Domain Names

In my years of doing business online, I've come across 100's of people that when you say "domain name", they say what? This article will take us into the basics 101.9 explaining; what is a domain name?, how to buy a domain name?, how long should I register my domain for?, what is a domain name extension?, how to protect your

domain?, what is a sub-domain?, how to forward a domain name?, how to setup your domain name?, and how to protect your company name, or brand online?
Domain Names 101.1: What Is A Domain Name? A domain name is simply another name for your website url, or website address. For example: "www.domainname101.ca". < This is a domain name. If you own a website, whatever your website is called, this is classified as your domain name. When people ask you, "what is the website address?", they could also say "what is the domain name?".

Domain Names 101.2: How To Buy A Domain Name? There are many companies out there that offer great domain name registry services for a great price. If your paying somewhere between $20, to $30, to $40 per domain, you're getting ripped off. The average price you should be paying for registering a domain name is around $10-$15 per year, per domain.

Step 1) You must search for an available name to buy: Here are a couple of companies I would recommend to anyone.

- www.godaddy.com - Always have great deals. - www.domainsatcost.com / or .ca - Great support & reasonable prices. - www.afternic.com - Buy & sell "used" domains. - www.netfirms.ca - Well established registar company.

Once you visit these websites you will need to look for their "search function" in order to search to see if the domain name you want is available for purchase. Within some industries like the real estate industry, you might have to search for hours before you find a suitable domain name for your business. Try mixing up the name in different variations, for example:

In this example I will use "Domain Names" for my search

- myDomainName.com - DomainNames.com - Domain-Names.com - findDomains.com - searchDomainNames.com - Domainworld.com - Domainuniverse.com - localDomains.com

As you can see, I've tried to mix up the words "Domain Names" as much as possible. In fact, there are many companies world wide that are deciding the name for their business by the availability of domain names. Sounds funny doesn't it? Just try searching for a domain name for "Web Design". You might be there for hours. It may take you a few weeks to find the right domain name for your business. Once you find it, buy it!

In the past, I used to recommend to my clients that they hold off on registering their business name before searching for a domain name. Domain names are valuable net-real-estate and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Things To Avoid When Searching For A Domain Name:

- 1) Avoid a lengthy domain: There's nothing worst when you see someone with a domain that is way too long like; www.this-is-my-domain-name-for-sale.com . Try asking your clients to type that one in!!! The smaller your domain is, the easier it is to remember, and the less of a chance you have of someone miss typing your domain when trying to visit your website.

- 2) Avoid dashes if possible: Dashes are fairly new to the domain world. Most people don't think about using dashes when typing a domain name for example; www.domain-name.com. If you do use a dash, make sure to keep it to 2 words only, no more.

- 3) Avoid domains where .com .ca .net and .biz are already taken: I made this mistake when I started out. I desperately wanted Smartads.info because smartads.com was taken. Over the years, I've had numerous people tell me that they couldn't find my company, or they didn't think I was in California. Many clients of mine were never able to remember that my domain was smartads.INFO. On top of that, I'm sure my efforts over the years have brought smartads.com a huge amount of traffic to their website from people searching online thinking it was my business they where visiting.

Domain Names 101.3: How Long Should I Buy My Domain For? Most people register domain names for only 1 year. This is a big mistake for a couple of reasons:

1) The internet is full of scammers online who register a domain name for 1 year in order to spam, and scam as much as possible until moving onto another domain. At the same time, most companies rise and fall within 1 year. Because of this, Google and other top search engines look at this and weigh a domain name higher if the owner registers a domain name for more than 1 year. In fact, I recommend that you max out your domain name to a 10 year ownership if possible. This will tell search engines who are looking into it that you mean business, and that you're here to stay.

2) People all over the internet register their domains for 1 year and sometimes forget to renew their domain when the renewal is due. There are companies out there that have lost their domains from a service called "domain back-ordering" were an individual can order a back-order on a specific domain claiming ownership for that domain if it goes up for sale. This is a serious matter, I've lost 2 important domains because of this. Trust me, this is one mistake I will never make again. If you go on vacation, or don't pay attention, and you happen to miss the domain renewal date, someone might snatch your domain right from under your nose.

If your budget permits it, always try to max out the number of years you can buy your domain for. This way you'll ensure that you have that domain for a very long time.

