Domain Names in NASCAR Winners Circle - Godaddy

No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Races to 1st NASCAR Win!

Ron Fellows Drives Go Daddy to Victory Lane

Last update: 9:26 p.m. EDT Aug. 2, 2008

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Aug 02, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Watch out! GoDaddy.com now has a NASCAR victory to go with its IndyCar victory already this season. Ron Fellows drove the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet to Victory Lane after winning today's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada.

This was Fellows' first time behind the wheel of the GoDaddy.com sponsored race car and the first NASCAR win for Go Daddy. Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick made history this year being the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race by winning the Japan 300.

"First - I want to thank Dale Earnhardt Jr. and GoDaddy.com," said an emotional and elated Ron Fellows after winning the rain-shortened race. "This was good fun. Now I need to beg Dale Jr. to let me run next week."

Fellows took over the lead thanks to some strategic pit stop planning. He then led the historic race, this is the first time Nationwide Series has run rain tires, by more than 45 seconds when it was called due to extremely low visibility.

"It's exhilarating Ron Fellows brought the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet to Victory Lane," said GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. "All the pieces just came together...the race was in Canada, Ron is a Canadian fan favorite and he's a road course expert."

GoDaddy.com is the sponsor of the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets in six of this season's Nationwide Series races. Earnhardt, a GoDaddy.com spokesman and NASCAR's most popular driver, designed the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolets along with racing the car April 5 in Texas. Earnhardt will take the wheel again at the Watkins Glen next Sunday, Aug. 9. Mark Martin then pilots in Michigan Aug. 16 and in Kansas Sept. 27.

Like their drivers, GoDaddy.com is known for speed. As the world's top Internet domain name registrar, it registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second of every day. Go Daddy is three times the size of its closest competitor and recently started offering .CA domain names. Go Daddy is also one of the world's top Web hosting companies and can help novices or experts enhance their online presence with fast, friendly customer support.

To learn more about how you can create or enhance your online presence, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

About The Go Daddy Group, Inc.

Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and Web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce Web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 30 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world's largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2007, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.

- The Go Daddy Group -

Copyright (C) 2008 GoDaddy.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SOURCE: Go Daddy Group, Inc.

Go Daddy Group, Inc.
Melanie Schmitt/PR Specialist, 480-505-8800 x4294
PR@GoDaddy.com

What Precedes the Dot in Open TLD's?

As I mentioned in my post about that very odd ICANN decision to open up Top Level Domains (TLD's) to virtually any words, it seems like a rather odd move toward confusion and a blow to the concept of Intellectual Property rights.

The first thing to occur to me when I heard this idea mentioned a few weeks back was "What comes before the dot?" Often mentioned in this discussion is the fact that eBay is agitating to be one of the first corporations to buy a TLD - dot ebay. But WHAT.ebay and do they now become registrars or do they simply now have the ability to control the domain name and add virtually anything they like ahead of the dot?

I imagine they'll use the domain name to break out areas for product categories such as auto.ebay and cameras.ebay, etc. And/Or perhaps they'll sell those domains to sellers who have "stores" on ebay so they have a "brand" on ebay. But what of those who start brand squatting within those sites - say Apple.ebay or Canon.ebay etc. Hmmm - not just ebay, but everywhere they can get hold of a new second level domain or even subdomain - who will police this? Wipo?

Below is a quote from Matt Hooker on CircleID about the new domain TLD's.

... it will lead to absolute confusion, and people will not be able to remember one web site from another based on their names. People will not be able to differentiate one web site from another based on their names - and this is a disaster in the making, since we humans use names for everything. We use Language, and by allowing more gTLD's we are creating great confusion in the language of the internet.

This isn't just about confusion and IP protection, it's got to affect reputation management for even the little guy online. If someone else takes your domain name as a TLD - or even as a second level domain within that TLD - how to you maintain search rankings, which until now have been helped by using your brand or keywords in the domain name.

Is Google looking nervously at this development? That element of the algorithm where keywords or brands in domain names carry significant ranking weight is about to be discounted unless they stick with dot com as the default ranking element and manually adjust each new, open domain TLD for it's (subjective) authority - based on the owner of that new domain - the age and probably on inbound links.

Type-in traffic is about to go out the window with this development, cookies may become much more important to customer retention and search engine optimization may be negatively impacted by this potential dilution in domain name authority.

Dot Doh! New TLD's: I Think ICANN, Therefore, ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) has just thrown open the doors to a truly wild TLD concept at their meeting in Paris this week - in which anyone who can pony up a couple hundred grand or so, can make up their own domain extension. Below is the official ICANN announcement. Rather than quoting from it, I'll let you read and I'll reserve my commentary for follow-up posts.

Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation

26 June 2008

Paris, France: The Board of ICANN today approved a recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the Internet's addressing system.

"The Board today accepted a recommendation from its global stakeholders that it is possible to implement many new names to the Internet, paving the way for an expansion of domain name choice and opportunity" said Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN.

A final version of the implementation plan must be approved by the ICANN Board before the new process is launched. It is intended that the final version will be published in early 2009.

"The potential here is huge. It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the Net," said Dr Twomey. "It's a massive increase in the 'real estate' of the Internet."

Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info.

This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere). There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris.

"One of the most exciting prospect before us is that the expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world," said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN's Chairman. "This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia." The present system only supports 37 Roman characters.

Upon approval of the implementation plan, it is planned that applications for new names will be available in the second quarter of 2009.

Frequently asked questions on the process

1. Are you selling these new names?

 ICANN is not "selling" new top level domain names. There will be a limited application period where any established entity from anywhere in the world can submit an application that will go through an evaluation process. It is anticipated that there will be additional rounds relatively soon after the close of the first application round.

2. What's to stop others registering my brand name?

Trademarks will not be automatically reserved. But there will be an objection-based mechanism for trademark owners where their arguments for protection will be considered.

3. How did this proposal get developed?

ICANN has a multi-stakeholder policy development process that served as the foundation for the process design. It involved consultation with domain name industry, trade mark attorneys, the business sector, users, governments and technicians.

4. How will offensive names be prevented?

Offensive names will be subject to an objection-based process based on public morality and order. This process will be conducted by an international arbitration body utilizing criteria drawing on provisions in a number of international treaties. ICANN will not be the decision maker on these objections.

5. When will all this happen?

ICANN is working towards accepting the first applications in the second quarter of 2009.

About ICANN:

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.

Media Contacts:

Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan@icann.org

International: Andrew Robertson
Edelman (London)
Ph: +44 7921 588 770
E: andrew.robertson@edelman.com

This file last modified 26-Jun-2008 (Current Version)

© 2008 Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers

Dot .tel Top Level Domain Names December Sunrise

We started with web sites in their most simple form as online business cards with the requisite contact data, regardless of the domain name the information was hosted on - that was the beginning of web 1.0. We've come a long way since then, with ever more complex functions and levels of interactivity possible online, but still - domain names are more often a function of brand identity and business and personal touchpoints than single-purpose locations for ever more granular data assigned to separate domains.

We now have what appears at first glance to be a domain name intended as an internet business card with complete contact data served up publicly on a curiously non-hosted domain. This interesting animal is showing nothing but (extensive) contact data. It starts with the basic of phone numbers, emails, web sites, street addresses linked to maps, and including hyperlinked entry into all social networking pages. Kind of an expanded Whois which not only serves up contact data for the single representative of the domain owner, but any and all other contact data. This seems like a domain named equivalent of Plaxo.com.

This all appears to come with many layers of privacy protection so that you can offer only limited information publicly and more details to those you've "Friended" via an application process. But as always - one has to seriously question the levels of security and trust you are placing in the organization hosting this data on their servers. Hacker proof? Secure login and protected systems that cannot be accessed by anyone but the owner (that's you).

