Website Basics-What Is A Domain Name?
This series of articles is designed to take some of the mystery out of the steps required to start up a website for yourself or your business.
I will attempt to keep my explanations and examples as simple as possible; I fully realize from my personal experience in this business that there is indeed a lot of mystery out there.I will attempt to speak as plainly as possible; don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to insult you or "dumb it down", it's only that I have come to realize through my own experience that the vast majority of the public is uninitiated regarding domain names, and this and the following articles are designed to clear up a lot of the confusion associated with domain name registration and website creation.
And so the first step in building a website is in the choice of a domain name. Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, plumber, real estate agent, travel agent, aluminum siding salesman, or if you want to build a site to feature your family dog Spot, the entire endeavor begins with the choice of a domain name. What is a domain name?
A domain name is really nothing more than a name. It's really just that simple. Each stop along the information superhighway is identified by a number code known as an IP address. Because humans remember words easier than numbers, a domain name (also known as a URL) is just a human-readible IP address. Domain names are designed to make web surfing easy.
When you buy a domain name either online or on the phone through a domain registrar company you are basically licensing the rights to that name for however long you are willing to pay for it. In other words, if I call or visit online my registrar company and pay for "mydomainname.com" for 5 years, that means that I have the exclusive rights to that domain name from the date of purchase going forward 5 years. Domain names are available for up to 10 years at a time. After that, you can renew the domain name again. There are no current laws in the US limiting the amount of time you can continue to renew a domain name, unlike the limitations on copyright or trademark names.
Can you change a domain name? The answer is a qualified NO. After registering a domain name most companies will allow you within the first 5 days to call and cancel a domain name that you have registered, and will allow you to register another domain name. You can't change a domain name, but if you made a mistake and if you're fast enough (within the 5 day period) you can get a refund on the original domain name and buy another.
Can you buy a domain name someone already owns? The answer is a qualified YES. Most domain name registrars provide some process which allows you to make an offer on someone else's domain name or backorder domain names in case the current owner of the domain name decides to let the domain name expire, giving you a chance to bid on the domain name so you can register it when it becomes available.
To clarify further, when buying a domain name, you are licensing the right to that name in a similar fashion to taking out a copyright or trademark. But it is only a NAME. This is an important point. In my career I have talked to countless people who thought that simply by buying a domain name, automatically somehow magically they suddenly owned a website. If that was your thought, let me assure you it is not so. But don't be discouraged, there are really only a few more steps to start up a website online.
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Choosing domains
Choosing a Domains
This weekend I will be creating a new blog! Its another topic that I like to talk about and all next week I will be talking about how I started my new blog and how I get traffic flowing right away to the blog. So this mini series will be called Blog StartUp and today is all about domain choosing.
Choosing a good domain name for your business website can be very hard but it is also essential to get it right, after all you want it to work for you.With the meteoric rise of Internet use in the past 5 years, the importance of a good domain name has also increased. Domain names have become an essential component in the marketing arsenal of every business, and as such deserve more than just a passing consideration.
Why is a domain name so important? For one thing, a domain name can help you to get traffic to your website. If you don't get traffic, you might as well not even have a website. There's no doubt about it, if you want to make money, you need traffic.But this process can be easily simplified by using this very unique tool on the internet called Bust a Name. What is bust a name all about?
The Service
Bust a Name is a tool to help you find domains and manage them. We have combined linguistic data with a unique interface to let you quickly search through thousands of domains and see which are available.
Why?
The project came about due to a clear need for a better way to find domains. Having launched many other web services, the hardest part was coming up with a domain name that wasn't taken but could easily be memorized. We also realized that domain management was pretty difficult too. Bust a Name was created to try to fix both of these problems and help you manage web site related things easier.
How?
We are firm believers in using the right tool for the job. A good chunk of Bust a Name is written in front end javascript. The back-end is mostly rails, running with mysql and lighttpd for our web server.
This service is very clever because it will search domains for you by means of keywords. Let's say you have a niche about gardening. All you have to do is enter a couple keywords about gardening and it will generate the possibilities of a domain base on your keywords! It is very simple. To gather more domains it will even add the additional 's' after your keywords and do its search. Optional.
