Domain Philosophy

Register and Manage Your Own Domain Names: ROATDomains.com

ROAT Corp. has now added a full-service online registrar service which allows users to puchase, register, transfer, and maintain their own domain names.

This new website is http://www.ROATDomains.com/

In addition to domain names users can also purchase and manage the most common domain related products including email, hosting, and site promotion tools online.

Check out this new site.  Even if you don't buy any domains now you can still register for an account that you can then use later.

Ron

Article Link: How Much to Ask for your Domain Names

Here is a good article on how much to ask for a domain name you are selling:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/news/how-much-to-ask-for-your-names/

Enjoy! Ron

Check Your Site Ranking

Here is a tool to check at-a-glance the link popularity of any site based on its ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.), social bookmarks (del.icio.us, etc), and subscribers (Bloglines, etc).

http://popuri.us/

After you search your website... click the Details links after the specific result... very interesting and useful information!

Have fun! Ron

Domain Renewal Requirements

I often get asked why we recommend renewing domain names well before the expiration date. Usually, the first notice to renew will be received 90 days before the expiration date but technically you can wait until 2 weeks before expiration before you will not be able to renew it. Here are a few of the registrar requirements to keep in mind if you plan to wait until the last minute before renewing your domain name. You can renew your domain name as long as the following criteria are met:

• The domain cannot be expired.
• The domain cannot be within 14 days of expiring.
• The domain cannot have been renewed within the last 45 days

I would recommend renewing as early as possible rather than waiting. Otherwise, if it expires, you will have to try to back-order it and risk getting into a bidding war to get it back.

Keep your domains renewed! Ron

Cannot Update Nameservers When Transfer is Pending

If you are planning on transferring your domain name to a new registrar, be aware that you cannot make any modifications while the domain name is in process of transfer.

For example, let's say you made a request to transfer a domain name yesterday and the Admin Contact confirmed/approved the transfer. The domain name is then placed in a "Transfer Pending" state while waiting for registry approval. Then, let's say today you need to update the nameservers so the domain name points to a new server. You will find the updates and changes you make will not be saved or applied to the domain. Initially, it may look like the changes are saved but if you log out and back into the registrar the domain settings will be back to the original settings.

So, my recommendation is to make any updates, changes, and modifications to domain names before you submit a transfer request to move to a new registrar. Just be careful not to modify the Primary Account Owner information before making a transfer request... as this will then require a 60 day wait (before a transfer can occur) if you change this.

More domain philosophy soon! Ron

Domain Name "Who Is" Email Addresses

Recently, I have worked with several new clients to transfer their domain names to a new registrar so that we can manage their domain renewals and updates. The current owners did not have any login information for their current registrar and in the process of trying to retrieve the information we discovered that each of these domains did not have any email address assocated with the domain name other than the Admin Contact. Unfortunately, the Admin Contact was no longer at that email address so this didn't help us with gaining access to the account.

So, instead of the Primary Account or Technical Account email address being present a "placeholder" email was automatically put in its place by the registrar. The usual one was no.email@email.com or something similar.

The problem with this placeholder email is that domain renewals as well as username and password retrievals are sent to the primary account email address and if this is not a valid email they will never be received.

So, my advice for any domain name owner is to:

• Login to your registrar often and verify (at a minimum once per year) that your Primary, Admin, and Technical Contact email information is updated and correct.

Lastly, if you aren't comfortable monitoring/maintaining your own domain names consider having a company like mine take over the management of your domains to ensure the domain name remains valid into the future. Until next time, keep searching for that next domain name! Ron

http://www.roat.com/

Keyboard Shortcut: CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER = .net

Here is another shortcut for Windows/Internet Explorer users:

If you are using Internet Explorer you can simply type in any word for a domain (like ROATCorp) and if you then press the CTRL + SHIFT keys and the ENTER key at the same time it will automatically add the "http://www." to the front and the ".net" (or any other suffix you specify... see below) to the end of the word.

To specify the suffix you want to use, open Internet Explorer and:

1. Click on Tools | Internet Options.
2. On the General tab, click the Language option.
3. On the Language Preference screen add the desired suffix (see screenshot below).
4. Click OK
5. Click OK
6. Then, enter a domain word (like the word ROATCorp) and click CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER.
    
   
7. Try it!

Keep searching for that perfect domain name! Ron

Keyboard Shortcut: CTRL + ENTER = .com

Here is a great little shortcut for Windows/Internet Explorer users:

If you are using Internet Explorer you can simply type in any word for a domain (like ROAT) and if you then press the CTRL key and the ENTER key at the same time it will automatically add the "http://www." to the front and the ".com" to the end of the word.

Try it!

Is there any wonder the .com TLD is the most popular domain when there are keyboard shortcuts like this?

Keep searching for that perfect domain name! Ron

YTD Top 100 Sales Chart

The other day I started to think that the sales of domain names was slowing down... and then I revisited a website I had found a while back that lists the year-to-date top 100 sales and started to realize this is still a lot like real estate... there are only so many "good location" names to go around: http://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm

It looks like domain sales is continuing the trend of higher sales amounts for certain domains.

Keep searching! Ron

Part II: Using .ws Domain as "Part" of a Website

This is a follow up article on the previous post (http://www.domainphilosophy.com/domain_philosophy/2006/09/using_info_doma.html) about using another domain extension (such as .info or .ws) as another part of a website.

Take a look at one of our recent websites http://www.whitesell.com/ and click on the "Latest News and Updates" button in the lower-left corner. You will see that when clicked it takes you to the http://www.whitesell.ws/ section of their website. The .ws site is a blog type site and allows the owners to add, edit, and delete their own posts (content) using the simple WYSIWYG editor.

This is another example of how different domains can be used to create a complimentary section to a website.

Keep searching for other ideas on how to use your domain names! Ron