Still, it's an interesting prospect to have a single place to go for a globally accessible sort of phone book with granular access controls and privacy. It appears to allow instant editing from any web interface - so if you add a business location for your office in Los Angeles, it can be easily added to contact data for businesses. Email addresses and phone numbers can be added or edited at any time, assuming that secure login again.

The odd part of this concept is the idea of UNIQUE domain names. On the site, they show video tutorials which explain how businesses might reserve their corporate name as say, Apple.tel and list all of their worldwide offices, sales outlets and perhaps a staff directory of contact data and job titles. OK, that makes sense for those with registered trademarks and worldwide ownership of a corporate name.

What about individuals, which TelNic separates out to "Individuals" links and shows an example of an imaginary "Emma.tel" which of course belongs to a person named Emma - but what of the fact that there are several tens of thousands of Emma's who might (eventually) want that dot tel domain name? And forget it if your name happens to match a major corporation as they will undoubtedly qualify for ownership of surnamed companies, like oh - Ford.tel or McKesson.tel or similar instantly recognizable company names.

But when it comes to first names, we can't copyright and protect them - it's first come, first served. Celebrities - say Madonna.tel or ... you get the picture. Second to the table will no doubt choose FirstLast.tel names and then FirstMiddleLast.tel names, but that's about the limit and then we switch to .name hosted domains? Clearly pricing will determine how popular and competitive this space becomes. So far I haven't see pricing information on the TelNic.org site beyond this:

Prices for a .tel domain name will vary from registrar to registrar, but should remain comparable with the prices for other popular domain names

The .tel domain name itself brings images of "Telephone" and the registrar promotes it as viewable "on any platform" which also suggests phone accessibility, not to mention the demos on the site picturing several phone browsers, including the iPhone.

Ironically, here is how TelNic.org looks on an iPhone, courtesy of the iPhone Screen Shot App
But it seems to be more about a sort of directory and the TelNic Site says "Tell the World" as part of their promotion.

Below is the official press release which came out on Saturday.

PDF Version of Press TelNic Launch Announcement Press Release here.

PARIS, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Telnic Limited, the Registry Operator and Sponsoring Organization for the new sponsored top level domain (sTLD) .tel, today announced details for launch at the ICANN meeting in Paris. Sunrise applications from national trademark owners will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis as of Wednesday, 3rd December 2008.

.tel enables you to store, update and publish all your contact information, web links and keywords directly on the internet under your own unique domain name. Simple, fast and accessible from any device, .tel provides a new internet standard to take full control over how and where people reach you. The .tel delivers:

• integration of any and all means of communication (i.e. Phone numbers, IM, VOIP, email, social media)
• real-time publishing of your contact information on the internet
• full ownership of your published data
• protection of your private data, only viewable by people you authorize
• simple structured navigation to easily reach the most relevant information
• high speed global access optimized for mobile devices
• multi-language, search engine-friendly structured information and keywords

"Thanks to its rich functionality and open specifications, .tel will open up new opportunities for registrars, resellers and developers alike," explained Justin Hayward, Communications Director at Telnic. "We've been working hard over the past years to make sure that everything we're delivering to the industry will enable it to take advantage of this new ecosystem."

As well as announcing its launch, Telnic unveiled its new website -http://www.telnic.org - for people to find out more about .tel. The Telnic website hosts comprehensive videos, information, policies and procedures for registrars, resellers, developers and IP owners.

About Telnic Limited

Founded in 2000, Telnic Limited is the UK-based Registry Operator and Sponsoring Organization for the new .tel sponsored top level domain (sTLD). For more information regarding the .tel domain or Telnic Limited, please visit http://www.telnic.org.

Finding Available Keyword Rich Domain Names Easily

Here is some great advice for the budding domainer looking for keyword rich domain names to drive traffic to your niche products or content sites.

1. Go to Google Keywords tool at this link and research your keywords, when it returns results, click the link at the top of the "Average Search Volume" column, paste the resulting list into a spreadsheet, then select the row of keywords (still sorted by search volume), select and copy that column of keywords to your clipboard
2. Go to this page by clicking the link (new window will open so you can still see the instructions here). Paste that list of keywords into the text box. Don't worry about the spaces, we remove them for you
3. Check only the .com box to get the best domains
4. The list returns those names still available if there are any
5. Reserve the ones you want and point them at your target niche pages to gain the extra "type-in" traffic.

If you prefer video instructions or missed something there, here's an 8 minute video that walks you through the process. Very well done:

Domain Name Registration Search Declines - Google

I've been spending a lot of time on Google Trends since discovering how useful it is to track interest levels over time on any particular keyword phrase search. As a Search Engine Optimization Specialist, I pay a lot of attention to Google Hot Trends to see what people are searching for by the hour.

I made note about that in a post a couple of days ago and pointed out that there are usually about a half-dozen specific domain name searches in the top 100 most frequently searched terms at any one time.

But today it occurred to me that interest levels are much lower in establishing new businesses online. Now it's not about internet riches that entrepreneurs dream - but business riches based on solid business models and real services with actual utility behind a web site.

Just four years ago, the internet bubble had burst and was re-inflating. Buying domain names for cybersquatting was bigger - or just finding the last of the remaining generic domain names.

Perhaps it is because people now go directly to their favorite registrar, rather than searching for domain sellers, but that would suggest that everyone now has a registrar bookmarked and doesn't do those navigational searches I've discussed here recently. I doubt that. But one thing is clear - searches about domain name registration are far less common than they were four years ago.

I'm Voting Republican Viral Video imvotingrepublican.com

Viral video campaign using a video title as domain name gets traction with voters.

During an election year, it's inevitable that there are thousands of videos attempting to go viral during the election campaign and gain fame and fortune for the producers. But these guys not only understand that a domain name matching your title or campaign http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/ will increase search engine visibility, but they also clearly understand social media as well, since they embed the video on their domain named home page AND provide embed code directly (so you don't leave to go to YouTube to get the code) AND they suggest that you embed the video (call to action) AND they understand the value of having an "I'm Voting Republican" MySpace Page for visibility.

Regardless of your political affiliation - you can learn from the producers at Synthetic Human when it comes to visibility.

Here's that video in case you are not interested in domain names or social media ;-)

Hot Domain Names in Google Hot Trends Searches

Google Hot Trends Reveals huge number of people search for domain names rather than typing them into the browswer address bar. Any list of popular keywords shows that yahoo.com, google.com and cnn.com are among the most searched phrases on the web on a daily basis - but Google Hot Trends refreshes on an hourly basis to show that the top 100 most frequently searched phrases at Google ALWAYS includes domain names on the list. On average that list of 100 top search terms at Google Hot Trends includes 5 or 6 domain names on the list, but on occasion it includes as many as twenty full url's!

When the list of searches gets that long for domain names, it is usually because there are about a dozen or so variations on the theme when people don't know proper spellings (or subdomains) of the URL - as in Del.icio.us. I discussed this phenomenon last week in a post about Navigational Search, but that post focused on people's preference for search above the address bar.

Now comes news that FireFox 3 (Download Beta here) will include navigational search in the browswer address bar. Hmmm, why would people use the address bar to search? This could be an interesting move, since it may get people to do their searches from the address bar and stop them from going to Google to do those searches for navigational purposes. Why go to Google, then type a domain name, then click a search result, when you could just make it a single step right in the address bar? Confusing right? Watch this video for more on FireFox 3 and searching from the browser address bar- or as FireFox is calling it - the "Awesome Bar."

Most of the address bar navigation stuff is within the first 30 seconds of that video, but there are other useful features such as Malware protections, bookmarking, tagging bookmarks and domain identity info right in that same address bar. Make it useful and maybe more people will use the address bar. But unless they heavily promote and advertise these features, my prediction is that people will STILL use the address bar very little.

.NYC Domain Names Coming? Petition & Fundraiser

From the New York Times Blog comes this story of a campaign to launch a .NYC domain name! While it sounds as though the organizers of the non-profit organization at ConnectingNYC.org want a city name TLD to host city government, educational, and public works types of domains - there are some mentions of other city name TLD's on the official NYC campaign Wiki as well.

