1. Keep it short
Although you can now register a name with up to 63 characters, you have to keep in mind that people need to be able to remember it, and easily type it into their browser. Try to register the shortest name that your customers and visitors will associate with your Website. The general rule of thumb is, keep it under ten characters if possible. (Not including the suffix.)

2. Dot What?
There are many different extensions available right now. For businesses, we recommend a .com suffix. It is the first extension that most people try when searching for a Website. Also, since it is one of the oldest extensions, .com shows that your business has been around for a while and that you have a well-established presence on the Web.

3. Avoid Trademarked Names
There are two really good reasons for this. First, it’s not very nice. We have all heard the stories about the lucky guy who thought ahead and bought “some-huge-multi-million-dollar-company.com” and sold it to the company for enough money to retire on. But, remember that those companies, like yours, have spent lots of time and money creating their brand, and what goes around comes around. Also, companies are no longer opening their pocketbooks to get their names back. They are calling their lawyers.

4. Register Your Domain NOW
Domain names are being snatched up faster than candy at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. You must register soon unless you want to get stuck with “the-domain-name-that-no-one-wanted.net”. You do not have to have a Webmaster or an ecommerce department or a Web design consultant or… Heck, you don’t even need a Web page. Just get out there and register before you loose the opportunity to get the name you really want.

5. One May Not Be Enough
Sometimes, it isn’t a bad idea to register several similar domain names. If you have “yourname.com”, register “yourname.net” so no one else takes it. You can register your full company name and a shorter, easier to remember version. Some people even register common misspellings of their company’s name. (You don’t need a separate Web page for each. Several domains can point to the same Website.)

6. Character Types
Just a reminder. Domain names can only use letters, numbers, and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. Also, domain names are not case sensitive, mydomain.com is the same as MyDomain.com

7. Ask Around
When you have settled on several available name choices, see what your friends and clients have to say. A name that may make perfect sense to you may be too hard for other people to remember. Is your domain easy to say? Is it hard to spell? Do you have to explain why you chose the name?

8. Don’t Shell Out Large Amounts of $$$
At one time, companies were able to get away with charging reservation fees plus a “mandatory” $70 InterNIC fee. This has now changed completely. There are so many companies registering domain names, you should be able to get a good bargain. Active-Domain offers one of the lowest price you could find, on top of the free services you get which most companies are charging extra fee for them. Don’t just look at the price, see what other features you get with your domain. You shouldn’t have to paying anything extra for email/web redirection and even subdomains.

And remember, if you think that if you have found the right domain name, but you’re not quite sure if it’s the one… register it anyway before someone else does!

The need (or not) for hyphens in your domain name depends on your individual website and your competition online.

Confusing Domain Names?

Webmasters were excited years ago when they were able to register 63 character domain names instead of the previous limit of 22 characters. Longer domain names give you more choices, but are generally harder to read in one unbroken line.

Look at the difference in these two names:

The capitalization of domain names works great with human eyes, but not for search engine spiders.

However, hyphens of domain names may increase legibility to humans and may help search engine spiders:

Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of hyphenated domain names? Up to you to decide.

So what should you look for when buying a domain name? Assuming you don’t have the big bucks to spend, you try altering your searches and broaden your acceptance of domains for your web presence. This can be very frustrating. Let’s say you are selling “widgets”. So you want widgets.com – tough luck. That domain was registrered 3 years ago and some guy wants a whopping 50 grand for it. Ok, what about “widgets.net” or “widgets.org”. Try again. All of them are most likely occupied. Given that all popular keywords are taken combined with the releases of some new country codes, people are coming up with some creative domain ideas.

Let’s rewind this for a moment. Is it really that important to have your main keyword in the domain name? Should you really be looking for “buy-widgets-at-my-site.info” in the end? Think of the big ones. The key is not the keyword – it’s the brand. Keyword domains are out. Branding names are in.

So when choosing your domain name, don’t get stuck in the keyword thinking. Take it back to the brand. If necessary, have a domain lookup tool at your disposal when choosing the brand in the first place.

