Recently I made a mistake that may cost a great deal of traffic to my new web site.

Let me explain…

I studied so many books about Internet marketing over the last couple of years that I decided to start a new web site, and share my knowladge and experience with other fellow Internet marketers.

Since I read lots of information about search engine optimization (SEO), I intended to optimize all of my web pages for search engines from the beginning on, expecting Google to be my number one source of traffic in the near future.

I did an extensive keyword research using WordTraker, made a blueprint for my product and article pages, and the time has come to choose a great domain name for my new project.

I went to GoDaddy, the famous domain name registar, tried this and that, and finally came up with a beautiful domain name related to Internet marketing - netmarketingstrategies.com

You probably know that Internet marketing is a very competitive niche, so I was glad that this domain name was still available. I registered it immediately.

My site was up and running in 48 hours. Now I needed some fresh web content, and to get indexed by major search engines as soon as possible.

So, I spent a week or two writing search engine optimized content for my new online business.

I usually don’t submit my new web sites to search engines for indexing. I prefer when my sites are found on other web sites and get spidered automatically.

One of the easiest ways to have a link to a web site from other sites is by writing and distributing high quality articles. So, I wrote an article about two-tier affiliate programs and submited it to major article directories.

Within a couple of days I searched for my article title in Google and noticed that it did great. Publishers liked my article and they were publishing it on their web sites and newsletters.

I expected my home page to get indexed very fast.

Time went.

Each week I searched Google to see if my site has already got indexed. It didn’t.

I decided to see if my domain has been spidered by other major search engines. Yes, both Yahoo and MSN got it. So, what went wrong? Why Google won’t index my home page?

Here’s what I think went wrong: my further investigation showed that the domain name had already been used by another webmaster and had been expired half a year ago when I registered it. It seems that the previous domain name owner was using unfair search engine optimization strategies and his web site was banned by Google.

I sent a request to Google explaining the situation and asking to lift the ban from my web site. I am not sure if they will listen and help me.

I am ready to register a new domain name in a few weeks time if I still cannot get my site indexed by Google.

So, don’t make the same mistake I did… If you intend to optimize your new web site in order to receive traffic from Google and other search engines, make sure to check out if a domain name you’ve selected for your online business is not banned by Google before registering it.

Gerardas Norkus has been marketing online since 1997. Take advantage of his battle tested Internet marketing strategies that could quietly make you huge profits every single month. Take 7-part e-mail course at: http://www.netmarketingstrategies.com

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Your domain name is you on the Internet and not many people realise that it may be at risk of theft! It’s a fact that many people leave themselves exposed to the risk of domain name theft, when all they need to do is take a few simple steps to significantly reduce the potential problem.

The root of the situation is that there are some significant weaknesses in ICANN’s rules, which all accredited Domain Name Registrars must comply with.

The two main weaknesses are :-

1. You are only allowed to use one email address as the Administration control email, if you loose control of that email address then you loose control of you domain name as well!

2. Surprisingly none of the details that are given to a domain name registrar are checked in any way, this is wide open to abuse and allows a potential thief to operate freely.

There are other weaknesses and they all combine to make it easy for online crooks to steal your domain names and use your site and the hard won traffic you have built up for their own purposes.

So what can you do to protect your domain name?

The first and most basic thing you can do is not to use a free email address for your Admin Email Address, always use a regular POP email address in every case, it may not be quite as convenient but it is more secure.

Be prepared to register your domain names for more than one year at a time, the longer the better, but of course you do have to bear in mind the additional costs involved.

Be sure to change your password on a regular basis, at least every six months if not sooner and make sure that you use a secure password, no pets, children or spouses names!

Always lock the name you register with the Domain name Registrar and use whois guard or masking so you details are hidden. Again this costs extra but it is well worth it and it has the added benefit of reducing the possibility of spammers getting your details.

Finally keep a hard copy of all your details and passwords then you are covered when your hard disk goes down.

By taking the few simple steps outlined above you will be able to significantly increase the security of your domain name, but what can you do if the worst happens and you domain name is stolen.

The only person who can help you and restore the stolen domain name is your registrar, they will have come across this problem and will have a set procedure that they follow. It is going to take some time to sort out and the sooner you get in touch and the more information you can supply the quicker your domain name will be restored to you.

To keep up to date on developments in the domain name arena check out http://www.domain-fame.com

You may reprint this article provided you maintain an active link back to http://www.domain-fame.com

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“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet”
-Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)

A rose perhaps but not your domain name!

Welcome to the dotcom bubble! Here, any successful e-tailer should tell you that there’s more to a name than just the name itself. This article serves precisely that purpose -against the backdrop of quality domain naming strategies and styles, auctions, speculators and court conflicts, to convince you why your online endeavor needs that perfect domain name.

