Domain Names - The Good and The Bad

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 7:45 am on Thursday, October 11, 2007

Working on improving your rank within the different search engines – especially Google – can feel like a very complicated puzzle sometimes. This maze can be extremely time consuming; especially when you just complete one effort and then find out that they’ve once again changed the rules on you – rules that you weren’t even sure of to begin with!

It is very well known that when you try to better the rank you’ve achieved with search engines, the best techniques that you can use are:

• Acquiring quality inbound links
• Acquiring any links to your site at all, including reciprocal links
• Continually adding new, relevant, and fresh information to your site
• Using a good density and placement of the right keywords
• Creating a website that is interesting and relevant enough that visitors who arrive spend time there.

However, what is not so well known is a major point that is missing from this list. Domain names are beginning to become extremely important with Google. It isn’t the domain name itself – that is, the words in the domain – nor how long it is, but how long you’ve had it. Google is now valuing sites that have been registered for longer, and that prove their intention to stick around for a long time.

Google is starting to give lower priority to sites that have been registered for a year or less, since they may simply be spammers who are looking for a fast dollar and then disappear.

On the other hand, for sites registered for five years or more, Google considers them serious websites or businesses that intend to exist for a good long while.

Therefore, one of the strategies important to gaining a strong ranking is to pay a little bit more money for your domain name registration to register for a few extra years, so that Google can tell that you intend to stick around for a long time. This will give your site Google value and your ranking will go up.

The problem that many webmasters are finding with this is that they either don’t have the budget for the additional years of registration, or they don’t want to register a site for a long time when they haven’t proven to themselves that the venture will be successful. They don’t want to pay for an additional four or more years of registration for a project that may not get off the ground.

The decision that therefore needs to be made is how important Google ranking will be to your website. Will it be the primary part of your internet marketing effort? Will you be concentrating a good deal of your time gathering reciprocal and one-way links? Will you be working hard on search engine optimizing (SEO), possibly hiring a professional, so that your site contains the right keywords the right number of times and in the right places?

If you’ll already be putting a lot of time, effort, and possibly money into your Google and search engine ranking, then you may find that registering your site’s domain name is really a minor investment to get you started in the right direction.

It’s all a matter of balance, and making sure that you do the search engine optimizing strategy completely, and not cheap out before you can even give yourself the chance to truly shine. In fact, simply shelling out a little bit more to reserve your domain name may be the easiest part of your search engine optimizing strategy. As long as you do your homework in advance and find an affordable, or even cheap domain name registry business, then you likely won’t have to pay much more than fifty dollars to get going.

As you can see, if search engine optimizing is important to your website, it’s vital that you don’t miss the most commonly overlooked part of SEO and reserve your website for a good length of time, to prove to Google that you’re serious about building a quality, successful web presence. You’ll show that you indeed deserve to be among the top ranking websites out there. With that done, you’ll be ready to move to the next step of your SEO and watch the traffic start rolling in.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

Mark Nenadic
Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com , where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Public Domain Works Are Closer Than They Appear

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 3:30 pm on Friday, October 5, 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

Dreaming to Sell Your Domain for Millions?

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 7:48 am on Sunday, September 9, 2007

Each and everyday you hear stories about some name getting thousands of dollars from the buyer. You also jump right into the game of domaining and hope for that lucky day to arrive when someone might get interested in your domain name. Right?

The main problem with newbies over here is that they do very less research and start spending their money on useless names. After 6 months or a year their moral goes down the drain and they are back where they were but with lighter pockets then before.

Some people get into the trademark mess. They get sued by trademark holding company and then they show their temper openly on forums and other message boards.

Some can’t even monetize their domains to get the renewal fees for the upcoming period.

If you have 4 or 5 domains then you can surely shed the amount from your own pocket. But when the figure goes around 100’s and 1000’s it is very hard to renew the domains for the future.

My advice to newbies would be to stick at 25 to 50 domains. They can earn for 10 or 20 renewals per year if your names are below average. Some domain might get you more revenue and it can fill the gap for you. Ultimately the main thing is to not lose a domain for nothing. You should at least get its registration fees from it. This will not start downfall of your domain empire which you want to build. 1 dollar loss is also a big loss if you have more then 100 or 500 domains in your domain portfolio.

So what kind of domains you should buy?