.HK is mentioned as one example, although after last weeks report on .hk as the most dangerous of all ccTLD's (is this a country or a city?) tarnishes that as an example to aspire to. There is also mention of Paris and Berlin seeking city name TLD's on a site that documents other city names seeking domain name extensions.

There is another domain that LOOKS like a city name, but actually isn't ... Here is the Wikipedia account of the .LA name.

The LA Names Corporation, based in Guernsey, has gained the rights to market .la registrations, and they had used the registry services of Afilias and, formerly, the registrar services of DreamHost. However, DreamHost has discontinued registrar services as of May, 2006, and CentralNic now provides these services. CentralNic is based in the United Kingdom, while the .la domain is allocated to Laos, but the registrar site claims it to be the "official domain of the city of Los Angeles", a city that is known by the "L.A." initials. It is also often used as an unofficial domain for Liverpool, because Scousers used to call each other 'La'. As registrations are taken directly at the second level, and many English words end with -la, this presents an opportunity for domain hacks.

The New York Times Blog Post by Jennifer 8. Lee which discusses the .NYC domain campaign is funny and has more than a few one-liners going for it.

So last year, Icann announced a process in which groups could essentially propose their own dot-whatevers if they had both the financing and technical ability to handle the registration. Imagine: .radio to go along with .tv (which is actually the country domain for the country of Tuvalu), and .dog to go along with .cat (which is actually for Catalan), .con to go with .pro. (If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? Joke.)

Separately, the blog post covers the organizer of the .NYC domain campaign,

The .nyc effort is led by Mr. Lowenhaupt, a 61-year-old civic-minded Jackson Heights resident. “The role of .nyc is to reconnect the city,” he said. Mr. Lowenhaupt was on Community Board 3 in Queens — which includes Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and Corona — when the board passed a resolution in support of .nyc in 2001. “A year and a half ago, I decided that no one else as been really doing it,” he said. So he set aside his consulting work and has been more or less working full-time on the project since then. “I think it’s important to the city,” he said. He has enlisted a small group of volunteers and essentially goes around lobbying for support of the idea.

Hong Kong, King of Malware at Top Level Domain .hk

In it's yearly promotional press release touting their "SiteAdvisor" browser plug-in which warns users of spamming or malware infected domains, McAfee has announced that the ccTLD for Hong Kong - that is .hk - is the most dangerous to web surfers. Runner up is China's ccTLD of .cn as the second most dangerous to web surfers who find themselves on Chinese malware domains. I'll reproduce the press release in full below so you don't have to hunt all over the McAfee web site to find it like I did.

New McAfee Research Names Hong Kong as Most Dangerous Country Domain; Finland is Safest

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Hong Kong (.hk) domain has jumped 28 places as the most dangerous place to surf and search on the web according to a new McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE) report called "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited" which is released today. Hong Kong takes the mantle from Tokelau, a tiny island of 1,500 inhabitants in the South Pacific.

"Just like the real world, the virtual threats and risks are constantly changing. As our research shows, Web sites that are safe today can be dangerous tomorrow. Surfing the Web based on conventional wisdom is not enough to avoid risk online," said Jeff Green, Senior Vice President of Product Development & Avert Labs.

The second annual McAfee "Mapping the Mal Web" report into the riskiest and safest places on the Web reveals that 19.2% of all Web sites ending in the ".hk" domain pose a security threat(1) to Web users. China (.cn) is second this year with over 11%. By contrast Finland (.fi) replaced Ireland (.is) as the safest online destination with 0.05%, followed by Japan (.jp).

The most risky generic domain from 2007's report became more dangerous with 11.8% of all sites ending in .info posing a security threat and is the third most dangerous domain overall while government websites (.gov) remained the safest generic domain. The most popular domain, .com, is the ninth riskiest overall. The full McAfee "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited" report is available for download at http://www.mcafee.com/advice

Using the award-winning McAfee® SiteAdvisor® technology, McAfee analyzed 9.9 million heavily trafficked Web sites found in 265 different country (those ending in country letters e.g. Brazil .br) and generic (those ending in .net or .info for example) domains.

The study compared the ratings of sites found in each of the 265 country and generic domains and ranked them by the number of risky Web sites found in each domain that contained adware, spyware, viruses, spam, excessive pop-ups, browser exploits or links to other red-rated sites. (2)

    The World's Most    Overall  Overall  The World's       Overall   Overall
    Dangerous Country   rank in  rank in  Safest Country    rank in   rank in
    Web Domains          2008     2007      Web Domain       2008      2007

    (ranked in order)                    (ranked in order) 
    Hong Kong (.hk)        1       28     Finland (.fi)       74        70
    PR of China (.cn)      2       11     Japan (.jp)         72        57
    Philippines (.ph)      4       19     Norway (.no)        71        68
    Romania (.ro)          5        4     Slovenia (.si)      70        62
    Russia (.ru)           8        7     Colombia (.co)      69        64

Among country domains Romania (.ro) and Russia (.ru) remained in the top five most dangerous places with 6.75% and 6% of their Web sites ranked as risky while country domains like Japan (.jp) and Australia (.au) remained safe surfing environments.

Other key findings from McAfee "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited" report 2008 include:

• The chance of downloading spyware, adware, viruses or other unwanted software from surfing the Web increased 41.5% over 2007
• Sites which offer downloads such as ringtones and screen savers that are also loaded with viruses, spyware and adware increased over the last year from 3.3% to 4.7%
• The Philippines (.ph) experienced a 270% increase in overall riskiness
• Tokelau (.tk) and Samoa (.ws) were notably safer in 2008 dropping to 28th and 12th
• In Europe, Spain (.es) experienced a 91% increase in overall risk

"For administrators of top-level domains this study should act as a wake-up call. Last year's report spurred Tokelau's domain manager to reexamine its policies," said Jeff Green, Senior Vice President of Product Development & Avert Labs. "Not all domain managers are as accommodating so our mission is to educate consumers of the dangers and protect them in every way they enjoy the Web whether through their PC, the Web itself, or mobile phone. With our new secure search and website safety certification, we're taking the guesswork out of searching and surfing online so that consumers enjoy a safer Web experience."

Note to editors:

• The domain risk assessments come from the McAfee SiteAdvisor site rating database. SiteAdvisor tests sites for the presence of risky behaviors such as browser exploits, adware/spyware/Trojans/viruses, high likelihood of receiving spam, affiliation with other risky sites, and aggressive pop-up marketing. Red site ratings are given to Web sites that exhibit one or more of these behaviors. Yellow site ratings are given to sites that merit caution before using
• Rankings are restricted to 74 heavily tested top level domains and based on percent of red and yellow sites

McAfee SiteAdvisor

McAfee SiteAdvisor tests and rates, on an ongoing basis, nearly every trafficked site on the Internet. Site Advisor site ratings are created by using patented advanced technology to conduct automated Web site tests. In addition, as part of the user community forum function, users can provide direct feedback to other users and to McAfee analysts regarding their personal experience about the sites they visit on the Internet. McAfee SiteAdvisor can be downloaded quickly and for free at http://www.siteadvisor.com  McAfee SiteAdvisor works with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

SiteAdvisor has received numerous honors, including: five-star reviews from CNET's download.com, Time Magazine's "50 Coolest Web Sites," Popular Science's "Best of What's New" and the U.S. Department of Commerce's "Recognition of Excellence in Innovation" honor.

About McAfee, Inc.

McAfee, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is the world's largest dedicated security technology company. It delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that secure systems and networks around the world, allowing users to browse and shop the Web securely. With its unmatched security expertise and commitment to innovation, McAfee empowers home users, businesses, the public sector and service providers by enabling them to comply with regulations, protect data, prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities and continuously monitor and improve their security. http://www.mcafee.com

McAfee and/or other noted McAfee related products contained herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of McAfee, Inc., and/or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. McAfee Red in connection with security is distinctive of McAfee brand products. Any other non-McAfee related products, registered and/or unregistered trademarks contained herein is only by reference and are the sole property of their respective owners. © 2008 McAfee, Inc. All rights reserved.

