Have you ever wondered what it takes to have your own domain name? Would you like to have your own .com? Well I am here to tell you how you can make that happen.
The first step in domain name registration is figuring out what name you want to register. It can be difficult to find a name that you like and one that is still available for purchase. I like to use Dotster.com to help me come up with a name and to check the name’s availability. Simply go to Dotster.com and enter in your idea, for example petnames.com. As you will see petnames.com is taken, but there are other alternative extensions that are available besides .com. There are also additional domain name suggestions for you to consider in the tab on the left.
This process can take a while as you are really trying to find the best name possible. I like to keep a list of available names as I go along and then choose the best domain name from the list when I feel like I have enough good candidates. I tend to have between 20 and 50 good domain name candidates listed.
When you have selected a name, then I suggest you go to a site like GoDaddy.com to save yourself some money on the domain name registration. GoDaddy is currently charging $8.95 for domain names while Dotster is charging $14.95. There is nothing wrong with Dotster, but domain name registration is a commodity service and GoDaddy has a better price. If you want to go even lower, Yahoo! is currently offering domain name registration for $2.99.
Once you have chosen your registrar, then you enter your chosen name and follow the directions to complete the transaction. There will be several pieces of information that you will need to give, like your name, address, email address, and phone number. I suggest you use an email address that you do not ever plan on losing. That way you will always be able to receive contact messages related to your domain name registration. Complete your purchase and you are ready to go. Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of a new domain name!
So what is next? Well now you need to build your site, find a web host, and publish your site to your web host’s servers. Once you have that done, you need to update the DNS entries related to your domain name. Your website’s DNS records are kept with the company where you purchased your domain name registration. Now you are the proud owner of a published website. I have breezed through the whole build, host, and publish process because I plan on providing more details in a follow-up series of articles. Thanks for reading and have fun with your new domain name.
Jason D. Barrett is currently focused on writing search engine optimization articles for KansasCitySEO.com, writing a search engine optimization blog for KansasCitySEO.com, and writing technology articles for ScoutTechnology.com.
Driving Dealings to Your Website and to Your Bed and Breakfast is 2 Sides of the Same Mint
Driving traffic to your internet site or to your hotel requires good planning and lots of optimisation both for your site and for your motel. The optimization for your website will go via a established SEO Supporter and the optimization for your bed and breakfast is mostly done by the motel itself, a good example of a Purple Cow in hotels is the Fox Hotel in Copenhagen, which had a total redesign by creative people and was the base of the launch of the new VW Fox in Denmark.
The first affair to do is to get a great address, for your web site this means getting a great PHP ISP and a solid domain, for your bed and breakfast, this means having a prominent address in the town where your motel is situated, desirable in the real center of the city.
Having a great address for your bed and breakfast lands lots of visitors just by itself. For your internet site this is not so easy, you demand outstanding rankings in search engines and to find these you will require to do search engine optimisation. A properly optimized web site will bring you tons of visitors to your website, visitants who are possible clients at your hotel.
SEO in the traveling industry is really difficult and you will need the best SEO Company to do the planning and execution of all jobs involved in the action. You must also be aware that SEO demands time, so solitaire is a virtue.
Registering a domain name with malicious intent or in bad faith is popularly called Cybersquatting in WWW. This is usually done for monetary reasons whereby one books a domain similar to a registered trademark or copyright of any known company and then tries to sell it to the concerned company at an exorbitant price. For example, if one registers a domain nike.net and then attempts to sell it back to Nike, it is cybersquatting. It will be in addition a violation of law if he/she puts up a website on nike.net describing Nike products and services in bad taste. On the other hand, if someone own a company trademark like Nike Foods and host a food website on nike.net, there is no cybersquatting or violation of law. So, it is the intention and not just the name which amounts to cybersquatting.
Cybersquatting was made illegal by the passage of a federal law in 1999 known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. The law became necessary because numerous large companies were forced to pay large sums to buy their domain names from third parties. These companies included such notables as Panasonic, Fry’s Electronics, Hertz and Avon.