Choose wisely on which name you are putting your money. Three characters .com’s are creating a lot of chaos right now in the market. Their prices goes sky high in domain name aftermarkets. Generic dictionary words are also long gone. New TLD’s are not so stable right now, dot-com still rules the internet. You might get lucky in some other TLD’s but I wouldn’t advice you if you are new in the game.

4 letters have 456976 combinations from AAAA to ZZZZ. Of them only around 5000 are left. Which is of course the garbage.

What do we do now if we still want to get out feets wet in this?

Look for some guy who is willing to sell his domain for less. There are plenty of places to find this kind of domains available for sale at lower prices. You can go to forums specially created for this kind of discussions. If you don’t know any then here is the one http://www.nameslot.com Go there look for some domains which might fall under our category and then approach the seller. Here also lookout for trademark issues and blacklisting for that particular domain. You can generally get this info from doing a whois search for that domain here http://www.whois.sc

Keep your eyes and ears open for latest news. It might shed some light and you might be the lucky one who grabs that name for just registration fees and sell it for 1000’s. Work on them and get every cent out of them. This will keep you in the game. The main thing over here is not to win the game but to be in it and be till the last.

Hope this helps you get started on your journey to the way towards selling you name for millions.

For more info logon to http://www.nameslot.com/

From a Creative Domain to the Creative Public

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 7:34 am on Thursday, August 23, 2007

There are a growing number of domain names used in creative ways that leverage the true power of the Internet. There is not a better illustration of this point than Jason Vaughn, an individual who turned his creative talent and passion for teaching web design at a community college into a successful Internet-based guide for graphic designers going into business for themselves.

Jason Vaughn, founder of CreativePublic.com, envisioned a web destination where graphic designers around the world could find information, services and products to support their business needs. Vaughn knew that securing a concise, creative domain name on the Internet would ensure that his vision would become a reality. Today, CreativePublic.com — which originally was a resource for his college students only — is now one of the top resources for graphic designers all over the world!

The founder credits much of this success to the unique identification of his creative domain name. Because of this domain name and web site, Vaughn is able to share his knowledge with graphic designers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Since registering and launching CreativePublic.com, Jason has been able to fund his children’s college education, meet like-minded people from places like China , Ireland , England , Russia , and obtain job offers from companies such as sessions.edu, which is an online school of design.

I recently spoke with Jason about his new domain venture. This is what he had to say:

Shaun Cronrath: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Jason Vaughn: I have over 10 years experience in the graphic design industry including print, TV, animation and the Internet. During that time, I’ve owned a graphic design firm, taught web design at a community college, and co-founded Internet startups. Some of my clients include Blue Cross, NBA, NFL, NHL, Energas, and Aramark. I’m also currently an online instructor for sessions.edu, which is the first accredited online school of design.

Shaun Cronrath: Can you tell us about your domain?

Jason Vaughn: CreativePublic.com has been something I have wanted to do for quite some time. It first started out as a resource for my students that I was teaching at a community college in the Dallas , Texas . I had already decided that I wanted to make CreativePublic.com into a business resource for graphic designers; something that is not very available for designers. Most sites out their today have little to do with the background of business, they are all about design. That is when I decided that every designer at some point would need the same forms, contracts, pricing guides, employee manuals, and other information that I needed with my business.

Shaun Cronrath: How did you think of this idea?

Jason Vaughn: The idea has been there since I first started my ad agency back many years ago. Many people have come to me, asking me how I got started and what it took to get going in business. I wanted to create a site based on what I did with my business. The idea did not become a reality until I got the opportunity to teach Web design at a community college 2 years ago.

Shaun Cronrath: When did you realize that sharing your passion via creativepublic.com could turn into something successful?

Jason Vaughn: I realized that my passion for CreativePublic.com would turn into something successful when I got my first sale. I figured if one person bought my product, there should be more designers out that would do the same. Another really big deal was when CreativePublic.com was featured on HOWDesign.com (HOW magazine), a leader in the graphic design publication industry. That was when I knew, for a fact, that the site had value and was on its way to being successful. Since then, CreativePublic.com has become one of the top resources for graphic designers.

Shaun Cronrath: How has your life changed since you registered and launched your domain?

Jason Vaughn: I feel more connected to the graphic design world, even though I sit behind a computer all day. I feel more a part of a bigger community. CreativePublic.com has not only become a community for designers, but has given me the opportunity to meet so many great people. I get to talk to people across the world and make great friends in places like China , Ireland , England , Russia and many other countries. The extra income is great too! It helps pay for my car, house, and my children’s college education.