Domain Names 101.4: What is A Domain Name Extension? An extension is the 2, or 3 digits after your name for example; www.domainname.COM. For a long time .COM was the only extension a person, or business could use. Nowadays, there are many extensions meaning different things, let's take a look at the available extensions, and see what they stand for
- .Com - Universal (Commercial) - .Net - Network - .Biz - Business - .Org - Non-Profit - .Info - Information - .Tv - Television - .Ws - Web Site - .Coop - Business Cooperatives - .Name - Personal Use - .Pro - Professionals - .museum - Museum (Sources of information) - .travel - Travel Industry

- .Us - United States - .Ca - Canada - .Uk - United Kingdom

To view all the domain extensions for each COUNTRTY, go here for the master list:

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/topleveldomains/countrycodeA-E.asp

These extensions are reserved, and cannot be bought for personal use:

- .Gov - Government - .Edu - Education - .Mil - Military

Domain Names 101.5: How To Protect Your Domain Name? This topic is a very serious issue and should NOT be taken lightly. 100's of companies across the globe are being used, abused, and scammed. The reason for this is because the owner of the domain name is sometimes NOT the real owner. If you pay for a service from your web development company that includes; your website, your hosting service, and your domain name, take action right away and make sure that YOU own the domain name rights. Many web design companies out there are registering their client's domain names for them which can ultimately give them all rights and privileges to that domain name. When a web design company registers your domain for you, they can change the ownership to them, not you without you knowing about it. If you fail to pay for their services for any reason, they can then go back and take down your website, and control who uses the domain name. I've had so many calls asking for help with their domain name because their web design company won't change the ownership for them. If your in this situation, you have a couple of options:

- Give up now and start fresh - If the domain is valuable, take them to court right away - Contact www.tucows.com with proof of purchase - Perform a "WHOIS" lookup on the domain name (Which tells you who owns the domain name) - Go to www.whois.net and enter your domain name - Save and print any information listed there

Also, try to avoid ANY company that you don't recognize either by mail, or by email that states that you need to re-register your domain name before it expires. Do not trust any organization you don't recognize. There are a number of companies that pool into the domain name data base in order to fish out suckers that might need to register their domains for another year very soon. I've gotten numerous direct mail stating that my domain is up for renewal, one of them even demanded $800 to renew my domain name. As you might know, I called this company and had a few words with them.

Prevention: The number 1 preventative action you can take, is by holding control over your domain name. Make sure to register the domain name yourself, once you have all control yourself, then hire a web design company. Do NOT give them access to it unless you really trust them. If you do give them access to your domain manager in order to point your domain name to your hosting services, try to immediately change the password after the service is complete. NEVER give out your password for your domain manager to anyone unless you really have to.

I'll put it another way: Would you give the combination to your safe to anyone? This situation is exactly the same. Control over your domain name is sometimes as serious as controlling your business.

Domain Names 101.6: What Is A Sub-Domain? Sub-domains are exactly that. http://sub.domainname.com. Sub-domains are typically used to separate a section of your content online to target a specific area. Sub domains are also used to store information that you want no one to see. Yahoo is a great example of using sub-domains. When you go to the "Canada" side of Yahoo, you're actually going to http://ca.yahoo.com/. "ca" for Canada .yahoo.com. This helps them to separate all information for their Canadian website.

Domain Names 101.7: How To Forward A Domain Name? Domain name forwarding can be a useful tool to use. Again, I will use Yahoo for the best example of this. I just mentioned to you how Yahoo! uses a sub-domain "ca.yahoo.com" for the Canadian content side of their website. Most people don't know about going directly to ca.yahoo.com, most people associate Canada with the extension .CA. Yahoo uses this knowledge by registering www.Yahoo.CA and forwarding the domain name to > ca.yahoo.com. Try it out yourself, in your browser address bar, type in www.yahoo.ca and see where it takes you.

Sometimes you need to protect your name by registering different domain name extensions, if you don't want to build a website for each extension, and you don't want each extension to go to a blank page, simply forward your other domain names to your main website. Another method of forwarding is by registering domain names that have a small spelling mistake which people might make all the time. Spelling mistakes are common, people are ultimately human. I know of some companies that register domain names with their company name, but that have spelling mistakes in them. They then forward > these domains with spelling errors to their main website. This ensures that there's no loss of potential business.

Usually you can forward a domain name within your domain manager from the company you registered the domain name with.

