Domain Name Goldmines: Expired Traffic Investing In The 21st Century

I get pretty frustrated when thinking back to the days of seven-figure domain name sales. However, I was only a little kid, but still, I spent hours on the computer playing Descent II with my friends. Oh yes, those hours could have been spent convincing my parents to help me buy domain names like cd.com, tv.com, local.com, interact.net, isp.net, and other incredibly valuable domains. Sadly, other people got to them first, making millions very fast.

Some who fail say that the time to make money in domains is over. They are wrong indeed, as the wealthy domain investors are still buying those domains that will have permanent type-in traffic. Traffic equates to so much easy money that these people don't even develop websites to maximize sales potential. The key concept is to buy the names with traffic, and redirect them to a Pay-Per-Click system that will display PPC ads and pay the owner a percentage of advertising earnings from visitor clicks.

I've picked up a few decent type-in traffic domains such as ecommerc.com, but I simply don't have the money to invest in the names the big dogs are buying. If you have some extra money, I suggest that instead of risking it in something like gambling or trading on the foreign exchange, you should study up on domain speculation, and get started.

You'll probably have to spend thousands of dollars on a wise domain investment, but the return on investment will last a lifetime; or else you can sell it in a couple years for a great profit!

Ian Mason, owner of OPAffiliates.com, your source for <a target="_new" href="http://www.opaffiliates.com">Online Pharmacy Affiliate News</a> and revenue generation techniques.

Ian studies health, weight loss, exercise, and several martial arts; maintaining several websites in an effort to help provide up-to-date and helpful information for other who share his interests in health of body and mind.

Contact Ian Mason by e-mail at <a target="_new" href="mailto:ian@shoppe.md">ian@shoppe.md.</a>

Earn Money With Parked Domain Names

Do you have domain names that you are not currently using?

Did you know that these domains can actually become a source of revenue for your online business?

There are several companies on the internet that will pay you to redirect your domain to a landing page, filled highly relevant PPC (pay per click) links. The links displayed on your landing page will be optimized based on what keywords are in your domain, and what links previous visitors have been interested in looking at. You can earn real money every time one of your visitors clicks a link on your landing page, in addition to guaranteed ad revenue for each and every unique visitor that you recieve. All this revenue building up month after month can form into a very nice income stream for your business.

Considering the fact that you can earn up to $5.00/click (depending on your domain, and what country your traffic comes from) with this type of program, there is no doubt that domain parking can be an extremely lucrative practice. If you would like to learn more about how to start earning money with your unused domain names and be recieving paycheques by the end of next month, please <a target="_new" href="http://www.domainsponsor.com">click here</a>...

For more internet marketing articles and online business resources, please visit <a target="_new" href="http://www.wealthstream.info">WealthStream.info</a>...

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About the Author: Jeremy Maddock has been a successful internet marketer for over three years, and is the webmaster of <a target="_new" href="http://www.wealthstream.info">http://www.WealthStream.info</a>.

Whats in a Domain Name?

You've decided to start up your own website. You've weighed all of your options, and have come to the conclusion that you want to purchase web space for your site. Good job; you're one step closer to having your name on the world wide web.

You've looked at different hosting companies, comparing all of the plans and packages they have to offer, and have chosen the perfect one for you. You've filled in all of the important information pertaining to you and your site, and have come to the screen where you're asked to come up with a domain name for your site.

Now what? What are you supposed to put in the box? Do you choose a .com or .net? .org, .biz, .info--what are you supposed to do? So you decide to move on and choose that later. Maybe one will sound better with the domain name you're about to choose.

What next? If your website's titled "My Super-Duper-Brand-Spanking-New Site", are you going to have a domain name like "mysuperduperbrandspankingnewsite.com"? No. That would be ridiculous to type and even harder to remember. You want something that is catchy and easy to remember. Something that'll stand out, but is still relevant to the content of your site.

You decide that "superduper.com" would be perfect for your site. But lo and behold, it's already been taken. Now what do you do? You spent hours deciding that "superduper.com" was the best domain name for you. It just doesn't have that same zing to it when you say "superduper.net" or .info. So now what are you supposed to do? Try adding a hyphen in between the words to see if the name's taken that way. It's a little harder to type because the hyphen's a little awkward when one's typing in a URL quickly, but it'll do the trick if you really want certain words.