SOURCE McAfee, Inc.

Dot Me Domain Names: It's All About Me, Yu See?

In keeping with the focus on user generated content from social MEdia sites, it could be that this new domain name may actually get legs and walk away with a target audience currently using .name domains. The headline here leads to the wikipedia entry for .me. The dot me domain is actually a country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for Montenegro and in a twist that is almost too funny to be true ... well here is the Wikipedia explanation of how this came about:

This follows Montenegro's June 3, 2006 declaration of independence from Serbia and Montenegro, which used the code YU. The .me registry is operated by doMEn, which won a contract to do so after a bid process conducted by the government of Montenegro. In addition to declaring .me to be independent of .yu, a new .rs domain is to be deployed for Serbian use.

Wow! It's almost like the "Who's on First" sketch from Abbot and Costello and if you haven't seen that - here ya go!

Well now that we've had our fun. Let's learn a bit more about the sale of .me domains. It is currently not a live domain and is in what is known as the "Landrush" phase of sales in which you can put in your bid for $49 if nobody else bids for your .me domain until June 26, 2008, which followed the "Sunrise" period where trademark holders could buy domains first for $100 each.

On July 17, 2008 we reach the "GoLive" stage where anyone can purchase any unclaimed .me domain names. If you bid on a domain during "Landrush" and someone else bids on the domain you request, the bidders enter an auction in which the highest bidder pays that amount PLUS the $49 to take the .me domain you compete to win.

All that make sense? You wanna buy me? No not me, you, wanna buy dot me domain names? Back to Abbot & Costello. ;-)

Navigational, Branded Search & Domain Names

One thing you tend to notice as an Search Engine Optimization Specialist is that a huge percentage of search referral traffic comes from branded search terms and/or URL's typed into search engines instead of the search bar. It's a frustration in analytics and reporting due to the need to filter out those pointless terms from statistics data. There is no challenge whatsoever in ranking for your domain name or branded terms

Some web sites see as much as 90% of their search referrals come from their company name and they think they are doing well at search engines when less than 10% of their traffic comes from search engines. Let me tell you that if your site doesn't see at LEAST 40 to 70 percent of its' TOTAL traffic from search, then you are doing very poorly.

There are two sides to this coin though. Domain names can contribute substantially to that total search referral traffic if they include your brand and/or major keywords in the URL. That's two different things. Brand or keywords in the domain name. And if your analytics tell you that branded terms are driving the majority of your search traffic, then you need to do some serious SEO work on your site. If your major keywords are in that domain name, congratulations, because that helps (incrementally) to rank well for those keywords. But by the nature of domains and the number of keyword phrases most sites should target, you can only do so much there.

If you Search for WebSite101, you'll see that we qualify for Google Sitelinks.

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Now this happens only with sites that would otherwise get linked from the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google. There can only be one result for that button and that result gets those "Site Links" when you do a normal search.

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But recently I've been noticing several articles about navigational searches on brands and domains. ReadWriteWeb's story, which starts by discussing the recent Yahoo Special K Television commercials that suggest you "Go to Yahoo and search Special K" and gives further examples of people typing domain names or brands into search engines

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Here's a quote from Josh Catone at RWW on the navigational search phenomenon:

According to a Compete last fall, navigational searches make up about 17% of all searches on average, more on Yahoo! and Live than on Google. For well-known web sites, Compete found that about 9 out of the top 10 search terms for that site tend to be some sort of variation on the domain. Surprisingly, people actually often search for entire domain names rather than type them into their browser's address bar.

That kind of odd laziness that makes people type full URL's into a search box THEN click on results to make it a two step process instead of the single step of the address bar. If people tried typing Yahoo or Google or CNN in their address bars, they'd see that the rest instantly fills in for them if they've been there within the past few weeks and haven't cleared their browser history. But apparently everyone has developed the habit, find it easier to search a domain name than to go directly there. What odd behavior - but who knew that it would account for such a high percentage of search traffic? How much search traffic would Google lose (along with Adwords income) if people used the address bar when they know the domain name?

Does any of that make you think twice before buying your next domain? Come on - give it some thought, some serious thought. Keywords (not brands) are hard to rank for - so wouldn't keyword phrases make more sense in your next domain name? Look at the URL above in the address bar. I'd like to rank for WebSite101 Domain Name Tutorial. Hmmm.

Domain Names Owned or Hosted By Google Servers

I was a bit slow to pick up on this one due to some time off recently, but I just came across a list of domain names owned by Google - or at least listed as resolving to Google servers - which could be hosted sites as well. The list is below, but I'll continue to post thoughts on those names as started last month in an earlier post. Here's that list of sites resolving to Google servers.

Read this doc on Scribd: 0804 google domains

Dot Org Domains Price Increase Announced by PIR.org

According to Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica, the Public Interest Registry has announced a .60 cent increase in wholesale prices for the dot org (.org) domain fee. This increase seems negligible to me and, like the cost of postage, seems entirely reasonable to increase. The fact that you can send written or printed communication across the country for less than half a dollar has always been fascinating to me - yet each time the cost goes up a few pennies, people wail about it. Each time a rate increase is announced for anything, people rail against the effect of prices increasing.

Guys, come on, it's sixty cents per year! Yes, it will cost domain squatters a bit more to renew their portfolio of profit-makers. Yes, it will cost true non-profits a few pennies for the domains they hold for true charity work - but just like postage - look at the value received. That name should represent the online identity of an organization. How much more is spent on signage, marketing collateral, branding and visibility for national organizations, press release distribution, PR and marketing, intellectual property protection and on and on. The cost of the domain is, by far and away, the least costly element of an online presence - even at twenty times current levels.

I've always recommended to clients that they consider extending their registration out to the maximum allowable 10 years in any case. Those who do that, including non-profits, not only decrease the likelihood that they'll forget to renew it or that their contact information will go stale and they'll lose it to forgetfulness or just plain negligence. Now I can add this additional reason - you are protected from price increases and lock in your identity for the silly low (wholesale) price of your $6.15 .org domain registration times ten.

And if you own any dot org domains, you still have until November 9th to renew them - you can have a fundraiser to cover that .60 cents. ;-) Just kidding around, but honestly, it's your online identity and worth the tiny cost.

Domain Front-Running Story at WebProNews

Domain Frontrunning is called a "Protection Practice" by Network Solutions and is discussed a domain frontrunning article by Jason Miller of WebProNews, and is interviewed on the SEO101 show from WebmasterRadio.fm with hosts Caroline Shelby and David Brown talking about the practice of reserving domains that are searched, but not purchased at the NetSol site. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) frontrunning study (PDF) determined that Network Solutions was indeed doing that.

domain frontrunning SEO 101 | The Beginning SEO Podcast - Domain Frontrunning

If you'd like to skip the unrelated stuff, the domain conversation is from 10:30 to the 15 minute mark, then the commercials run until 17:00 minute mark until the 21:30 mark, a total of eight minutes of the good stuff.

NetSol admitted to the practice and backed off of it, but continues their "Protection Program" suggesting that if you call them, they would cancel the "Hold" they had placed on your searched domains OR that you could use their "Whois" search to find out if a domain was available without triggering the "Protection Program" or as we know it - front-running.

Apparently ICANN received over 150 complaints on the practice and determined that only a portion were actual cases of Frontrunning. This is month-old news, but interesting to hear it discussed by Miller, who thoroughly researched the article for WebProNews.

