2 Thread

With the recent explosion in the availability of website domain name suffixes (such as .eu, .ws, .cc and so on) it’s never been easier to find a domain name that is directly related to the theme of your website.

For example, if you want to create a site about baseball cards, it would make sense to use a domain name including the phrase baseballcard. Unfortunately, however, other people have had the same idea previously, so baseballcard is no longer available, nor is baseballcard, .org, .biz or any other simple domain name with a top level suffix.

Furthermore, it is a fact that most people who are searching on the net are going to give first priority to sites with top level domain names, such as a .com or a .net.

At least partially, this is simply a function of these being the original suffixes, and therefore the average surfer perhaps believes that they have more credibility and authority.

This is especially critical if your website is selling or promoting your business or products, as these factors translate into trustworthiness in this situation. Simply put, a top level domain name is one of your strongest sales tools.

Many people also belive that search engines will give weight to your domain name when considering your site for that all important search engine ranking. In this case, there needs to be some clear relationship between your domain name and site subject, to give you any chance of featuring when people search using Google or Yahoo.

So, what can you do? Well, here’s a couple of very simple tips that may help you to bag that all important top level domain name for your site.

First, try a plural version of your key phrase, rather than the singular version. So, in the example above, you might check out the availability of top level names using baseballcards, rather than baseballcard.

Truth be told, however, used on its own, this tactic is a bit too obvious, and more often than not, when the singular version of a phrase has gone, then so has the plural.

The second little trick is, however, far more effective and well worth trying if you are looking for a top level name for your site. The trick is – numbers!

Not numbers at the beginning of the domain address – that’s really old hat and you only have to look at a list of expired domains to see how many owners of such addresses just allow them to die. Why? Because they don’t work particularly well with either search engines or with real people – and something like 0000baseballcards.com just looks plain silly!

So, that’s not likely to be of much benefit to your site. But, numbers in the body of the domain name itself, especially the numbers 2 and 4, very possibly will be.

Why? Well, the number 2 is a simple substitute for the word “to” and 4 can be read as for.

Now, tie that in with one other little substitution trick – take the word you and substitute the letter u – and finding a good top level domain name that still relates very closely to the site subject matter becomes a relatively simple matter.

Let’s take our baseballcards example to demonstrate how effective a strategy this can be. Using all three of the highlighted tricks, try searching for baseballcards2u.com” and baseballcards4u.com. Still available? If not, how about baseballcards4us.com or baseballcard4me.com?

Even if all of these are now taken, all it needs is a bit of imagination to create a .com domain name that relates directly to your subject matter.

A simple but effective method of grabbing a top level domain name for your site.

Originally posted 2009-11-10 14:57:15.

written by admin \\ tags: Domain, Find, Great, Name

How to Find the Ownerof an Email Address

If someone you don’t know sends you an email, it is natural to want to know who the person is, even if the email is not spam or un- friendly. Knowing a sender’s identity can tell you whether or not you want to reply to the email.

Some emails contain the name of the person who sent it, and even if it doesn’t, some email programs will tell you the name the email accountis registered under and include the information in the same line as the email address.If this information is not available,sometimes you can learn more by looking at the email address itself.

While an email address like catlady@emailprovider;.com may not give you a name, the domain name(the word between the @ and the .com part) can give you a clue.

Major email providers like yahoo and lycos won’t tell you much, but the domain is something unusual like’rockhounds.com’ or ‘businessname.com’, you can perform a simple Google search for the domain name. This can narrow down the possibilities quite a bit.

If someone you don’t know is sending you email from a business email address, you can contact the company for more information. It could be that the person had a legitimate reason for contacting you but is unaware of propere mail etiquette.

Spam email, on the otherhand, can be nearly impossible to trace for the averagecitizen. Most people choose to simplydelete these emailsor markthem as spamso thatthey don’t have to dealwith them anymore. On the otherhand, mysterious or harassingemailswarrant moreattentionand can be quite a headache to trackdown.

It can be difficult if not impossible to find the owner of an email  address if the personhas used a false name to register the email account.

If someone has chosen to use a bogus name and address to register for an email account with a major provider, you have little power to find the information as a private citizen. In these cases, where someone is harassing you and you need it to stop, it is advisable to enlist the help of a reputable  company to findout who is doing the emailing.

There are a few companies on the internet that will allow you to do a reverse email searchto findout who the account is registered to. These companies generally charge a small fee per search, or you can register for a membership and conduct as many reverse email searches as you like.

However, if you are able to findout the true identity of a harassing emailer, it may not be a good idea to try to handle the problem yourself.

