WHAT ARE DOMAIN NAMES?
Website is your location (i.e. your office) and name in the Internet world. There is no way you can easily differentiate between big organisations from small ones through their websites. Therefore, it makes you look big and can do business through out the world even when you are sleeping. Website can easily be defined as the hosting of domain name. Domain names are host names that provide memorable names to stand for numeric Internet protocol {IP} addresses. They make us (human beings) to easily interact with websites and other network services. Computers communicate through IP addresses e.g. 196.168.56.10, 80.229.24.50, etc. Domain names are Yahoo.com, Domaintutor.biz, Google.com, Forexinformation.org, Hotmail.com, etc.
HOW TO CHOOSE GOOD DOMAIN NAMES?
The name you give your website has much to say about you. When I was preparing this article, I have to check some domain names to know whether they exist. Will you be surprised if I tell you that websites like Devil.com, Lesbian.com, Terrorist.com and Oralsex.com exist live on the Internet. Who are the visitors to these sites? For the name you give to your website has much to say about you for examples Dogs.com and Birds.com are self explanatory. Any visitor to these sites has actually known what he is likely to see.
These tools will guide you in choosing your domain names. (a) Overture suggestion tools: It shows you how many times people searched for the word(s) or term(s) you want to register in the last one month (it is yahoo-advertising network). It is highly recommended that it should be more than 8,000 times. Note that overture combines the result of both plural and singular searches i.e. if you are searching for the word “chair” it will bring results on both “chair “and “chairs”.
(b) Google.com: Millions of people search on Google search box daily, this makes it a place where we can check for the popularity of the word or terms we are looking for. If the term is more than one word for example ‘baby shoes’, it is better you put it in quote like ”baby shoes” when typing it on Google search box. Google search pages will show how many pages contain the word(s) or term(s). The one that appears more than 700,000 times is recommended.
(c) View bid tool: This tool tells you what advertisers are currently bidding to pay for the word(s) or term(s) i.e. the higher, the better. Words like domain, forex, etc may be getting $6 bid when words like school, books may be $1.Logicaly, you will agree with me that it is better to go for the words that have higher bid. This is a very good tool for Google Adsense.
DOMAIN LOOKUP
Who is? : Is a tool use to view the owner’s or company’s name, postal address, e-mail address and phone number of registered domain name. This will show whether the name has been registered, if not, it will indicate that it is available for registration. If yes, it will also show the date it was registered and when it will expire.
(a) You can simply type whois.com to a web browser address space and lookup for the owner of the domain name. You can also check it out from Dnsstuff.com.
(b) Go to Google.com, type who is in their search box. This takes you to many websites that enable sourcing the owner of domain name or its availability.
DOMAIN REGISTRATION
The Registry is the body that has the power to handle an entire extension (sometimes more than one extension) e.g. Verisign.com is the Registry for all .com and .net domains. Registrar stands as a middleman between the Registry and the public. Most of them can register more than one extension. Examples of registrars are Godaddy.com, 007names.com, Moniker.com, etc. To register, check for the availability of the name, if the .com or .net or .biz or .us has been taken, quickly take .org.(that means the name is widely accepted).
Note: (a) Domain registration is on first come, first serve basis, once any domain is registered, it will not be available. If you want to register any one, please do quickly because any body throughout the world can have the same name in mind.
(b) The shorter the name, the better it is. For it will be easier to remember. It may be difficult to get one word name for popular suffix like .com, .org, .net, .biz, but you can still get from. mobil, .tv, fm, etc.
There are three factors to consider when choosing registrars. (1) Security: Your domains are your “Online estates” protect them. I will recommend Moniker.com for they have won award on domain security. It is difficult to steal domain from them.
(2) Management: Companies like 007names and Fabulous.com are good at domain management. You can easily sell your domains to buyers.
(3) Price: Many registrars charge high price while some are low. Yahoo.com charges just $1.99 for a first timer only. GoDaddy.com charges less but it takes some time before finishing your registration. They do advertise their products and services. Warning: Be careful if the price is too low for your name may be stolen.
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