Digital Brand Management: Domains Intellectual Property

An Australian domain name registrar called Melbourne IT has acquired Verisign's business assets for their Digital Brand Management Services (DBMS) for just over US $50 million. Melbourne IT began their stake in the internet domain registrar business with a near lock on registration of dot com dot au domains in the 90's and have been publicly traded on the Australian stock exchange since 1999. This puts 4500 "Premium" accounts and nearly a half million domain names under an Aussie company... that has offices worldwide, including US.

Why not Use Google Product Blog Domain Names?

In a continuing look at Google-owned Domain Names this week, I'd like to look at a few tidbits that I've found regarding the word "Blog" in domains monitored and protected by MarkMonitor.com for Google. Yesterday we reviewed a few "Android" SDK domain names Google has set aside - and only that - set aside. They don't resolve to anywhere and are clearly being held to prevent others from reserving them.

Here are some more like that. Google has got dozens of blogs on just as many topics, all hosted by BlogSpot (which you can't go to directly, only to subdomains - Blogspot.com redirects to Blogger.com (Sheesh!). I've always wondered why. Why, when Google has plenty of resources and hires MarkMonitor to protect their trademark and intellectual property rights, do they not acually USE those domains they reserve - at least the ones that could be used?

It seems absolutely bizarre to me that ADSENSEBLOG.com for example doesn't actually resolve to Google's Adsense Blog. Instead, they host it at http://adsense.blogspot.com/. Why is that they do the same with their Adwords Blog rather than hosting it at http://www.adwordsblog.com/?

Google owns no fewer than 24 dot com (.com) domains which include various Google product names, combined with the word "blog." Yet they don't host their blogs on those blog domains in most cases (I don't have time right now to check them all.)

Here are a couple more: quickly:

• GOGGLESEARCHBLOG.com again, at
• GOGGLEVIDEOBLOG.com

And hey - I'll bet they own the domain names for many, if not all of those Google Blogs listed down the shoulder of their "Official Google Blog" and shown in the partial screenshot here. (This is approximately HALF those listed on their blog) The question for me is - "Why don't they use the blog domain names they own?

Some Non-Blog domains that they own actually resolve to a site, like "Adsense.com actually works and redirects to the longer Google URL of https://www.google.com/adsense/ and Adwords.com actually works, again, redirecting to the longer Google URL of https://adwords.google.com/select/ What's up with that Google. You are an official domain registrar - yet you don't sell domain names yourself - but through partners, you own thousands and thousands of product related domains but don't use them but to redirect in a few cases - the rest don't resolve. We now know that the registrar data you can access is baked into your algorithm to assign ranking to domains of others. But why are you ashamed of your other domain names?

Google Android Mobile Domains vs Squatters

Last November, a site called Android Community posted a dicsussion thread titled "Squatting on Android Domains - Are You Guilty?" and then listed that Google had moved a large collection of Android based domain names to point at Google DNS servers (though none resolve to a destination as of this evening). These domains are all based on the name for Google's mobile phone operating system and "Software Developers Kit" called - what else - Android.

The Android Community owner, an Android enthusiast and apparent iPhone fan and retailer of accessories, Vincent Nguyen, admitted to having reserved a bunch of Android names himself.

So in line with yesterdays post about Google-owned domain names related to Google products being protected by Markmonitor.com for Google. I took a look at the thirteen Android related domain names on the long list of those domains posted by Pingdom.com and discussed here yesterday, then did a bit of standard web searches to find the Android discussion forum post mentioned above in which Nguyen lists the 26 additional dot net and dot org domains reserved by Google and protected by MarkMonitor.com.

Currently this list of domains all fail to resolve to any server.

androidalliance.com androidalliance.net androidalliance.org androiddevice.com androiddevice.net androiddevice.org androiddevices.com androiddevices.net androiddevices.org androidfederation.com androidfederation.net androidfederation.org androidhandset.com androidhandset.net androidhandset.org androidhandsets.com androidhandsets.net androidhandsets.org androidmobile.com androidmobile.net

androidmobile.org androidphone.com androidphone.net androidphone.org androidphones.com androidphones.net androidphones.org androidplatform.com androidplatform.net androidplatform.org androidsdk.com androidsdk.net androidsdk.org androidsoftware.com androidsoftware.net androidsoftware.org androidtechnology.com androidtechnology.net androidtechnology.org

My question for Google and MarkMonitor is why these and not the literally thousands of others that will no doubt be reserved by typo-squatters, enthusiasts and haters of Google, the Android mobile phone operating system, and plain opportunists looking for a few advertising dollars or domain parking income.

What is that determines those domains worth protecting and those that go unprotected and eventually fall to creative and quick domainers? Is this based on Google or MarkMonitor algorithms that suggest the most commonly searched domains? What makes MarkMonitor protect over 125 dot come (probably 375 including the .org and .net tld) domain names related to the Google IPO and only 39 related to the Android SDK? There must be a formula based on the amount of the cost to fight squatters for ownership through their expensive IP and trademark attorneys or in some cases costly court battles.

Who

Google Domain Names Owned Via MarkMonitor.com

Most web savvy types know that Google is an ICANN approved domain registrar - and even though they have publicly stated that they have no intention of selling domain names themselves, they can directly access domain records and monitor ownership data. This would come in handy to help them monitor pagerank and reset it when a domain changes hands, as has been said publicly by Google Anti-spam guru Matt Cutts a couple of times in the past six months.

This past week, performance monitoring site Pingdom.com posted an interesting list of Google-owned domain names in a blog post. They also posted an excel spreadsheet of domain names that point to Google DNS servers. That's not really useful as those could include sites not owned by Google, but hosted in one way or another by Google, such as those who purchase domain names through Google Apps.

(Those domains are not sold by Google, but registered seamlessly through several partner registrars, including GoDaddy and eNom). That list contains some odd adult web addresses which are clearly not owned by Google and doing whois checks is recommended before making assumptions about who owns those names on that list. Over the next few posts, we'll take a look at some of those names which hold some interest for what Google might be up to in the domain name space.

Google has used Domain Name Management firm MarkMonitor for trademark protection and brand management and shows as the registered owner of all Google domain names.

Domain Name: google.com

 Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
 Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
 Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

    Administrative Contact:
 DNS Admin (NIC-14290820)  Google Inc.
 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
 dns-admin@google.com +1.6506234000 Fax- +1.6506188571

Doing a whois lookup on any of those domain names on the list of over 2300 domain names Pingdom.com provided is a good idea to verify proper ownership. But one grouping of over 125 domains were clearly reserved prior to the August 2004 Google initial public offering to protect those from being registered by those hoping to profit by them. The really funny thing about that is that MarkMonitor.com obviously missed one - probably the one that got them to register the other 125 - and that domain name, www.google-ipo.com is a pretty good source of information on the IPO as can be seen from the screen shot below:

They went extreme on those they protected too, as one might guess with over 125 variations, it ranges from the obvious GoogleIPO.com to silly things that only LOOK like the word, but include number 1 for the L and zeros for one or both "O's" - like Go0g1e.com.

Enough of that - since the IPO is past and of little interest today, we'll move forward next time and look at some things that may have obvious meaning in Google's future.

GoDaddy Biggest Domain Registrar + 3 Million More

The headline here links to a Domain Name Wire story about GoDaddy Software as the top rated Registrar, but fails to note that on the list of top registrars is also a GoDaddy subsidiary called Wild West Domains which is set up as a reseller program allowing smaller sites to sell Domain names with full GoDaddy services. (Seen in the Graphic below are the numbers from this week.)

Here are the top three rated registrars in the Domain Name Wire Annual survey results (PDF).

1. GoDaddy 52%
2. Moniker 21%
3. eNom 13%

WebSite101 Domains is a proud reseller participating in the Wild West Domains reseller program, owned by GoDaddy and proudly lend our name as a reseller of their full line of great services.