If you can findout who owns an email address through one of these services, your nextstep should be to report the person to the proper authorities. Be sure to save any harassing emails to use as evidence.

Companies that conduct these searches can sometimes help you with the legal process required to put a legal stop to unwanted internet behavior.

Originally posted 2009-11-11 03:46:20.

written by admin \\ tags: Email, Features, Horrible, Lookup, Reverse

You go to work every day at the store you own, and one morning,
your key to the door doesn’t work. You look in the window, and
the display items have changed. A stranger is behind the
counter. But when you call the police, they can’t do anything
because the company papers now indicate that the store belongs
to the stranger.

The above scenario isn’t likely to happen with a
bricks-and-mortar store. Because of insecurities in the domain
registration system, however, information highwaymen could take
over your online business.

As with identity theft, domain thieves steal your identity –
the identity used to register and configure your domain name.
After that, your website, your email, your online business, and
possibly your reputation are theirs.

Domain names at risk of theft

While theft is a risk with all domain names, domains most at
risk are more valuable ones. Domains with dot com extensions
have a higher resale value than domains with other extensions,
and domains with high traffic or valuable keywords are also more
likely to be targets.

The motive behind domain hijacking is usually monetary, but it
may be personal. If anyone wants to attack you, stealing your
domain name is one way to do it.

How domain theft happens

When domain hijackers steal your domain, they gain access to the
domain’s Whois records. They
can modify the domain’s nameservers so that the domain points to
a different server. They can also transfer the domain to a
different registrar.

Either way, site visitors will find themselves at the website of
the domain hijacker instead of at your site. All domain email
will go to or through the other server instead of to you. All
you’ll have left is a website without public access because your
domain isn’t pointing to it any more.

How can this happen?

Domain hijacking methods

• Domain hijackers send forged faxes to the domain registrar,
impersonating the registrants.

• Domain hijackers hack into the accounts of free email
addresses listed in Whois records and use those addresses to
obtain domain account information.

• Domain hijackers send out fraudulent email renewal notices,
and registrants unknowingly transfer their domains to the
thieves.

Registrar non-action

• The gaining registrar (the registrar that the domain is
transferred to) doesn’t obtain approval from the domain name
registrant or administrative contact as required by ICANN Inter-Registrar
Transfer Policy.

• The losing registrar (that the domain is transferred from)
doesn’t notify the registrant of the transfer during the
five-day pending transfer period. During this period, the
registrant can cancel or deny approval of the domain transfer
— if the registrar notifies the registrant of it.

Registrant carelessness

• The registrant forgets to update Whois details or to renew
the account.

• Someone with access to the registrant’s records steals the
information.

Domain name disputes

If you discover that your domain has been hijacked, contact
your registrar immediately. If your registrar is unable to
resolve the situation, the ICANN (Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers)
Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP) applies.

By going the above arbitration route, you don’t have to argue
your case in person. On the other hand, all you can get back in
the process is your domain (and not necessarily that). For a lot
more money, you can take your case to court, where you can seek
compensation for damages in addition to the return of your
domain. This process takes more time, however.

You may be able to proceed both ways – get your domain back via
ICANN domain dispute resolution procedures and then go to court
to collect damages. You can also appeal a domain arbitrator’s
decision in court.

How to protect your domain name

Protecting a domain name is similar to protecting a
bricks-and-mortar store from burglary. With a combination of
precautions in place, thieves will find it difficult or
impossible to gain access.

Your domain account information

• List your name for the administrative contact, and use your
full name.

• Create a complex password with letters (both upper case and
lower case) and numbers. Don’t use any real words or personal
information in it. Make it long. Make it unique – don’t use the
same password for anything else. Change it periodically.

• Keep your domain login name, account number, and password in a
place where only trusted people can access it.

• Use a valid contact email address that doesn’t use the domain
it’s for. Be sure that this email account also has a complex
password. If you’re going to be offline for more than a few
days, have someone else check the email for this account.

• Don’t use a free email address such as a Hotmail or Yahoo
address. Domain hijackers target domains with free email
addresses in the Whois records. After they’ve cracked your email
account password, the support you need to get your email account
back will probably be slow, giving the hijackers plenty of time
to take over your domain.

• Update your Whois record whenever the information in it
changes.

Your domain account features

• Choose a domain registrar that sends registrants transfer
pending notifications when a domain transfer is taking place.

• Consider protecting your Whois details with a registrar that
offers a private domain name record. With this feature, your
registrar’s data appears with your Whois record rather than your
data. The downside of using this feature is that your business
may have less credibility because you’re hiding who you are.

• Register your domain for a long time period, and set up
calendar reminders to renew it before it expires.