The point here is that your domain name should be descriptive of your business. After all, if you were looking for a new dentist, would you be likely to visit "thehistoryofdestistry.com" or "localareadentists.com"? While both are somewhat in the same niche, you really do not want to learn about the history of dentistry but you want to find a dentist in your local area.It is important that the name you give to your website will have the possibility of being found by somebody searching for an answer to their problem on the internet. If your dentist gave you a bad experience you may want to have a review website: localdentistreviews.com or dentalreviews.com.
This brings back to bust a name, choosing the right keyword for the system to generate your perfect domain. Keywords are very important especially for search engines. It identifies your site as being relevant to their inquiry, and it also helps search engine bots determine the relevance of your site. I use the Overture tool to decide what was the most popular search word was, but I was unable to retrieve a good dot com with the popular keywords. But in the end I received a good dot com (will announce the new blog next week).
Keywords are not enough, however. Simply stringing keywords together creates a very weak domain name. It tends to be cumbersome, and poorly remembered. Try to thing of a way to convey some value or description of your site, in as few words as possible. If you can create a short phrase, perhaps three words, including your keyword, then it will sound both memorable and natural.
I had fun with the Bust a Name website and it gave me a great domain name which I was surprise it was available. I registered the domain and this weekend I will be working on the new concept of my new blog.
This weekend I will be creating a new blog! Its another topic that I like to talk about and all next week I will be talking about how I started my new blog and how I get traffic flowing right away to the blog. So this mini series will be called Blog StartUp and today is all about domain choosing.
Choosing a good domain name for your business website can be very hard but it is also essential to get it right, after all you want it to work for you.With the meteoric rise of Internet use in the past 5 years, the importance of a good domain name has also increased. Domain names have become an essential component in the marketing arsenal of every business, and as such deserve more than just a passing consideration.
Why is a domain name so important? For one thing, a domain name can help you to get traffic to your website. If you don't get traffic, you might as well not even have a website. There's no doubt about it, if you want to make money, you need traffic.But this process can be easily simplified by using this very unique tool on the internet called Bust a Name. What is bust a name all about?
The Service
Bust a Name is a tool to help you find domains and manage them. We have combined linguistic data with a unique interface to let you quickly search through thousands of domains and see which are available.
Why?
The project came about due to a clear need for a better way to find domains. Having launched many other web services, the hardest part was coming up with a domain name that wasn't taken but could easily be memorized. We also realized that domain management was pretty difficult too. Bust a Name was created to try to fix both of these problems and help you manage web site related things easier.
How?
We are firm believers in using the right tool for the job. A good chunk of Bust a Name is written in front end javascript. The back-end is mostly rails, running with mysql and lighttpd for our web server.
This service is very clever because it will search domains for you by means of keywords. Let's say you have a niche about gardening. All you have to do is enter a couple keywords about gardening and it will generate the possibilities of a domain base on your keywords! It is very simple. To gather more domains it will even add the additional 's' after your keywords and do its search. Optional.
The point here is that your domain name should be descriptive of your business. After all, if you were looking for a new dentist, would you be likely to visit "thehistoryofdestistry.com" or "localareadentists.com"? While both are somewhat in the same niche, you really do not want to learn about the history of dentistry but you want to find a dentist in your local area.It is important that the name you give to your website will have the possibility of being found by somebody searching for an answer to their problem on the internet. If your dentist gave you a bad experience you may want to have a review website: localdentistreviews.com or dentalreviews.com.
This brings back to bust a name, choosing the right keyword for the system to generate your perfect domain. Keywords are very important especially for search engines. It identifies your site as being relevant to their inquiry, and it also helps search engine bots determine the relevance of your site. I use the Overture tool to decide what was the most popular search word was, but I was unable to retrieve a good dot com with the popular keywords. But in the end I received a good dot com (will announce the new blog next week).
Keywords are not enough, however. Simply stringing keywords together creates a very weak domain name. It tends to be cumbersome, and poorly remembered. Try to thing of a way to convey some value or description of your site, in as few words as possible. If you can create a short phrase, perhaps three words, including your keyword, then it will sound both memorable and natural.