Shaun Cronrath: How has other peoples lives been effected since you registered and launched your domain?

Jason Vaughn: The feedback I get from my visitors and members is great. Everyone is always complimenting me and thanking me for coming up with such a great resource for designers. It has helped many designers to get their business started or obtain information and forms that they could use for their business operations.

Shaun Cronrath: Can you share with us any obstacles you overcame while registering your domain?

Jason Vaughn: Finding a domain was hard, almost everything was taken, but with a little imagination I was able to conger up a name. I tried several names, but one tool that helped out were those that listed alternate domain names I could choose from. After several days of research, I decided on a name based on my concept. I was really surprised that the name was available. The domain was chosen to pertain to creative people of all types, not just graphic designers. The site is mostly for designers, however it has much to offer for other creative individuals.

Shaun Cronrath: As a successful domain name owner, do have any words of advice for others who aspire to use a domain name as a vehicle to share their creative talents and ideas?

Jason Vaughn: If you have an idea, the only way to see if it will work, is to put it into action. If you just sit around dreaming about it, it will never ever happen.

Shaun Cronrath is the President & CEO of DomainPurpose.com, a domain name registration company offering all the major domain extensions –.com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .name, .ca, .us, .cn, .eu, .de, .pro and more.

How To Register A Magnetizing Domain Name

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 7:14 am on Wednesday, August 22, 2007

You have probably fallen into one of the biggest pitfalls new business owners fall into. It all starts with…

Your domain name!

Most people believe naming your domain after your company name is the best thing since sliced bread. This is a total myth.

Let’s take a practical example to demonstrate why.

When you want to find something online, you go to a search engine and type in a term that is either the item you are searching for or something that comes pretty close. So let’s say you’re looking for a language translation service. It’s almost safe to bet your house that you will type in terms like ‘language translation’ or ‘translation services’ or translating languages’, right? This is what comes to most people’s minds.

But how do you know for sure?

Well you go to:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Then enter the terms/words you feel people would type in when looking for a particular service.

This tool gives you a breakdown (from highest to lowest) of the most sought after terms.

So somebody with a domain name like translationservices.com has a MUCH higher appeal to search engines than randyisthewordmaster.com. Consequently, the former site will be closer to the top rankings because the domain name is keyword rich.

This means the best keywords people use to search for a particular thing online is incorporated in the domain name. It’s a very powerful and often overlooked tactic that could bring you a flood of qualified traffic.

Test this for yourself by typing in random terms in a search engine and watch as the top results yield keyword rich domains. It’s a tested and proven method so…use it!

Are The Best Domain Names Taken?

Most of this will probably be news to a lot of people which puts you behind the 8 ball. What do you do when you try and find a keyword rich domain and discover they have all been taken?

Well, this actually opens another door for you.

Go ahead and experiment with keywords. Gather the best you can find and put them in various combinations. You can also use numbers in your domain which is a newly discovered secret. Putting a ‘1’ before the first letter is picked up by the search engines before any letters. You can use the number followed also by a dash. Both of these are recognized before letters in search engines.

Here’s another slick trick. When Yahoo! and other major search engines check, they will look to see who actually owns the site. If you register your domain starting with a ‘1’ like 1waytranslation.com make sure you put 1waytranslation.com as the owner of the business when you register it (you didn’t think they would believe your business really starts with a 1 did you?). If it’s registered under the same domain, they leave it alone!

A final word of caution, do everything within your power to get a .com suffix. There is debate about whether .com’s get preferential treatment over others like .biz and .net, but from a buying publics perspective, .com is the safest and best way to register. The public has been ingrained that .com is credible and safe.

The Author has put together a resource website strictly to educate potential and current business owners about domain names. You can visit it at http://www.free-domain-name-articles.com.

How to Conduct a Domain Name Search and Why Your Domain Name Matters for Long Term Branding

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 5:19 am on Monday, August 13, 2007

Creating a website is not just about designing your pages and including all the important information, it is also about creating a domain name that relates to your products and services and that is also easy to remember and spell for your customers. A domain name that is easy to remember will have more return customers and more word of mouth advertising than domain names which are hard to spell, remember, or both.

When it comes to searching for a domain name, all you have to do is go online and search for ones that you are interested in to see if they have been taken or not. There are hundreds of sites that will let you search domain names in hopes to sell you the domain name and then get you to buy their web hosting services as well. To start your domain name search, however, you should follow a couple of basic steps.