There’s no point in coming up with that absolutely fabulous idea for online selling plus a perfect site to launch from, as long as you don’t have ‘the’ name you need. Choosing a name that will eventually contribute to your brand equity, profits, internet marketing and above all -your online credibility, shouldn’t be done haphazardly. Especially, since it’s so easily purchased (for a low startup capital), easily maintained and one that, if you choose, may be disposed off at a substantial amount. Intentionally or otherwise, your domain name becomes your de facto brand name, a location or an experience your visitors relate to in the long run. Even if you plan to sell it later on to prospective buyers, it is only an asset! Your challenge is to come up with that one name to funnel visitors through.

Brandmeisters today seem to understand the significance of site names, especially since the emergence of a number of me-too sites. Like a Washington Post reporter put it - “feature for feature, service for service, discount for discount, even annoyance for annoyance”, a number of sites may turn out to be a close match to yours. Quoting Rebecca Saunders, author of the Big Shot series, “Names have to sound fresh and new even if the site duplicates one already on the net. Names should stir the imagination or otherwise gain the surfer’s attention. Further site name should be as simple as possible, they should be believable, and they should be easy to pronounce, pleasing to the ear, easy to spell and therefore easy to look up on a search engine.” Here’s more on building your handle.

The ‘aha’ name

Domain name consultants will serve you innumerable dos and don’ts on internet domain naming - a feat that could leave you grumbling with limited choices. Personally, your domain naming methodology need not be absolutely conventional, as long as your imagination is not slave to impractical logic and common sense.

Begin with a paper, pencil and loads of patience. Consider seeking the advice of kith and kin, while you scramble ideas in your brain. Follow closely on what you ought to and ought not to consider. For example, consider characteristics, features, advantages and possibly anything that relates to your products and services. Now try to come up with a domain name that either addresses that one fundamental concept of the site, or that weds two or more key concepts in a single name. All the while, keep in mind, your site’s goals, the image you wish to portray and your target audience. Don’t compromise on your image-how you want your company to be perceived and it’s relation to your core business memorability. Jot down your list of ideas. Then narrow it down to those names you think are most reflective of your products/services. Most importantly, determine if the domain name you like is available and that it doesn’t violate any existing trademarks or copyrights. The last thing you’d want is your hard thought idea of that domain name accidentally offending a fellow netizen. Make sure that it doesn’t mean something entirely different in another language and that you don’t spare chance for the public to associate anything negative with it (easier said than done!). Care for the ins and outs of classic and non classic approaches in domain naming? Read on.

Unless you are a domain name squatter or a start-up capitalizing on domain names - save those tongue-twisters, masqueraded phrases and unpronounceable names.

Your creativity levels, thought and effort should be directed towards one that’s short and sweet. Though, a long name, embedded with your major keywords, can get your site a high search engine ranking, there is no reason you should take advantage of the 67 character limit provided for domain names. Besides, you are too late now. The record of the longest domain name has been set by a Welsh village, with its registration of llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.com.

Concentrate on your visitors comfort levels. Leave them no scope for confusion and no loophole to err. Give them a name they can easily guess (without having to quip over the spelling and the location of hyphens) and hopefully, they’ll reciprocate with more clicks.

You could always rely on those prefixes (e, i, net, web, the, my) and suffixes (world, business, company, store). The power of vowels unleashed, you’d generate a potential brand name. E.g. ebay.com, ivillage.com, pcworld.com, smallbusiness.com

Lucky the business if it’s creator has that perfect proper noun to lend his site a name. Atkins.com named after Dr. Atkins and Dell.com after its founder and CEO Michael Dell. A traditional business moving online could capitalize on it’s established brand name. Even acronyms could yield quick domain names. Microsoft is an acronym for MICROcomputer SOFTware and so is Yahoo for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.

Targeting search engine rankings - e.g. Yahoo that follows alphabetic classification of websites - consider site names beginning with the digit 1 or the letter ‘a’. Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon.com, cites this as one of his reasons for the name’s choice.

But for those of you driven by the age old myth - that search engines have a liking for words that are separated by dashes- wake up! Today, when search engines focus on the site content, hyphenated names have no influence. Domain names with or without hyphens is in itself a topic for a forum. A good idea is to register both options if possible and redirect visitors to one site. Walmart.com never let go off it’s original registration (wal-mart.com), even after it changed name. Now both names take you to the same site.

Think of it on a broader angle. A few dollars spend to secure all possible variants of your name (with alternate extensions) will secure your visitors, otherwise likely to contribute to competitor site traffic. More - register possible names your visitors are likely to associate to your domain. The retailer Buy.com registered the domains: “10percentoffamazon.com,” “10percentoffreel.com,” and “10percentoffegghead.com”. Proctor & Gamble is an extreme case of this blanket approach. It registered hundreds of generic domain names relating to all aspects of personal hygiene and healthcare: pimples.com, badbreath.com, underarm.com, diarrhea.com etc. They advertise only one, but use the others to bring traffic, and point all the domain names to one site.