So now you've come to the conclusion that "super-duper.com" is the perfect domain name for your site and buy it. Congratulations, and welcome to the world wide web, "super-duper.com"!

Alisha Annas is an 18-year-old student at California State University, Fresno. She's currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Music Education. She's used computers since she was two years old and has been designing her own websites since the age of ten. She likes music, reading, writing, and surfing the web.

What is a Domain Name and Why Would I Want One?

In this article we will cover the basics of what a domain name is, how they work and why you need to have at least one. I am going to try and avoid complicated computer terms and stick to explanations that should be easily understood by someone without a computer science degree.

What is a Domain Name? Before we can go into what a domain name is I'm going to tell you why we need them as the answers compliment each other. The Internet is just a really big collection of connected computers (a network). For the purpose of explaining domain names you can think of the Internet a bit like the phone system and just like the phone system every computer on the Internet has it's own phone number except an Internet phone number is called an IP addresses. This address is made up of up to 12 digits in the form 123.123.123.123, computers use these IP addresses to send information to each other over the Internet.

When the Internet was first created it quickly became clear that these IP addresses were not easy to remember and another method was need to make these addresses more human friendly. The solution to this was the Domain Name System (DNS). Basically the DNS is a really really big phone book for computers. When you type a web site address into your web browser it checks the DNS for that website name and finds the IP address. Once it has the IP address it can then send a message to that computer and ask it for the web page you wanted.

Ok so you know a domain name is part of a web site address but which part? Lets look at a website address so we can identify and discuss what bit of it is a domain name.

<a href="http://www.itxcel.com/index.html" target="_new">http://www.itxcel.com/index.html</a>

The above address is the home page of the itXcel web site. It can be split into 3 main parts. The first part is http:// this just tells your web browser what kind of information it is going to get and how to get it. The last part is /index.html this is name of the files on the remote computer that you want your browser to get. The bit in the middle <a href="http://www.itxcel.com" target="_new">www.itxcel.com</a> is a domain name. This is the name that your computer sends to the DNS to get back the IP address.

So you know what a domain name is and that there is a phone book called the DNS to change your easy to remember domain name into an IP address that you computer can understand. The Internet phone book (DNS) is special in that everyone on the Internet needs to be able to use it. This makes the DNS very very big (100+ million addresses big). Due to the size of this phone book it needed to have a carefully organised and managed structure.

Domain names themselves are split into different levels like a hierarchy. The DNS system uses this hierarchy to search the DNS for the IP address of the domain name it is trying to find. The last bit of a domain, in the previous example the com part is called the top level domain. There are a large selection of top level domains like com, net, org and info. There are also very similar endings called country level domains like uk and de. Each of the top level and country level domains are managed by a different organization, sometimes these are companies or non profit organizations and sometimes governments. In the domain business these organisations are referred to as the registries. Each registry looks after it's own part of the domain name system.

If you decide you want to use a domain name in the top level domain com, like mycompany.com you would have to have this name assigned by the registry that manages that top level domain (for .com a US company called VeriSign). The process of being assigned a domain name is called domain registration.

Domain registration is more like a lease than a purchase. You are renting the second level domain (the mycompany bit) from Verisign for a specific amount of time normally between 1 and 10 years at a time. Most of the organizations that allow you to register a second level domain charge a fee for each year that you register the domain for. With almost all domain names you are also given the option to renew your registration (lease) when it is close to running out (expiring).

Once you have registered a second level domain you are free to create as many third level domains (sometimes called sub domains) as you like. In our previous example the www is a sub domain of itxcel.com.

Most of the registries that manage these top level domain names do not allow individuals or businesses to register domains directly with them. To register a domain you need to use a company like itXcel. We act as a registrar and send all the required information and the registration fee to the registry. Registrars are useful as they hide the differences that exist in each of the registries from the customer and provide a simple step by step process for registering a domain. A registrar also allows you to manage and track all your domains from one place rather than having to deal with a different company for each top level domain.