* Come up with a variety of domain names you are interested in. When you have a variety of unique domain names, you can start searching to see which of them are available.

* Don’t set your mind on one particular domain name. The reason for this is most common domain names are taken, so you will need to be creative.

* Make a list of general types of domain names you are interested in and start searching.

* Stick with a .com, don’t opt for .tv, .biz, or any other suffix if at all possible especially if that exact domain name is taken as a com. You will end up losing business to that site.

Now that you know some basic steps to follow for searching your domain name and choosing one, you need to understand how important it is to choose a good domain name rather one that has some other meaning that customers will not understand. For example, you might want to make a domain name up of all of your children’s names, while this is very sweet it has nothing to do with your services and will be hard to remember. Instead, choose something that has something to do with your business and services that is short, sweet, and easy to remember. By doing this people will be able to remember your web address and visit it often. If you do not follow these suggestions, obtaining brand recognition will be difficult if not impossible. People will not remember how to get back to your website because your address was either too obscure, too difficult to remember, or just too long.

If you follow these suggestions you will end up with a URL that will lead to long term branding for your website and products and since this is your business, this should be what you are after. Keep this in mind when you are tempted to name your website after your childhood nickname or long lost pet!

Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Why El Cheapo Domains Will Cost You Money

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 11:01 am on Saturday, July 21, 2007

You want your own online business? Good because it’s one of the most fun things you can do with your spare time and can be very profitable.

Remember that just because it’s an online business doesn’t mean that you should treat it with any less professionalism or seriousness than you do your daytime job.

Why? Simply because when you run an online business it’s a serious business. Well it should be taken seriously if you want to make serious money.

One of the most important aspects of any online business is the domain name. This is where the vast majority of new online entrepreneurs make their first big mistake - they choose one of those free domain name providers to represent their business online. This is a critical mistake.

Let’s say you’re starting a computer repair business. Which one of the following domains looks better:

‘www.computerfixer.com’
or;
‘computerfixer.freehosting.com’

The truth of the matter is that computerfixer.com is a top level domain and computerfixer.freehosting.com is a sub-domain. These free domain providers would have you believe that their cheapo subdomain is as good as a top level domain - this simply isn’t so.

Online shoppers expect your online business to be located on a top level domain. If they find your website on one of these cheap or free domain services you’ve just lost 50% of your potential customers. They’ll click back and look at the next search result in Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Free domains make you look cheap, show that you don’t want to invest in your business, that you don’t take your customers seriously, look terrible on business cards and make you look like an amateur. There aren’t any benefits to cutting corners on your domain name.

A domain name costs, at most, $15 per year. That’s 4 cents per day. If your business can’t afford this then you really shouldn’t be running an online business at all.

Niall Roche - EzineArticles Expert Author

This article was written by Niall Roche and provided courtesy of http://www.domaintutor.info. This website has lots of informative and useful articles on the topic of web domains.

The Value of Debt Related Domain Names

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 5:26 am on Monday, July 16, 2007

Why domain names can be a good investment!

We have a number of generic finance related domain names and
have recently added to these through the £14,000 investment in
debtconsolidation.co.uk and the purchase of
debtfree.co.uk.

It’s true that debt consolidation is one of the hottest terms
especially in respect of PPC’s and we believe we will get free
traffic from people guessing the domains when they are looking
for debt consolidation or debt free i.e. people that are looking
for debt consolidation will enter debtconsolidation.co.uk in the
toolbar rather than searching for debt consolidation on a search
engine. Both debt consolidation and debt free are amongst the
most searched for terms on the internet and you would therefore
expect a percentage of people looking for these terms to guess
the domain. Many domain investors use the overture search rank
as a key to the potential value of a generic domain. i.e. if a
lot of people search for a term then a smaller proportion will
second-guess what the domain name will be.

A good generic domain name can also help with search engine
placement. Approximately 12 months ago debtconsolidation.co.uk
used to be at the top of google for debt consolidation but
someone must have failed to renew! www.debtconsolidation.co.uk
is already on the 1st page of msn.co.uk for debt consolidation
out of 17,265,739 results. Debt Consolidation is a very hard
term to get to the top of especially only after website was
launched 2 weeks ago. (Website is still temporary!). So I
believe domain name has played a big part in it. This seems
especially true for msn. Try searching for debt consolidation
loans on msn and look at all the domains that are top! Only 1 in
the Top 10 doesn’t have debt consolidation loan in the domain
name!! That’s the beauty and the value of a generic domain!!