I particularly like google (who doesn’t). Its easy to remember, you can verbalize it (let’s google that) and it has a deeper meaning (googolplex – the highest number there is). And today, the brand is stronger than ever. Think beyond keywords.

A .me domain is about a personal webpage, a .tv is an entertainment website and a.com is for companies although it is more widely used as a generic domain name for American websites. The two main competitors are .com and .co.uk. These are primarily USA and UK domain name respectively and they are the most professional domains. These domains also carry a larger price ticket on them because of this.

The .info domain is usually the cheapest domain name available across all domain registrars. This is because this domain is used less by the public however it is a perfectly acceptable domain for people who wish to create informational websites. These include websites on certain topics that offer articles and other information on this area.

When choosing a domain name you should go for the one that best fits your website description as well as your budget. Naturally if you are an American business, it won’t help you much to have a .co.uk domain name as this will develop UK based traffic.

Other than using expired domain traffic as a web site promotion technique, you can also buy deleted domain names and develop them into a new website. Once you have found some good quality domains that are about to expire or have just expired then you will need to back order them to give yourself a chance of getting your hands on the ones that you have found.

Surely you would know by now, that if you were to purchase a brand new domain, you would have to do all the advertising, promotion, SEO work, submission to search engines, forums, and directories yourself.

To buy expired domain traffic is all about capturing all the effort, time and money that the previous owner developed and putting it to good use for yourself. While there is no way to gauge the actual amount of traffic going to a recently deleted domain, you can find out its link popularity in the major search engines.

Many domain owners are blissfully unaware of the extent to which their domain name data is inaccurate, even in key respects such as email contacts – the very addresses which the registrars may contact under the new system to request a confirmation of data accuracy.

If organizations fail to respond to their domain registrar they risk their domain names being placed ‘on hold’ (temporarily deactivated) unless and until they provide updated information. Ultimately, the registrar has the contractual right to delete domain names where no response is received. A deactivation will result in the organization’s web site becoming unavailable and more importantly a loss of all incoming email. A deletion means the domain name could be re-registered by someone else on a first-come-first-served basis.

ICANN has sought to balance such concerns by applying the ‘redemption grace period’ to any domain names deleted for inaccurate contact information. This is some consolation to domain registrants as there will be a period during which they can reactivate a domain name which the registrar has placed ‘on hold’, on payment of a reactivation fee.

Having said this, the possible loss of email connectivity for any length of time, which might result from a business failing to adopt a best practice approach in domain name management, is a gamble not worth taking. Furthermore, the cost to reactivate a domain name could be as much as over $200 per domain.

Using our domain registration service, you are advised to check the accuracy of your domain contact information regularly and update them (especially the contact email address) whenever necessary. Failure to do so could result in your inability to receive our request to verify your contact information or any critical email notices (such as renewal notice) from us. You may update the contact information of your domain name at any time from our domain manager

2. Use a number in your domain name, such as 1Widgets.com, but not own the spelled OneWidgets.com.

3. Since you are a great company, expect customers to remember a long domain name such as WorldsGreatestComputerCompany.com. This is also using a tag line as a name.

4. Give customers two opportunities to forget your name. Expect your customers to remember your company name, “World’s Greatest Computer Company,” and also expect customers to remember that your website is your initials WGCC.com.

5. Admire a famous company or a clever name, such as eBay, by using a slightly different name. Spend your startup capital and time on a trademark legal battle.

6. Make up a new word, such as Viagra, but don’t spend millions on marketing to make the new word a household word, and expect your customers to remember the new coined word anyway.

7. Assume a name that worked for your brick-and-mortar store will also work just as well for your online store, when most customers remembered your brick-and-mortar store by your location, (the bike store at the shopping center).

8. Make customers think if your website is Widget.com (singular) or Widgets.com (plural) and send those who guess wrong to your competition.

9. Choose a popular word such as “American” in AmericanWidgets.com and wait for one or more of the 10,000 other companies named American to sue you for trademark infringement.

10. Register your domain name for just 1 year instead of the maximum of 10 years, and then forget to renew the domain name when it expires the following year. You end up losing the domain name to some cyber squatter who took over your domain and demand  large amount of money from you if you want to get it back.

This is the reason to have more than one Domain Name.