OK so I know what a domain name is, Why do need one? Can you image what a nightmare it would be if you had an email address like myname@123.246.128.255 or a web site address http://123.246.128.255/? These addresses are possible but not very easy to remember. Now if you register a domain name you could create an email address like myname@mycompany.com and a web site address like mycompany.com. These are much easier to remember and look 100 times more professional.

One of the important points about registering a domain is that once done you have an exclusive right to use that domain for as long as you keep the domain registered in your name. If you do not renew a domain at the end of it's registration period it will again become available for registration by someone else. For this reason even if you don't want or need a web site at the moment, it's still a good idea to register a domain as soon as possible. Just imagine if your competition registered the domain name of your company or product. Although there is a process in place to retrieve these domain it can be long and complicated. It is definitely simpler to spend a little money up front to secure your chosen domain names.

About The Author

Ewan Bain is the general manager at itXcel Internet Limited - Based in the UK itXcel provide Internet services, including domain name registration and web site hosting to small to medium sized businesses and home users.

To find out what domains are available and to quickly and cheaply register them visit <a target="_new" href="http://www.itxcel.com">http://www.itxcel.com</a> now and enter your desired name in the domain search box.

For further information please visit our website.

Selling a .co.uk Domain Name via Sedo

Selling a .co.uk Domain Name via Sedo

This is a recent example of our experience selling a .co.uk domain name via Sedo. If you are new to domains or Sedo this will give you a guide on the process and the time scales involved.

Negotiations

This is the hardest part of selling a domain ? how much to ask? Ask too much and the buyer may lose interest. Ask too little and you may not get the best price possible for your domain.

You can use www.domainprices.co.uk to get an idea of recent .co.uk domain sales prices or ask to an appraisal on the www.acorndomains.co.uk appraisal forum.

Come up with a price that allows you some room to haggle but don't get so greedy you scare off the bidder. This can be an anxious time, waiting for the domain prospect to come back with an offer.

Transaction Fees

Do not forget to allow for Sedo transaction fees and Nominet transfer fees during the negotiation stage.

We asked for the buyer to pay Sedo's fees (10% of sale price) and the Nominet fees on top of the sale price, which they agreed to.

Agreement Reached

We started negotiations on our domain on the 21st June and reached agreement on the sale price and fees on the 1st July.

Sedo Transfer Process

Having agreed the sale price, Sedo sent the buyer an Invoice on the 1st July.

The invoice is in your name and is placed in the buyer's user account.

Once the buyer has made payment (into Sedo's Escrow account), Sedo ask the buyer to make a transfer request at thier registrar or if the buyer has an account at the domain's current registrar, they ask you to move it to his account.

NB: Make sure the administrative email address for your domain is active and that you can receive emails from it or you will have trouble with the transfer process.

Once the transfer has been completed and the WHOIS information shows the buyer's name, Sedo send you the money.

Tip: Add your bank details to your Sedo account if you want to avoid Paypal fees for receiving the money.

Nominet Transfer Forms

Sedo didn't ask us apply to Nominet for the domain transfer forms. Their emails are worded towards .COM domain name transfers.

We knew we would need these so as soon as we agreed a price we emailed Nominet to request them and they arrived 2 days later.

This will save you time.

Sedo receive Payment

We chase Sedo on the 5th July as we had heard nothing. This prompted them to chase the buyer for payment. Sedo advised that the buyer said they were making a bank transfer of the funds that day.

We chased again on the 7th July with a response from Sedo that it would take a few more days. So much for electronic funds transfers!

Sedo confirmed receipt of the money on the 11th July

Finalising the Transfer

Sedo sent us the Buyer's details for us contact them about sending the Nominet forms.

We already had the forms in hand so signed and sent them on the 12th July.

On the 18th July we chased Sedo for any news, they contacted the buyer to see if they had received the forms.

22nd July we noticed the Nominet WHOIS showing the buyers details.

(This is a little unsettling, your domain has been transferred but you have no funds).

Money Money Money

26th July we received an email from Sedo saying they had sent the money to our account. They also stated this can take up to 7 business days.

We received the money on the 29th July.

Start to finish, 38 days.