ICANN's New Generic Top Level Domain Names (gTLD)

A new round of top level domains (TLD's) is being considered by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) and they've posted a gTLD draft proposal evaluation flow chart (PDF) for "Discussion Purposes on the ICANN web site. The flow chart recommends a minimum of 18 steps to gain approval for a new gTLD as seen in the marked up version below:

OK, so new and existing registrars will be allowed to propose new gTLD's (new domain extensions such as .com, .net etc.) and submit them to an approval process which essentially breaks down into the following rules:

1. It should be good and not harmful/offensive
2. It should work for everyone politically and technically
3. Registrars should be able to perform and deliver flawlessly
4. Winning registrar pays the piper and gains approval

First here's the existing list of domain names, plus reference to the 258 two letter country name TLD's.

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Wow! I want to jump in there and offer up a few ideas and proposals of my own. Nevermind that I can't deliver, can't win the auction to sell my proposed names and all that. Wouldn't it be cool if we could just have our first name as a domain? So I'd reserve valentine.mike - You know Valentine (Dot) Mike - hey! Why not? That would really be delivering domain NAMES!

One Million Dot Ca Domains: Canadian Milestone

One of the frustrations of ecommerce entrepreneurs who do business worldwide (especially those of us in the publishing and information business) is the inability to legally register top level domains (TLD's) in those countries we serve outside of our own.

There are search engine visibility advantages to canadian domains for canada.com searches, Google.ca searches and http://ca.yahoo.com/ searches. While those latter two send plenty of US speaking Canadian visitors to .com domains - the added value of a home-grown perception for Canadians in visiting and frequenting those domains in their own .ca TLD can bring significant benefits to a business.

Canada is one example where one must reside in the country or have a legitimate office there to qualify to reserve a dot .ca domain name under the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) rules. So until your business expands to have a physical presence in Canada, you must remain content to watch the celebration of a million dot ca domains as an outsider. What follows is the CIRA press release and announcement of the celebratory "One Million Domains dot CA site.

April 15, 2008

CANADA HITS ONE MILLION DOT-CA (.CA) INTERNET ADDRESSES

OTTAWA, Ontario, April 15, 2008 – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) announced today that Canadian Internet users have registered one million dot-ca (.ca) Internet domain names. As one of the world’s most wired nations, Canadians continue to use the Internet for personal and business reasons in ever increasing numbers. Reaching the one million dot-ca domain name milestone demonstrates Canada’s strong Internet presence and the popularity of Canadian websites.

Brent Krause of Calgary, Alberta, registered the one-millionth dot-ca domain name, krauslaw.ca, and is using it for a website to promote his private law practice. “I’ve recommended dot-ca domains in the past and dot-ca was my first choice for my own legal practice,” says Krause who has over 10-years experience in intellectual property law.

The dot-ca domain name was established in 1987 by a group of volunteers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and transferred to CIRA in 2000. In 1988 the first dot-ca domain name, upei.ca, was registered by the University of Prince Edward Island. Since then dot-ca domain name usage has grown at over 20% per year. This growth is remarkable considering that dot-ca domains are reserved exclusively for Canadians. “Dot-ca represents Canada on the Internet. A dot-ca domain name, website, or email address means you can be confident that you are dealing with a Canadian or Canadian business online,” says Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA.

Dot-ca now ranks as the seventeenth largest Internet domain name registry when compared to generic domain names like dot-com and country specific domain names like dot-uk (United Kingdom). “The registration of over one million dot-ca domains is a testament to the great work being done by CIRA. On behalf of the entire ICANN community, congratulations,” said Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global organization that governs Internet domain names.

To thank Canadians for making a dot-ca their domain name of choice CIRA has launched a celebration website, www.onemilliondomains.ca to highlight dot-ca success stories. Dot-ca domain names are available through a network of over 140 Canadian domain name registrars who also provide a range of Internet solutions including website hosting, email service, and website design.

About CIRA
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the not-for-profit, member-driven organization that manages Canada's dot-ca (.ca) domain name registry, develops and implements policies that support Canada's Internet community, and represents the dot-ca registry internationally. CIRA processes over 300 million requests per day to connect Internet users with over one million dot-ca Internet addresses.

For more information or to schedule an interview:

Melisa Durak-Buljubasic
Public Relations and Communications Specialist
Phone: 613-237-5335 (ext. 294)
Cell: 613.219.5328
melisa.db@cira.ca

Money.co.uk Nets $2.4 Million - £.com For Sale

Apparently the domain name Money.co.uk has sold for $2.4 Million in Britain. It's fitting that money is apparently quite expensive and we all know that the pound is richer than the US $ Dollar these days (even though the less classy Pizza.com was auctioned for $2.6 Million last weekend).

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From the company who bought the site on their own "About Us" page they state:

money.co.uk is owned and managed by Dot Zinc Limited. Our address is 16 Borough High Street, London. SE1 9QG. Dot Zinc Limited (reg. no. 4093922) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority to conduct the regulated business of introducing mortgages and insurance products. Dot Zinc Limited is entered in the Financial Services Authority (FSA) register under number 415689. See FSA Register.

money.co.uk is a free, online comparison service allowing customers to compare a range of personal finance products and utilty services. Our objective is to present information in a simple format, enabling initial comparisons to be made 'at a glance' so that customers can make informed financial decisions.

In a related note, the British Pound symbol is now represented in a Domain Name of £.com and backed up by the name poundsymbol.com for those without the character on their keyboards. A press release was posted with the announcement today of a planned June 26th auction for the one character domain:

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For Over 400 Years the British Pound Symbol has Identified the UK's Unit of Currency, the Pound…

Now the pound's online home is for sale. On the afternoon of 26th June 2008, Great Britain's symbol-based "pound domain" will, along with associated property, be offered for sale at public auction.

London, England. April 14 2008 -- Moneyedge Limited wish to announce the sale of it's historic domain name, representing the British pound.

Arguably the pound's "home on the net", this is one of a handful of symbol-based domain names in the world. Richard Haigh, Director of Moneyedge, had this to say about his company's offering:

"This domain name has never been promoted commercially yet has many users curiously typing the name in to their browser on a daily basis. I would say that 99.99% of internet users still do not know that symbol-based domains like this exist. This is understandable, however, as they are extremely rare (only 16 in '.com') and until recently could not be promoted".

"The sale includes other intellectual property, including poundsymbol.com, which will allow our symbol domain to pass the 'radio test' and be promoted in every media. This IP portfolio will probably be acquired by a company looking to create a wholly unique financial services identity on the internet".

This unique web identity makes use of IDN (International Domain Name) technology and to access the domain directly visitors need to have a recent web browser like Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2 and be in one of the 18 countries that have the British pound symbol on their keyboards.

Further information on the sale may be obtained from our exclusive sales agent Ocean Tomo (www.oceantomo.com), the USA’s leading Intellectual Capital Merchant Banc ® firm.

About Moneyedge Limited

Established in 1999, we are a small UK company specialising in internet investments, particularly those with a strong marketing angle.

To Be or Not To Be: The Domain Question

In 2000, I wrote the following Domain Name soliloquy after a client debated for days on end about whether they should buy this or that domain name. I've never seen such reluctance and hesitation for so simple a business decision. No, it's not simple to choose a great domain name, but it is incredibly inexpensive and very easy to decide to spend seven bucks on a domain to hold it while you make the decision.