Let’s say you are listed #5 in the search engine “Yahoo”, under the key word of Apple. When you re-submit your site to Yahoo 3 more times, you will not automatically become listing # 6, 7, and 8. You CAN by having more than one domain name.

Now, let’s say your domain name is apple.com
If you also had……

1.apples.com
2.machintosh.com
3.redapple.com
4.grannyapple.com

You now have an incredible advantage over other apple sites. Your business is now listed with 5 domains. This means you now have 5 times the chance of having a surfer click on the link to your site.

You need to protect your business/product’s name.

If you want to brand and protect your name, we recommend that you at least register the .net version. If you are an organization, we would also register the .org as well. This does several things. It brands your site and prevents others from copying your site and calling it yourdomain.net or yourdomain.org. Some nasty souls may even use these names for unethical purposes or sites that promote pornography. That will do great damage to your business or image of your organization. You do not want to be found in such awkward situation.

1. Keep it short

Although you can now register a name with up to 63 characters, you have to keep in mind that people need to be able to remember it, and easily type it into their browser. Try to register the shortest name that your customers and visitors will associate with your Website. The general rule of thumb is, keep it under ten characters if possible. (Not including the suffix.)

2. Dot What?

There are many different extensions available right now. For businesses, we recommend a .com suffix. It is the first extension that most people try when searching for a Website. Also, since it is one of the oldest extensions, .com shows that your business has been around for a while and that you have a well-established presence on the Web.

3. Avoid Trademarked Names

There are two really good reasons for this. First, it’s not very nice. We have all heard the stories about the lucky guy who thought ahead and bought “some-huge-multi-million-dollar-company.com” and sold it to the company for enough money to retire on. But, remember that those companies, like yours, have spent lots of time and money creating their brand, and what goes around comes around. Also, companies are no longer opening their pocketbooks to get their names back. They are calling their lawyers.

4. Register Your Domain NOW

Domain names are being snatched up faster than candy at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. You must register soon unless you want to get stuck with “the-domain-name-that-no-one-wanted.net”. You do not have to have a Webmaster or an ecommerce department or a Web design consultant or… Heck, you don’t even need a Web page. Just get out there and register before you loose the opportunity to get the name you really want.

5. One May Not Be Enough

Sometimes, it isn’t a bad idea to register several similar domain names. If you have “yourname.com”, register “yourname.net” so no one else takes it. You can register your full company name and a shorter, easier to remember version. Some people even register common misspellings of their company’s name. (You don’t need a separate Web page for each. Several domains can point to the same Website.)

6. Character Types

Just a reminder. Domain names can only use letters, numbers, and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. Also, domain names are not case sensitive, mydomain.com is the same as MyDomain.com

7. Ask Around

When you have settled on several available name choices, see what your friends and clients have to say. A name that may make perfect sense to you may be too hard for other people to remember. Is your domain easy to say? Is it hard to spell? Do you have to explain why you chose the name?

8. Don’t Shell Out Large Amounts of $$$

At one time, companies were able to get away with charging reservation fees plus a “mandatory” $70 InterNIC fee. This has now changed completely. There are so many companies registering domain names, you should be able to get a good bargain. Active-Domain offers one of the lowest price you could find, on top of the free services you get which most companies are charging extra fee for them. Don’t just look at the price, see what other features you get with your domain. You shouldn’t have to paying anything extra for email/web redirection and even subdomains.

And remember, if you think that if you have found the right domain name, but you’re not quite sure if it’s the one… register it anyway before someone else does!

.com = commercial .net = network .edu = educational .org = organization You can also specify subdomains of the domain name yourdomain.com, such as, mypage.yourdomain.com which will point to another page in your website. Subdomains are also called hostnames. They refer to the same thing.

Technical Information

When you register a domain name, it is added to a database of all the available domain names. The information about your domain name, such as contact, billing, administrative contact, as well as your domain name server (DNS) is added to this database. So when someone searches for a website, you are accessing this large database and this database directs you to the relevant DNS to access their database to find which computer your website is on.

What can a Domain Name contain?