Helen Sherritt is owner and administrator of <a target="_new" href="http://www.acorndomains.co.uk">http://www.acorndomains.co.uk</a>, the UK's leading domain name forum and resource centre.

<a target="_new" href="http://www.DomainPrices.co.uk">http://www.DomainPrices.co.uk</a> shows recent .co.uk domain name sales prices.

How to Choose the Right Domain Name

What's in a name? Everything! A domain name is the first thing that pops up when people are exploring through a search engine or directory, so it's important to come up with something clever that also spotlights the focal point of your business. By &quot;clever,&quot; we don't mean a silly pun that will cause your face to turn red with embarrassment in a year or two after the novelty has worn off. Your domain name will be your &quot;Internet identity,&quot; so it will be helpful if it closely matches the name of your business, product, or service to make it easier for people to remember and find you; thereby distinguishing you as leader in the marketplace or business.

Every time you send out an email you will be promoting your business because your domain name will also be used as your email address, thus making it easier for customers to remember you by. Plus, when you're sending out emails to someone who isn't familiar with your business, they may intrigued enough to take a closer look at the website, especially if the name is catchy and interesting.

An additional marketing strategy will be to print your website on everything related to your business - stationery, business cards, mailers, advertisements, signs, etc. So the idea is to come up with a domain name that has obvious business and/or commercial potential.

How Do I Choose My Domain Name?

Ah! Good question and we're glad to provide that answer for you. It's going to require a little brainstorming, but you may be pleasantly surprised with some of the ideas you come up with.

Ask co-workers, friends and associates, as well as family members, to jot down names and words they think best describes your business. Browse through circulars and look at classifieds and magazine ads to see what headlines grab your attention.

You can even use your own name for your domain if it is easy to spell and remember, but not lengthy. This would be helpful in establishing recognition in the name-face marketplace. Of course, if you have a common name, chances will be that someone else has beaten you to it. In that event, you might be able to use your initials combined with your last name.

Consider your target market and do a search on different types of categories in your business to see what keywords consistently pop up. One young entrepreneur did this very thing from his college dorm room, by creating an online marketplace to buy and sell unused event tickets called TicketAdvantage.com. This venture grew so quickly, that by the time Adam Witty (founder and CEO) graduated from college, his former hobby and now full-time business, had blossomed into a partnership with a national promotional baseball tour across America.

While you are thinking about names, have some fun and go to NameBoy.com. This is a free tool that is entertaining to play around with while searching for a keyword generated domain. It will tell you what is available and what has been taken, while offering a variety of other suggestions.

Keep it Short!

We caution you to try and keep the domain name as short as possible, as this will make it easier for people to remember you, while lessening the chances of errors when someone is typing it into their browser. Ideally, if you had a casual encounter with someone while discussing your business and/or products and you told them your website address, you would want them to be able to remember it until they get back to their office to jot it down.

For instance, Bavoy is an organic food distributor. Although they have a bavoy.com website; their main website has a domain name that features their number one product, healthyhearth.com. Which site do you think gets the most hits? The second one, because (1) it is named after their main product, (2) the name is intriguing, and (3) it's much easier to remember and spell correctly. Plus, visitors are automatically redirected to their main Bavoy.com site. Neat trick, huh?!

For primary domain names, it's best to keep the name to 20 characters or less. If you want to have a long domain name (up to 63 characters) for search placement purposes, make this your secondary domain with a redirect to your main site.

Excuse Me, Is This Name Taken?

With hundreds of thousands of domain names already registered, don't be surprised if you find that your choice of domain has been taken. It can be difficult to come up with a fitting name, so it will be helpful it you have several to choose from. When you have a short list of names, put them in order of favorites and look them up on a search engine to make sure they are not already taken. Then, go to the site you plan on using to register your domain and look the name up again to confirm it has not been taken.

Domain Extensions

The big daddy of all the domain extensions remains .com, with other popular extensions as .co, .net and .org. Country code domains have been created to be used by individual countries as they are deemed necessary. A popular, widespread example for the United Kingdom is .co.uk or .org.uk.