Though generic names can’t be trademarked, are sources of controversy and usually unavailable (if not, costly), your prospective domain name could sound of the genre of women.com, Hotels.com, Furniture.com, Art.com and shoes.com. Nonetheless, the loss of uniqueness in generic names is a serious reason for their unpopularity among namers. Now guess why Amazon was’nt named book.com and ebay not auction.com.

So, if the dictionary lets you down, do not fret to think of words that are arbitrary, previously unheard of and totally unrelated. Yahoo, Google and BlueTooth.com don’t owe their origins to the thesaurus. Sometimes it pays to be whimsy!

allthegoodnamesaretaken.com

In just around 2 years, the number of website names registered has grown from 200 to a voluminous 125,000 per month. And as yet, already over 1.6 million domains have been registered, including the subtitle above! Chances of you finding a 3 character .com domain name unregistered (not on sale!), are thin very thin.

Here’s the good news. Everyday, around 20,000 domain names expire and get deleted. In addition to the generic domain extensions such as .com, .net, etc. there are approximately 250 different international domains each with their own two-letter country code extension. Speculations of new TLD (Top Level Domain) names include .firm, .store, .arts, .info, .nom, .biz, .pro, .aero, .coop, .museum and .name.

So, don’t settle for the first domain name you think of! Although the supply of domain names is diminishing daily, it’s better to expend more thought at the beginning and save money later. Don’t let the gold rush skate your decision (and later leave you to regret over an unmarketable name). Then again, don’t sit just hatching ideas. Even as you read this, someone halfway across the globe might be beating you to your choice!

Some are just registered by entrepreneurial opportunists hoping to make a fast buck by selling it on. If your choice is taken, the easiest, cheapest and most reliable solution would be to register another name. Did you know that the auction site eBay.com was the second choice of it’s creator after his initial pick EchoBay.com was taken? A good name is a legal name!

Nonetheless, if you own a successful site, that just can’t do without that colonized ideal name, you better ensure your pockets are deep because the owner at the other end knows that there’s nothing quite like the commercial value of a domain name. The highest publicly known sale of domain name was the sale of Business.com for $7,500,000 to eCompanies, a business incubator.

Domain names have been turned into a marketing bargain with its parking capability. A business can register or buy a name for later use. And there are sites that do nothing but park potential names mostly sold for fire-sale prices later on! A Belgian doctor, Dr. Lieven P. Van Neste owns well over 200,000 domain names. It’s a fine pursuit, if you care to keep your distance from brand infringement. In the past, speculators have faced legal charges on trademark violations from the bigwigs (including Microsoft) for having registered microsoftwindows.com, microsoftoffice.com, AirborneExpress.com, CitibankMasterCard.com, HewlettPackardss.com, and Wall-Mart.com. Domain name conflicts that grabbed headlines - Yahoo vs. “yahooka.com” (a marijuana site), Nissan Motors vs. Nissan Computer Corporation. One that caught my personal appeal - Archie Comics company’s trademark driven domain dispute with Veronica.org, a website set up by a loving dad in honor of his 2-year-old daughter Veronica!

From McDonalds to MTV, a lot of press on online brand infringement ( the hijack of popular brand names) has filled the air. Even as I write this, Google Inc. is being challenged the right to use the name “Froogle” for its online shopping service (a New York based carpenter owns Froogles.com - web shopping site).

Each year, about 250,000 cases are decided by the US federal courts. If you have no time to sort it out the good old fashion, you should consider devising a strategic approach for domain naming, reflected in sound corporate policy and executed with effective management. Toady it’s a topic of senior boardroom meetings where competent professionals are assigned to conduct name searches (a less costly venture compared to the possible consequences of dealing with a complaint of infringement.) Take lessons from corporate folklore on the long term effects of a carelessly chosen domain name. People who learnt things the hard way include Art-U-Frame.com that paid $450,000 to acquire the name art.com.

The crux

Your domain name is more than a ubiquity. You have no other billboard or bypass to your site. Statistics prove that direct navigation or guessed URLs account for majority of the traffic to a site (64.43%), much more than the search engines can bring (35.55%). Eat, drink and sleep on your idea before you move to register that killer name. Don’t hassle, thinking there are nodomainnamesleft.com (that’s taken too!). Your share of homework should save you a lot of misery down the road.

Besides, if you can’t trademark your design scheme, product idea and marketing strategy, here’s something you can. Your domain name is perhaps the only thing that you can own on the Internet. Remember, there’s always more to a name than just the name itself! Happy naming!

Liji is a PostGraduate in Software Science, with a flair for writing on anything under the sun. She puts her dexterity to work, writing technical articles in her areas of interest which include Internet programming, web design and development, ecommerce and other related issues.

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