A domain name may contain letters, numbers and the dash (-). Most names end in the above top level domains, of which .com is the most popular. They cannot begin or end with a dash, and no space is allowed before, between, and after your domain. You can have up to 67 characters now (include the top level domain) in order to increase search engine placement, such as internetmarketingcenter.com. However, some web browsers may not be compatible with names longer than 58 characters. Try to keep it below that length for greater compatibility.

Why Should I get a Domain Name?

There are many reasons why you should get a domain name NOW. Even though you may not need one this second, it is always wise to secure one if you are company that has registered trademarks or brand names. If you don’t really have a purpose or idea for the Internet at the present time, your domain name may stand idle for some time, but when you finally have the resources to start something on the Internet, the domain name that you have chosen will be available right away. There are currently over 32 million domain names registered today. Thousands more are being registered each day. There is a scarcity of the above top level domain names that now they are planning to move on to other top level domains, such as .biz, .info, .museum, etc. Some of these are endings specified for specific industry, category of people/business. You may not be able to register for them if you are not qualified. Many of these names are also being pre-registered already. They will be snatched
up immediately once available. If you do a search for something that you are interested in, you will find that it takes you quite a while to come up with a domain name that satisfies you. Almost all of the three, four and five letter English words are gone. Of the 3 letter and number combination, the only domains available are names such as 33A.com and other undesirable combinations. If you do get a domain name like theme.com, which my friend owns, it is potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Your Own Website

It seems that everyone has a website these days. You may not have the slightest idea on how to go about building a website, but if you can work the Internet and a word processor, you can probably build a website. There are many different tools and automated programs to help you do this. There are a lot of online resources, such as free graphics, ideas, dynamic programs that can make your site pleasing to the eye and also interactive with your visitors. You could obtain a name based on your name. For example, if you are a medical doctor, you could register your domain as dryourname.com or doctoryourname.com. If you have an uncommon name, most probably it is still available. You could also register a name based on your interests. If you make a site on the TV show Friends, it would be something that interests you and gives you some motivation to express your ideas and opinions etc.

Your Company

Trademarks
If you own a trademark name, such as Wal-Mart, it may be relatively easily to take the name, wal-mart.com from an existing owner. Etoys.com tried to take etoy.com away from a group of artists, who had actually started their website two years before etoys.com did. Etoys was unsuccessful, but have caused a lot of anguish and strife, not to mention the court costs, for the owners of etoy. Someone who had registered AOLsearch.com had the name plucked from her. She had registered it for African-American Online Search. Of course, AOL, a huge company, wanted that name and got it. It may now be stricken from the database. Other companies, such as MacDonalds, had to go to extremes to get the rights to their trademarked names. There is a term for people who buy up domain names of existing companies in order to demand a ransom price for them. These people are termed, cybersquatters. I urge you not to go this route because there are regulations from ICANN and InterNIC that prohibit these kinds of actions now. The details can be found in our dispute policy. It would be wise for your company to purchase all the relevant domain names while they are still available, rather than buy them on the after market, where you could end up paying thousands of dollars, or going to court to obtain the rights to a trademark name. It costs as little as $7.49 per year to register a domain name from BuyForLess.com these days.

Your Products and Services
If you offer a product or service, it would be worthwhile to buy a domain name related to this to offer brand recognition. Examples would include domainparking.com, clothes.com, shopping.com, etc. Search the internet and you will find that a lot of product names are already taken and not fully developed yet, even after several years. You need to think about it as an investment. Remember that the Internet is growing by leaps and bounce. Every day, more and more people are going online. Your name may itself be worth a lot of money in two to three years time.

If you are eyeing the secondary domain market, seeing names like business.com selling for $7.5 million, you need to think carefully about what domain names you invest in to obtain this extraordinary sum. Advantages to buying up a lot of domain names in the hopes of striking it rich are the low cost to buy a domain name these days. You would own these registered domain names unless there was a trademark infraction. If you are buying domain names for the sole purpose of selling them, you should realize that less than five percent of the domain names sell for a substantial profit. Unless you are lucky to have a buyer, your domain name may sit on the auction block indefinitely. Sometimes it is more profitable to do a joint venture with a web developer and then sell the name along with the website. The bottom line is that if you have a chance to register a name that you want to develop into a website but just do not have the time, buy it if it is available. The domain name can be used at a later date or sold. It will only cost you $7.49 or less per year to keep it registered in your name at BuyForLess.com.