• Set up your domain to be renewed automatically if your
registrar offers this feature.

• Use the Registrar-lock mechanism if it’s available through
your registrar. When a domain is locked, it cannot be modified
or transferred unless the registrant unlocks it or follows the
domain transfer process.

Other domain security measures

• Set up a free Whois
monitoring alert email service and add your domain to your
monitoring list. You will receive email notifications whenever
the expiration date, registrar, or status of a monitored domain
changes. (Whois does not have data on all domain extensions.)

• Make sure that someone checks your website every few days,
preferably daily.

Originally posted 2009-10-27 22:17:16.

written by admin \\ tags: Domain, Highwaymen, Information

Every webmaster tries hard to promote web site on to the top most pages of Google search engine. All of us understand that Google has a system called Google PageRanking that allows it to index web sites on search engine pages. With this system, Google also decides how popular your web page is among search engine users. Higher PageRank means that your web site is more popular than many other web sites and it commands some authority among web users. PageRanking is an important index for expired domain buyers because the web page that has good PageRank is always beneficial to them.

Finding an expired domain with good PageRank is obviously very advantageous, because the inherent commercial value of an expired domain with PageRank, will go up among interested buyers. Finding such domains was very difficult sometimes back, but it is quite easy now. Earlier, a long and boring process took hours of precious time. You had to collect the names of thousands of expired domains, choose interesting ones and check them manually for PageRanking by using a manual tool. It was acutely difficult to separate out good ones from the bad ones. In the end, one could extract just few of them!

Recently, things are changing very rapidly, as several web sites help you find expired-domains with Google PageRank in double quick time. These web sites allow you to search through an extensive database and create a big list. You can even choose efficient filters to filter unwanted expired domains. Another significant aspect of these web sites is that you find out the sources where you can buy those expired domains. Google PR is an excellent indicator of segregating good web sites from bad ones. PR is a sum of quality and quantity of incoming links coming into a web page. An expired domain that owns lot of incoming links is the domain that you can buy and own.

Although buying an expired domain with lot of incoming links is a good idea, you cannot be too sure of the quality of those links. Sometimes, the quality of those links may not be real. There are occasions when you can even buy expired domains at higher prices than their real worth. Given the nature of the internet, it is almost impossible to find out whether the seller of the expired domain is trustworthy or not. To avoid such situations, you can use a number of PageRank-checking software to know about the scope and authenticity of expired domains that you want to buy. The quality of backlinks and inbound traffic is also very important when you buy an expired domain. Top quality and premium backlinks are always beneficial to a domain expiring, while you can even pay bigger amounts to buy such domains. In the end, you may wish to conduct a simple online check to find out, if an expired domain has a valid PR. Just type the following into your browser window – info:[the name of the expired domain] plus the extension without the www prefix. If you are to find valid PR, then you can consider buying that domain.

Originally posted 2009-10-23 07:38:02.

written by admin \\ tags: Buying, Domains, Expired, Issue, PageRank, Tips

The Web is where people and customers around the world find information about you, your products and your services – 24 hours a day. Here online buyers, suppliers and partners come together. Securing a domain name ensures that your company name or product names are on the Internet.

For the amount domain name registration companies charge, it’s a small price to pay for increased credibility in the eyes of potential customers.

Several thousand new domain names a day are registered. However, with a little creative thinking, you can still find a strong domain name that reflects your business or specific interest. Of course, the longer you put off registering a name, the more limited your choices become.

Equal Access

On the Web, everyone has access to a first-rate location to set up a business. No matter how small you are, a good domain name can put your business on equal footing with multimillion-dollar sites such as Yahoo! and IBM. Therein lies the beauty of the Web: nobody knows if your site is run by a large team out of a downtown high-rise or by you from your garage.

If your site is a hobby or personal homepage, you can still benefit from a domain name. Your site will be easier to find, and more importantly, friends and relatives will remember it.

Domain names give you a higher profile on the Web

Domain names that include common keywords can improve a site’s ranking in search results returned by major search engines. Many large search directories will not list a site that does not have its own domain name. As well, domain names are easy to remember and customers may not have to search at all to find you.

Easy to Locate

And let’s face it, www.widgets.com is much easier to remember and locate than http://isp/users/widgets/index.html/.

Domain names are portable

Having a domain name means you can change web hosting services without losing customers. Your new web hosting service will point people to the same web site. This way, you can to change hosting services to find a better deal, or receive better service without losing viewers or breaking links. Without a domain name, your web site name (URL) changes each time you move, which is confusing to customers.

Originally posted 2009-11-02 19:42:23.

written by admin \\ tags: Domain, Name, Register