Ultimately that client lost his preferred domain name to someone with more decisiveness and I thought, "Wow, what an epic inner battle, over a simple purchase decision! - You'd think they'd die if they didn't make the right decision!" So I sat down and adapted the following Shakespearean soliloquy, spoken by Prince Hamlet while holding the skull of Yorick and ruminating on his own death.

adaptation by Mike Banks Valentine
with apologies to Shakespeare

To be, or not to be: that is Domain question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of slow, free hosting,
Or to take arms against a sea of wannabees,
And by opposing, end them. To search: to seek;
No more; and, by anonymity to say we end
The heartache of a million useless search results
That eBiz is heir to, 'tis a relevancy
Devoutly to be earn'd. To look; to seek;
To find? perchance to link! Ay, there's the URL;
For in search fatigue domain names may come,
When we've shuffl'd off this long URL,
Must give us pause. There's the address
That takes gigabytes for so long a name.
For who would bear the tilde and subdirectory,
The competitor's URL, the name so catchy
The pangs of taken domains, the listing delay,
The insolence of Yahoo, and the spurns
That patient merit of unworthy MySpace,
When he himself might his IPO make
Without Domain name? Who would Google bear,
To grunt through subdirectories and filenames,
But the dread of something after backslash,
The undiscovered Facebook pagefrom whose URL
No surfer returns, puzzles the will
And make us rather bear those URLs we have
Than buy the others that are already taken?
Thus creativity does make cowards of us all;
And thus rush'd to registration of a name
We worry o'er lowly cost of reserving,
And enterprises of great riches and power
With this regard our clients turn away,
And lose the name of action.com

Now when a client asks me about domain name decisions, I simply say, "Go buy them all and don't hesitate - even if they are owned by others seeking to profit from them. I can't bear another Hamlet performance!"

Intellectual Property: Domain Names & Beijing Olympics

Rebecca Ordish and Alan Adcock are authors of a new book on IP issues (that's Intellectual Property here) released as the Beijing Olympics approach. The ‘China Intellectual Property Challenges and Solutions: An Essential Business Guide.’

While Domain names have much to do with both Intellectual Property and Internet Protocol, the focus here is mostly the former. However, there is an issue raised in the book which definitely affects businesses hoping to capitalize on participation in sporting events hosted in a communist country where, due to their political history and cultural differences, they have little respect for Intellectual Property:

“Domain names are quick and easy to register, and so can often fall prey to cyber squatters who get in first.”

It's fascinating the interesting domain names advertisers can come up with for short duration promotions, based on event names, activities and product variants. This Olympics domain name melee will no doubt be full of what the book calls "Ambush Marketing".

"Ambush marketing creates an increased risk particularly by Chinese companies that use their relationships with authorities to target foreign brand owners’ sponsorship of events", the authors state

Fortunately, the BOCOG (Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad), wants to encourage a strong Intellectual Property enforcement where China respects IP protection.

Reserve those domain names now - but don't research them at Network Solutions.

GoDaddy Launches Internationalized Domain Names

Saw this press release just distributed by GoDaddy tonight and thought I would share with all my international visitors.

 

Register Domains in More Than 100 Native Languages at GoDaddy.com

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- trying to install a high-definition television using instructions printed in a language you neither speak nor read.

Now imagine how much easier it would be to get your message across by communicating in your target’s preferred, native language. GoDaddy.com is helping make the Web truly universal with Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs.

An IDN is a Web address expressed in a native language, and it's helping to revolutionize the Internet. In the past, it has been difficult to translate western character domain names to other languages because popular scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese or Cyrillic, contain characters that were not previously supported by Web browsers.

GoDaddy.com has made Internationalized Domain Names available in more than 100 native languages for .com and .net domain names. Go Daddy also plans to make Internationalized Domain Names available in select languages for .info later this month.

Registering an Internationalized Domain Name with GoDaddy.com gives consumers the chance to build a complete Web presence in most any language. That's because many of the GoDaddy.com products – including Go Daddy Web-based Email and Web hosting packages – support non-Western language-based characters.

GoDaddy.com is committed to making it easier for consumers all over the world to navigate domain names, GoDaddy.com CEO & Founder Bob Parsons said. “With Internationalized Domain Names, users can find what they need in theirown language.

GoDaddy.com Email offers virus protection, spam filtering, phishing fraud protection and 256-bit encryption at no additional charge.

GoDaddy.com is the worlds top paid host provider – all its packages feature unparalleled 24x7 Customer Support, world-class data centers and a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

Click herefor more information about Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs.

Visit GoDaddy.comfor more information about products and services to establish or enhance your Web presence.

About The Go Daddy Group, Inc.

Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and Web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce Web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 28 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also the largest paid hosting provider in the world, according to Netcraft Ltd. uring 2007, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.

- The Go Daddy Group -

Copyright© 2008 GoDaddy.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Outting Network Solutions Criminality

I had to double take one day when I was reviewing my traffic logs to find a subdomain on my site was attracting a good chunk of traffic - a subdomain that I didn't set up myself or authorize my host to set up. That turned out to be an innocent mistake of failure to delete old records if I'm to believe my hosting company. (archive.org proved it too.)

But I've stumbled upon the odd unexpected, and in some cases scandalous thefts when I mis-typed and hit ww.domain-name.com and found hijacked domains which were being stolen by hosts or registrars or hackers. Since they weren't mine, I laughed, or felt uncomfortable or got slightly outraged - and moved on. I can't police other domains for people.

But now Network Solutions is stealing from domain owners - again by simply setting up all unassigned subdomains to resolve to their parked pages with ads on them with the little "under construction" links on them - but full of paid ads which steal from the rightful domain name owner.

When you can blame hackers or forgetful hosts, it's one thing - but when your registrar burglarizes your good name for profit - it's unforgivable. This has to seriously piss off a lot of Network Solutions customers.

Pizza.com Sells for $2.6 Million Piece of Web Pie

Pizza.com, registered in 1994 for $20 by a Maryland internet consultant and software engineer, sells for $2.6 Million. Expect the domain name market to heat up a bit in the next few weeks in reaction. The Baltimore Sun reported the windfall and said that Chris Clark, the seller, happened to be at Disney World with his family during the auction. Hmmm, now he can't do that afterward.

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Backgrounder on Expiring or Expired Domains

Here's an interesting article that crossed my desk this week. Hope you'll find some value in it:

Learning More About Expired Web Domain Expiry and Deletion Patterns

By John Khu

Just before a particular expired web domain expires and becomes available for open sale, it will undergo several passages of legal procedures. Here is a brief flowchart of the presumed lifecycle through which a typical expired web domain traverses its eventful passage:

An active web domain may become redundant, when the buyer of that domain somehow misses renewing the domain name for another term. An expired web domain is an open marketable commodity that is available and open for all internet surfers. Just before a web domain expires, the concerned authorities will place the said domain under a series of legal procedures. As an expired web domain entrepreneur, you may need to know these simple legal procedures.

Holding period: This is the first of the series of legal procedures through which a said expired web domain traverses through. Holding period is a specific stage that lies within the registrar’s exclusive control and hold.

Redemption Period: This is a grace period, when the registrar forwards a special favor by paying the renewal fees for the expired web domain in question. This facility is available for the first 45 days, soon after the non-receipt of renewal fees. The registrar will pay the fees in the real hope that the owner of the domain will pay the renewal charges.

The 2nd Stage of Redemption: Once the said expired web domain passes its 45 days of grace period, the registrar will soon announce about the non-payment of renewal fees. In essence, this is the end of the waiting period and the owner may soon loose the control over the expired web domain.

The Stage of Expiry: The final stages of expiry and deletion of an expired web domain lasts to about a month and at this stage the said domain comes back the registrar due to the non-payment of renewal fees.

The Stage of Deletion: This marks the end of the process and the web domain soon turns an expired web domain. This is the most critical stage, when the said expired web domain reverts back to the open market, when anyone can pay the fees and buy it.

Here are some more additional details about expired web domain registration and deletion:

• You can register a web domain for a period of one to ten years.

• If you do not pay renewal fees on time, you will get a series of e mail notices about the nonpayment, with an additional instruction to pay the fees.

• When you pay up the fees on time, you will never need to worry about your domain becoming an expired web domain.

Learning more on how a domain turns into an expired web domain is very critical and important. Additional information and details on this unique topic will help you enrich your skills and knowledge of acquiring expired web domains in an effective manner.

Reference Box:

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Late to the Domain Name Blog Party

According to this post from Domain Name News, I'm very late to the domain blogging party. It's been done by many before me. Does that mean I should quit? Naahhhh! I'll take comfort knowing that I was one of the first with a Domain Name Tutorial and still want to serve my visitors well with the best imformation I can find.