Cybersquatting is quite common specially against the popular brands but most of the time, the victim company doesn’t know about it. How do you know if a company is a victim of cybersquatting? Type in a name that is a trademark or copyright like Sakshay preceded by “www” and following by “.com”, “.net” or “.org”. If you get a valid web site which looks like it is related in some way to the domain name, then there is no cybersquatting in effect (although this could be a simple trademark violation). However, if you get one of the following results, then this could be a cybersquatter.
- Can’t find server
- under construction
- page with no relationship to domain name
Of course there could be a reasonable explanation for each of these results, so they do not always mean there is cybersquatting occurring. It’s a good idea to contact the domain name owner before taking any legal action to find out what’s going on.
Since there can be many reasons both in favor and against cybersquatting in any specific case, how can one prove someone is cybersquatting?
- The domain name registrants intention was to profit from your domain name in bad faith
- Your trademark was in effect and widely known at the time the domain name was registered
- The domain name is identical to your trademark
- And you have actually registered the trademark
How do you know there is a bad faith intent? Well, there is probably no bad faith intent if one of the following is true:
- domain name is the same as the person’s name or nickname or company providing services or products in different domain.
- They are actually selling or intend on selling something on their web site - They have registered the domain prior to your trademark registration and have been using the domain name for some purpose or other.
- Does the web site owner actually have a legitimate use of the domain name? This would be, for example, true for a company named “Nike Foods”. They would have a legitimate reason for owning the “Nike” domain name.
Some clues that cybersquatting is occurring include:
- The domain name owner has put up a web site which in some way harms your company. For example, if you had somehow purchased “TATA.ORG” and created a web site about how inferior are TATA products, you are cybersquatting.
- If the domain name owner never legitimately used the domain name and simply offered to sell it to you, he is cybersquatting. If a person buys up a lot of names and has sold them over and over, there is a pattern of cybersquatting.
- If the domain name is the same as a very famous trademark, then it has a greater likelihood of being considered cybersquatting.
What can happen if someone is found guilty of cybersquatting is they can be ordered to hand over the domain name. In addition, if the domain was purchased after 1999, they can be ordered to pay monetary damages.
A sub-domain is an individual and separate web folder that can be created and attached to the main domain. This sub-domain can have its own FTP password. It can also have its own private CGI-Bin folders, and all other characteristics of an individual domain. But this sub-domain need not be registered as a separate domain and this means that the affiliate need not spend additional money for the setting up of the sub-domain.
How can a sub-domain help an entrepreneur achieve success in his affiliate marketing business? A sub-domain can help the affiliate in two ways. These are optimization in search engines and diversification of the affiliate’s website.
Optimization in Search Engines
Sub-domains are usually recognized by search engines as an individual online entity. And since it is a separate URL (as identified by search engines), it will be listed on its own and not be a part the main domain. In affiliate marketing, such a situation is advantageous. The affiliate can promote products in a dedicated website that will most probably be ranked high, provided that all other search engine optimization techniques are used.
Of course, there is a specification that the affiliate must comply with. That is, the sub-domain’s name must be attached to the main domain’s name using a dot. For example, the URL will be “subdomain.maindomain.com”. The affiliate should avoid using the hyphen, such as in http://subdomain-maindomain.com. The hyphenated name will need to be registered as a separate domain and this will demand additional expenses for the affiliate.
Diversification of the Affiliate’s Website
The contents of the website of an affiliate should be relevant to each other. This means that products that are extremely different from each other should not be located in one website. Otherwise, the affiliate runs the risk of discouraging and confusing the Internet visitor. But how will an affiliate promote products that are wholly unrelated to each other but are both interesting and financially feasible?
The affiliate can create sub-domains. One sub-domain will be dedicated to one product, while another will be focused on another product which is distinct from the first one. In this way, when the visitor opens the website, he will only find the products and information that he is looking for. He will not be distracted by the presence of another product banner that he has no interest in knowing about.
Of course, the creation of sub-domains may need to be consulted with the web host. Some web hosts offer free sub-domains while others demand a charge. The creation of sub-domains also involves work. But, after such work, the income of the affiliate will significantly increase.
Peter Garant’s affiliate marketing site offers high quality but cheap unique website content to webmasters who wants to maximize traffic and revenue on their affiliate sites.