2. You’re looking for a domain name for a new website.
Start by noting down what your site will be about, in a paragraph or two. Then condense this description into a maximum of 2 sentences. Don’t worry about covering all the details – just make sure you’re addressing the essentials of what the site will be about.

Now take your short description, and underline all the “key” words that describe your site. Let’s take a specific example:

“Our website will be the leading source of information on weaving and knitting, providing knitting patterns and design ideas, an introduction to weaving, a guide to selecting and caring for looms, and a store for people to buy wool, yarn and books.”

Now try to come up with a domain name that either addresses the one fundamental concept of the site, or that marries two or more key concepts in a single name.

In our example: weavingandknitting.com, knittingandweaving.com, knittingpatterns.com, knittingworld.com, weavingworld.com, etc.

Once you’ve drawn up a short-list of domain names to “test” for availability, it’s time to look up our domain name search program.

If you’re having difficulty coming up with useful domain name combinations from your keywords, try a single keyword and add prefixes or suffixes. Not all prefixes and suffixes are appropriate in all situations – use your judgment when deciding which to add.

Common Prefixes Common Suffixes
e, e-, my, i, i-, the, online, net, web, internet, hot, cool, our, your world, links, site, web, net, resource, business, company, corp, inc, shop, store, mall, search, directory, guide

If you have a budget for your new domain name, then you need not be restricted to available, unregistered domain names. You may be able to buy the perfect domain name off its current owner. Most sales take place for a few hundred to ten thousand dollars or more, although some have been known to reach 7 figures for extremely desirable domains.

3. You’re looking for a domain name for an existing website.
In the case that you’re looking to buy a domain name for a website that is already up and running, your options will be more limited than if you’re starting from scratch.

First, have you already been operating the site under a clearly-recognizable “name” or “title”? Even if your site is hosted on cheap space at an ISP, or on a free host, you may have given it a short title in large letters (or in a logo). This is the obvious place to start when looking for a domain name.

If your site’s name (as given in its title) is very generic, you may well find one (or many) other sites already using it – and the corresponding domain name(s) long since gone. In that case, you have to decide whether you will make a bid to buy the domain name you want, look for an alternative extension (such as .org or .net) or use the brainstorming ideas mentioned earlier.

4. New rules for 67 character domain names.
This could present a tremendous opportunity in more ways than one.

Because the rules have changed, you can register names up to 67 characters long. This is including the .com or .net or .org. The old rule limited you to 23 characters.

What does this mean to you? Right now there is an opportunity to make some big money in a short period of time with a little investment. Why? Because you can register names today in hopes of selling them for big profits tomorrow. You have probably heard of this before, well now it’s happening again. For example, business.com has been sold for 7.5 million dollars! Do some brainstorming and register these names while you still can. Here are some of the reasons:

You can register domain names that abound with your keywords and really improve ranking on the search engines. Search engines just love names that describe the web site and have lots of keywords. Not very many people know this but the search engines actually prefer names with hyphens. Most people prefer names without hyphens but nowadays everyone just searches and clicks, you don’t usually have to type in the name. Besides, all the one word names are already taken.

In summary, if you want to appeal to the search engines make sure you use hyphens and if you want to appeal to the average person surfing the web do not use hyphens. But do you know what the easiest way to guarantee success is? Register both! There is no better way to ensure that you are getting as many visitors as possible than by registering the URL with hyphens and the same URL without.

You can register a name that is better than what you have now. Maybe your present domain name ends with a .net or .org. You can get a .com name which will be better for your business. If possible, by all means register the .com name first, follow by .net and/or .org.

If you now have a .net or .org, you are losing visitors and losing business. Almost everyone remembers .com before .net or .org and that’s a fact. Even most browsers will default to .com if the extension is not entered. A good .com name will always prevail and pay for itself time and time again. Ask any of the experts.

Next, check if your domain name is available here. If the name is available, you should seriously consider registering it now.