2007 The Year of the Domain Blogger
There were domain blogs long before 2007 and good ones such as DomainNameWire.com and DomainEditorial.com.

(The post fails to note that Domain Editorial which just made it's last post, is being rolled into Domain Name News.)

However, 2007 marked the year that even DomainNameNews.com got rolling, and we weren't alone in launching a site dedicated to domain oriented stories. Previously reclusive and veteran domainers like Frank Schilling, Sahar Sarid, Larry Fischer, Chris Stewart and Michael Berkins among many others came out of the woodwork to launch blogs dedicated to domain related topics and conversation. Many other notables like Rick Schwartz, Michael Gilmour and Elliot Silver threw their hats in the ring as well, too many in fact to list. Check out this site for a good list, keeping in mind most of these were started this year!

The domain name blogs name dropping is a great resource for those just getting into domaining and I encourage all to subscribe and read those if you want to invest and profit from domain names. However - if you just want to learn the basics, buy a domain name and get back to business - thanks for dropping by.

If you are in the domain space and just now starting a blog, well that is sooooooooooooo 2007.

All right guys, I know I just started this week and I'm SOOOOOO 2007 - but I'm not stopping now. Thanks for the list though and I'll happily subscribe to those feeds and pick up more domain name news and commentary.

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How about that 1999 Entrepreneur Magazine rave, eh?

So in the LOOOONG tradition of WebSite101 tutorials, sharing information with entrepreneurs launching and growing businesses online, this list of domain name blogs is a great service to all of those visitors and I hope everyone finds it as useful as I do. (Being new and all that ;-)

Domain Name Willed When Domain Owner Killed

Doing some online research about legal processes for domain name inheritance produced this funny Google "Did you mean" search result. "Do you mean: "domain name was killed". My response in my mind when I saw it was "No, the Domain Name OWNER was killed, and his domain was WILLED to his family, but because there's no protocol, the Domain Name did EXPIRE and the Business on that domain died!

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Funny enough, now this blog post will be the only result for that search within a couple of days.

Domain Name Inheritance: Willing Your Domain

I've long been concerned about what happens to my domain names when I die. Of course I want my wife to have mine and will pursue that with my attorney, but what happens if you haven't planned? Do domains eventually expire when you haven't renewed them - maybe years after your death? What are the current laws? Where doesn ICANN stand on willing domain names to family or business partners?

I started a bit of research and all I was able to find is this press release from 2005, from DomainMart appraisal service, below. The press release is still live at PRWeb archives, but the link in the release leads to a dead page. (No pun intended). Stay tuned and we'll follow up with more on this topic.

DomainMart Launches Domain-Name Inheritance Planning

Domain-name inheritance planning might seem unnecessary, but it is a prudent move. Without planning, total strangers will eventually grab your domain names.

Berkeley, CA (PRWEB) January 3, 2005 -name protection services, today announced the introduction of a domain-name inheritance planning service. Domain-name inheritance planning might seem unnecessary, but it is a prudent move, without which total strangers eventually end up grabbing your valuable assets,” says Alex Tajirian, DomainMart President and CEO.

DomainMart develops individual solutions to help owners assign their domain-name inheritance according to their wishes and in the most economical way possible.

If the domain names are part of a will, DomainMart works with the trustee to make the transfer painless. Otherwise, prior to their expiration DomainMart notifies the owner. If the owner does not respond to DomainMarts inquires, they contact the assignees and proceed to implement the owners wishes. Thus, the service indirectly acts as a registration renewal insurance policy too,” adds Tajirian. Owners can cancel the service or modify the instructions at any time.

DomainMart is a pioneer in providing domain-name secondary-market services, including appraisal/valuation, leasing management, escrow, and protection since 1996.

For more information, please visit http://domainmart.com/protect/DomainNameInheritancePlanning.htm or contact:

Tom Saitori, Marketing Specialist DomainMart Inc.
e-mail: TomSaitori@DomainMart.com
Tel: +1 (415) 905-4234

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Business Domains Advice from Times Online UK

The UK's Times Online has an article today by Rachel Bridge about Domain Names, and while most of the advice is good, some of it steps beyond the boundaries of the author's knowledge. Bridge talks about getting a great domain name to start your online business right. She got taken to task by a commenter Matt from London immediately -

... in the notes at the end of the article it's weird that you mention underscores??? You can't register a domain with an underscore it it

About the author (from the bio on her own site)

Rachel is the Enterprise Editor for The Sunday Times and is responsible for the Small Business and Start Up pages in the business section of the paper which highlight issues relevant to entrepreneurs and small and medium sized businesses.

Moving past the minor inaccuracies, Bridge quotes Susan Hallam, founder of Hallam Communications, an internet-marketing consultancy - who discusses domain name speculation and buying names on the secondary market - as well as several admittedly important items such as search friendly names which have important keywords in them.

The author then moves to the other end of the spectrum of leading thought on domain names and discusses "Creative" names in quotes from Hugh Boyle, head of digital for Europe, Middle East and Asia at Ogilvy Action, a marketing communications agency. Boyle says:

“People relate well to firms that don’t necessarily put their brand in the domain name,” he said. “And it is good to be clever or funky with them. It’s an area where you can be creative.”

Yes, Mr Boyle, but that gets into the area of branding and should only be used by major corporate sites with designs on the Fortune 500 levels in my opinion. Being a search engine optimization specialist, I tend to agree more with Hallam on search friendly names, than with Boyle on the "Funky" names.

“Domain name endings such as .net, .uk.com, .ltd.com, .biz and .tv don’t resonate. And you won’t get many English companies using .eu. Also don’t have any hyphens. If people are going to the wrong site when they are looking for you, then unless they really need your product or service, they won’t bother to look again.”

But I do concur with Boyles' suggestions about getting the .com in all cases and avoiding hyphens. The article is from UK based Times Online and addresses that varied TLD area of concern from the European perspective, though Bridge fails to note for readers that Britons will do better in their own Google.co.uk search engine when they purchase the .co.uk TLD (which is the default for those located in the UK, searching from UK IP addresses) - in addition to the .com version of their domain name.

Interesting that Bridge didn't go further in her research and talk with any one of dozens of domain experts. Bridge mentions domain name brokers in a brief discussion on the secondary market but includes nothing quoted from any company representatives.

Not having any experience in the UK or Europe, I can't speak to whether domain names are available for longer periods, but a final note on her article suggests that domain name owners should take care to renew their domains every two years. I have always advocated for the maximum 10 years registration as that may have some search engine positioning implications - plus you only have to remember every 5 years or so when you go extend it for another 5 and correct any contact information with your registrar.

Without a Domain Name, Your Business is Homeless

Used by permission of "Total Eclipsed"

Without a web site address to call home, a business is homeless. It's seen by customers as the equivalent of working with a computer in the dusty corner of the garage near the clothes dryer lint trap. Many small business owners start this way, working out of a P.O. Box and sharing the family phone line with a teenage daughter who believes that talking to her BFF is far more important than business calls on that phone line.

Face it, it's time to buy that $7.95 domain name and start down the road to business legitimacy. Just as we have gone from "Do you have a fax machine?" to "What is your fax number?", so too are we moving rapidly away from "Do you have a web site?" toward "What is your web address?". How is it that we accept the need for the fax machine, the copy machine, the phone and the computer, but not a web site?

Every business is expected to be online, just as they are expected to have a telephone and a fax and an answering machine. Size will always determine resource allocation. Hire a professional if you can, but get online now!

The first step to getting your business Online is to get a domain name, which is typically your business name or generic word or phrase and includes the famous dot com, dot net, and .org extensions. Here's a complete tutorial on Domain Names to help you learn everything about choosing a name for your web site and how domain names work to help you navigate the web.

Or, you could just research a domain name now, buy it today and grow your business.

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