I had fun with the Bust a Name website and it gave me a great domain name which I was surprise it was available. I registered the domain and this weekend I will be working on the new concept of my new blog.
How to register ?
Website Basics-How to Register Your Domain Name
The simple and short answer is that when you buy a domain name, you are registering it. The reason for this article is that there are some optional features available that are well worth considering when registering a domain name.
First and foremost, make sure that the email address and contact information you give when registering a domain name are accurate. This is especially true in the case of the email address. Communications regarding the status of domain names are sent to the email address on file, so give an email address that is readily accessible to you, and if you change email addresses at some point please be sure and update the email address attached to your domain name. It cannot be stressed enough how important this is. Often people lose access to their domain name or lose the domain name altogether because they can no longer access it, and the number one reason for this is their email address changed, they failed to update it with their domain registrar, and they no longer receive important communications regarding the status of the domain name.
Privacy One of the "deluxe" options you will be offered at the time of domain name registration is the option for privacy. You'll probably want to take advantage of this option. All domain names are listed in a large internet database called the WhoIs database. Without adding privacy to your registration, your contact info, including your name, address, phone, email, etc. all become public information, and readily accessible to spammers, telemarketers, and junk mailers. Private domain name registration is not mandatory and will not block all spam, but it is well worth the extra investment nonetheless.
Business Registration This next option concerns how your domain name is perceived in the WhoIs database and by the search engines. If your planned website involves commercial interests, this is a highly recommended option as well. Business registration places your domain name in WhoIs as a business, rather than a personal registration, and lists you by business category and subcategory. There is also an option to place an online business card and a link to a map to your store location, which will show up on the search engines. This also boosts your standing with the search engines; ie., business vs. personal.
Platinum Registration This option protects your domain name from domain name hijack. In the event that you give others access to your account, such as when hiring a web author to build your website, Platinum Registration locks the domain name down in such a way that no one can modify or steal it in any way. Highly recommended as well.
Multiple Years In the past few months Google and Yahoo, among others, have modified their search techniques to include checking the length of registration of a domain name. This is to weed out the pretenders from the players. Registering your domain name for a minimum of 5 years (or more) will boost your esteem in the eyes of the major search engines.
The simple and short answer is that when you buy a domain name, you are registering it. The reason for this article is that there are some optional features available that are well worth considering when registering a domain name.
First and foremost, make sure that the email address and contact information you give when registering a domain name are accurate. This is especially true in the case of the email address. Communications regarding the status of domain names are sent to the email address on file, so give an email address that is readily accessible to you, and if you change email addresses at some point please be sure and update the email address attached to your domain name. It cannot be stressed enough how important this is. Often people lose access to their domain name or lose the domain name altogether because they can no longer access it, and the number one reason for this is their email address changed, they failed to update it with their domain registrar, and they no longer receive important communications regarding the status of the domain name.
Privacy One of the "deluxe" options you will be offered at the time of domain name registration is the option for privacy. You'll probably want to take advantage of this option. All domain names are listed in a large internet database called the WhoIs database. Without adding privacy to your registration, your contact info, including your name, address, phone, email, etc. all become public information, and readily accessible to spammers, telemarketers, and junk mailers. Private domain name registration is not mandatory and will not block all spam, but it is well worth the extra investment nonetheless.
Business Registration This next option concerns how your domain name is perceived in the WhoIs database and by the search engines. If your planned website involves commercial interests, this is a highly recommended option as well. Business registration places your domain name in WhoIs as a business, rather than a personal registration, and lists you by business category and subcategory. There is also an option to place an online business card and a link to a map to your store location, which will show up on the search engines. This also boosts your standing with the search engines; ie., business vs. personal.
Platinum Registration This option protects your domain name from domain name hijack. In the event that you give others access to your account, such as when hiring a web author to build your website, Platinum Registration locks the domain name down in such a way that no one can modify or steal it in any way. Highly recommended as well.
Multiple Years In the past few months Google and Yahoo, among others, have modified their search techniques to include checking the length of registration of a domain name. This is to weed out the pretenders from the players. Registering your domain name for a minimum of 5 years (or more) will boost your esteem in the eyes of the major search engines.
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