During the Internet boom in the 90s, there was a great deal of concern that the supply of available domain names would not be adequate to support the rapid growth. Therefore, new extensions, such as .info, .biz, .tv, .ws, and .cc were created to spread out the pool of unique domains. However, it is not recommended that you use these, unless you are purchasing them in conjunction with your main domain. If you are using a lesser known extension because the .com domain was already taken, there is a great likelihood that your clients will forget the extension and will type in the domainname.com instead of domainname.biz, and be directed to a different site, or even worse, your competitor. So stick with the more easily remembered extensions such as myname.net or myname.com.

So Now What?

Don't wait another minute! Once you have found the perfect domain name and you know without a doubt it is available, register it before someone else snaps it up.

You can shop around for inexpensive places to register your domain name, but I urge you to use caution. Make sure that the company you are registering with has been around for a while, because if they disappear overnight as some do, it may be difficult to renew your domain name the following year and you might lose it, which could be disastrous.

All registrars generally require the same type of information when registering your domain name: Name of company or individual; administrative contact; technical contact; billing contact; DNS server settings; and payment information. If a registrar does not ask for any registrant information, but skips instead to the payment section, you might want to skip them. There are some unscrupulous registrars that will fraudulently register themselves as the &quot;registrant,&quot; although the client may be shown as the contact person, which means the registrars own the domain name, not you. In any event, carefully read the terms and conditions before proceeding.

Some registrars will offer packages, like registering your domain name for free if you purchase a web hosting plan from them. And some of these are really good opportunities, but again, use caution when looking at these hosting plans and check out their reliability and how long they have been around.

That's it! You are now on your way to becoming a top-notch Internet marketer and rapidly build and promote your business. This is the fun part, so enjoy it!

Charlene Davis is an experienced and published freelance writer specializing in business, technical subjects, and e-commerce. She is the coauthor with Jacquelyn Lynn on Make BIG Profits on eBay: Start Your Own Million $ Business, Entrepreneur Press, 2005, and How to Start a Senior Services Business, an Entrepreneur Media start-up guide.

For more information, visit her website at <a target="_new" href="http://www.cdavisfreelance.com">http://www.cdavisfreelance.com</a>

Domain Names 101 - A Dummies Guide to Choosing Great Domain Names

When it comes to choosing your domain name, do not allow yourself to get stressed out or worry over choosing the perfect domain name that will make your website a success. When it comes down to it, there are several things you can do to ensure you choose the best type of domain for your business, and after that any number of domain names will work effectively for you. However, you need to read the following suggestions and follow them in order to avoid any costly mistakes to your traffic and business due to a bad domain name.

Tip #1 Short and Sweet

You will want a domain name that is short and sweet. There are many reasons for this, however if you have a short domain name it will be easier for people to remember and revisit not to mention tell others about. Also, if your domain name is short, other websites linking to your site will not have to worry about broken URLs and invalid web pages.

Tip #2 Make a List

You should definitely make a list of the domain names you like the most, but it is best if you make a list of themes rather than exact domain names. The reason for this is there are so many domain names on the Internet that finding an easy one is not so easy. So, come up with themes you are interested in and then start searching from there.

Tip #3 Be Open

Do not set your heart on one particular domain name, especially if it is a generic one because odds are it is taken. You will only be disappointed and unhappy with any other domain name. Do not set yourself up like this and realize ahead of time that you will need to be really creative with your domain name and open to new ideas and options.

Tip #4 Search for Options

Once you have your list of themes and ideas you want for a domain name you can start searching online. There are plenty of websites that will allow you to search and register different domain names. Most likely, several that you search for will be taken and the program might suggest you take that domain name with a really large number on the end or other variations that are available. In general, you do not want to do this because it is more difficult to remember your URL and you will get a lot of your traffic misdirected.

Tip #5 Dot Com

There are many kinds of extensions or suffixes available for URLs from com to .net and .biz to .info. While all of these are options and your particular desired domain might be taken under .com and available under tv you should consider long and hard before doing this. The reason for this is everyone knows about .com and if they are thinking of your website they will probably search for it as .com first. So, having a .com will keep people from getting confused. Also, if your keyword URL exists as a .com and you choose .net, you will probably lose customers and traffic to the other site because people know to go to .com.

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