot com. That was what everybody back then said that I wanted a .com (commercial). I was soon getting real estate customers from both my own website and the big name real estate corporation’s site provided for agents.

“RELOS,” or real estate relocation clients as they were called were easy sales. For the ones I received via the corporation’s website, I had to pay a 20% referral fee. The clients generated by my own website cost me nothing. Soon, I had earned enough money and had the expertise to start my own real estate company. Of course, I bought a new dot com website domain and improved my new site.

My real estate business grew and prospered. I had over a dozen experienced real estate professionals working for me. Many had formerly owned their own brokerages and found working from my brokerage better for them. I did not want to hire new agents because they took too much time to train and only 5% even survive in the brutal industry beyond the second full year.

Then I got “Blindsided,” hit with a dread disease that I did not anticipate – MS (Multiple Sclerosis). I was knocked out of the real estate business by progressive disabilities. I had to give up my profession, wholesale my brokerage, vend my house, and accept life as a permanently disabled victim. I left my website domain with the brokerage.

Yet, I never lost hope. Nor, did I ever give up my faith in The Almighty that my health and good fortune would be restored. Well, Last month, I was miraculously cured of “Incurable” MS. Now, in June of 2006, Mr. Wealth is returning and bringing with him many of his friends – thanks to selling website domain “properties”.

The first reason that I sell domain properties is that my Lord has told me to. He said to buy a couple of dot ws (Web Site) over 10 months ago. Now, He has instructed me to sell them and teach others how to prosper also.

The second reason that I sell GDI (Global Domains International) properties is to gain wealth. More wealth than I had ever imagined myself having, an “Income For Life!”

When I became a Realtor, I was eager to earn my fortune selling land-based properties, houses and land. I was told then by a successful, respected real estate associate, Bill Norton, a truth I was not ready to accept.

“You’ll never become rich selling properties. You become rich by buying properties – and selling them,” my real estate buddy said. And so – Bill did!

“Truth” is “Truth” – wherever it applies. It applies in selling cyber-based properties too, website domain properties.

The third reason that I sell website domain properties is that I can provide a service by protecting some “Good Names.” I believe the scripture (CEV) Proverbs 22:1: A good reputation and respect are worth much more than silver and gold.

For example, can you imagine typing Jerry Falwell’s name into your browser and be whisked away to a pro-homosexual videos Porn-site?” I seriously doubt if the founder of “The Moral Majority” would appreciate that very real possibility. Andy Rooney, Art Bell, or Zachariah Stitchen would not likely appreciate their good names being used as a devil’s vehicle by a pornographer, either. They will not be. I own their names on the dot Web Site extension.

Most of my website domains are for sale or trade. No law requires me to sell to a buyer that I do not choose to do business with. While it may take me some time, I intend to place contact links to the persons who the web surfer was attempting to reach when he or she typed in their good names.”

Russ Miles is author of the novel, For Sale By Owners:FSBO. A “Seasoned Real Estate NAR® Broker,” Rascal Russ was ~ for 5 hard years ~ increasingly disabled by “Incurable” Multiple Sclerosis. Now “Cured”, Rascal is committed to making God’s elect healthy and wealthy. Rascal writes books & articles on varied subjects. Comments: Rascal.Miles@Gmail.com. Via his personal Rascal’s website, http://www.MilesBooks.com, “Rascal’s Blog”, & his ezine articles themselves, Rascal maintains personal contact with those that e-mail him, and those whom he believes the God of this Universe has joined together with him as per Destiny’s Devine Plan of Salvation for this Planet Earth!