A domain name can also be of use through pay per click
advertising (PPC). We advertise extensively through google
adwords and what we have found is that the domain can have a
direct effect on your Click through ratios (CTR’s) and hence the
amount you need to pay per click. We advertise on google and
where the domain is similar to the search terms you generate
significantly more traffic (hence why espotting (miva) insist
you include the search term in your title).

When you are valuing a domain for a business as well as looking
at how much people will pay for a PPC it is also worth looking
at how much they will pay for a successful application. This is
really where the true value can be seen.

We are therefore confident that generic domain names (that are
business related) are definitely good investments for the future
and it’s wise to buy before others realise it too! We will
definitely be looking for new ones that come available.

I think some of the bigger companies aren’t on the same page
yet. It is too difficult to get approval for a purchase off
someone who doesn’t understand the potential value. Often they
also outsource their internet advertising so there is no one in
the business that understands the internet.

So to summarise a domain name can have considerable value if it
is able to generic free relevant traffic to your website. Also
as the internet grows and users become more sophisticated in how
they search then we would expect the value of domain names to
increase further.

Domain Name Appraisal Information

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 3:14 am on Saturday, June 30, 2007

There is basically nothing out there in the real world that is equal. Everything has its own distinctions, thus nothing is equal. This is also true with domain names. Not all domain names are designed equal as it is commonly noted. One of the main reasons that show this fact about the domain names is the truth that some of the choices for words in the English language have already been broken up as domains, thus some of the particular domain names worth higher to buyers than the others.

With such fact about the value of the domain names, one of the major processes that exist in the world comes to tackle this matter and that is the domain name appraisal. The domain name appraisal emerged out of the situation of buying and selling domain names. So what exactly is the domain name appraisal?

The domain name appraisal is the manner of weighing up a domain name and recognizing the worth of a certain domain name. This is somewhat like a real estate appraisal and other forms of appraisals. However, unlike the currencies in which a set worth can be recognized; in the domain name worth has no way to be standardized. So with such fact, it is important to know that the domain name appraisal just remains as an opinion. Many domain name experts have noted that due to such condition of the domain name appraisal, there is no way that the domain name’s worth can be conclusively proved.

Even though the domain name appraisal remains as a mere opinion, the domain name appraisal can still be very helpful. They not only give the domain name owners with an opinion but the domain name appraisal also gives certain signals to the owners of what they must charge when they decide to sell a domain name. As such, the domain name appraisal is then believed to add at least a tidbit justification to the domain name price.

In a domain name appraisal, a number of factors are mostly considered. These factors include the domain name’s length, keyword recognition, vividness and range of potential uses. It is also considered that most of the domain name appraisals today charge a certain domain name between 10 to 30 dollars, but with official discounts for bulk domain name appraisals. And to better serve the domain name consumers and holders, certain companies that conduct such service provide some software that will greatly appraise the domain names for the customers.

But still outside from such functions, the domain name appraisals are only means of determining the worth of a domain name. And if the domain name is appraised at a high value, it doesn’t mean that such domain name will sell quickly, it just holds that you picked a better name.

The 12 Month Millionaire Will Show You Everything you did and didn’t want to know about making One Million Dollars by this time next year… revealed LIVE! Active hyperlink must remain w/article.

The net-Domain: Backbone of the Web

Filed under: Domainers Toolbox — admin at 1:12 am on Thursday, June 28, 2007

We do not always realize that figures are just quantity and can deceive about quality.

In spite of the fact that the net-domain is only the No. 4 in terms of the number of domain names registered, it works as a backbone of the web. The net-domains build the largest Top Level Domain by number of hosts, or machines connected to the Internet. More than 44 percent of name servers use net-domains. We presume, that programmers and other technical experts have a more narrow emotional relationship to .net than to .com. Their sympathy for .net is just greater than for .com.

Historically .net was once reserved for providers. This might have still an influence to the technical use of .net and the importance of this use. Every programmer and hostmaster has an idea of .net, but not every programmer and hostmaster has an idea of .com. In some way .net stands for the web.

Other facts:

– 31 percent of all page views are dependent on a net-domain for resolution

– 32 percent of all B2C e-Commerce in 2004 is dependent on a net-domain for resolution. https://www.domainregistry.de/net-domain.html

About The Author

Hans-Peter Oswald
CEO
ICANN Registrar Secura

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

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