Domain Names 101.8: How To Setup Your Domain Name? This section above all has baffled a lot of people. Many of you might think that by registering a domain name, you can now show your website. This cannot be farther from the truth. Sure, you just registered a domain name, but your domain is like having an address without a house. In order to have the house, you need to have a "hosting service" in place. Without getting into what is a hosting service, I will tell you this; A hosting services is basically a "holding place" for your website files so that people can see your website online. Hosting is storage for your website. Your domain name needs to point to that storing place in order for the general public to view your website files.

If you don't have any hosting services in place, try searching for (depending on your needs):

- Small business hosting services - Affordable hosting services - Secure hosting services - eCommerce hosting services - Dedicated hosting services

Changing The DNS:

Once your hosting is setup, now you need to point your domain name to your hosting services(storage). We do this by changing the "DNS" Domain Name Servers that tell the internet were to look for your hosting service.

Step 1) You need to find out the "addresses" to your hosting service, they usually go like so: dns1.hostingservice.com, dns2.hostingservice.com. If you don't know where to find the DNS addresses, simply contact your hosting service for them. This is typically the #1 reason why your web design company needs access to your domain manager. They need to get in and update the DNS addresses in order to point your domain name to their hosting service. I highly recommend that you learn how to do it yourself in order to keep control over who uses your domain name.

Step 2) Within your domain name manager, you'll need to look for a link that should say; Change DNS, Update DNS, Manage Domain, etc. Once you find this area, simply type in, or paste the 2 DNS addresses within slot #1 and, slot #2. Click on the update, change, or submit button. That's it. Within 24-48 hours, your domain name should be pointed to your hosting service.

Internet Marketers who are serious about running a profitable online business.

Independent Review of Website Design Software by Katie Jones
FrontPagedependent Review of Website Design Software® and DreamWeaver® are both great pieces of software but they were NOT designed with Internet Marketers in mind. XSITEPRO was, which is why it has rapidly become the web site development tool of choice for Internet Marketers who are serious about running a profitable online business.

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But, please don't just take our word for it ...

Since it was launched back in Spring of 2005 XSITEPRO has received thousands of amazing testimonials from satisfied users, many of whom had previously used other leading web development applications such as Dreamweaver, FrontPage and GoLive.

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"As I was going through the XSitePro tutorial, I found myself thinking "WHERE was this software a few years ago when I was struggling to learn HTML?". XSitePro is awesome! It is so EASY to use that a grade school kid (or, since kids are so computer-literate these days, perhaps I should say an 80-year old grandmother) could create beautiful websites in no time flat ... without knowing one lick of HTML. And, it is so versatile ... if you can "think" it, you can "do" it with XSitePro! I honestly can't believe you were able to pack so many features into just one little piece of software. This is hands-down the BEST software of its type on the market, and I am recommending it to ALL my coaching students." Holly Cotter http://www.PassiveProfitStreams.com


I purchased the Xsite Pro a couple of days ago and transferred my martial arts and fitness site of + 500 pages from a dynamic portal to the Xsite Pro layout. I did this job in a little over 3 days, That's aprox. 166 pages/day. I don't think any other website design program can do the same with such a high level of proficiency. In the first 3 days after putting the site online i saw a drop in traffic but after 3 days everything was back to normal again. 2 days later my traffic was DOUBLED !!!! Thank you Xsite Pro. Should have bought this program a lot earlier. And thank you Paul for the advise. Peter Vermeeren http://www.kamikaze-portal.com


"In the four and a half years that I have been on line I have spent well in excess of $100,000 on various software, courses, seminars, e-books, manuals, DVD's and CD's - often to be disappointed when a product failed to live up to it's claims or meet my expectations. I am happy to say that XSitePro would have to be in the top 5% of everything I have bought in all that time. Plus - and this is a HUGE point - I have found their support staff to be helpful and polite. I have already promoted XSitePro to my subscribers (with a 5 Star rating) and fully intend to do so again and again. A drovers dog could build a great looking website with this!" Chris Bloor www.InstantNichePortals.com


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And these are not just a few isolated comments. We've received thousands of similar e-mails. You can take a look at some of the others on the Testimonials Page.


What exactly do you get when you buy XSITEPRO?

You will receive a complete package that includes everything from the software through to professionally produced documentation, and downloadable videos that take you through all the important features step-by-step.

The Software

As soon as your purchase has been processed, which usually takes less than two minutes, you will receive your registration details along with a link to download the software. This is a feature-packed full-blown application so it's quite a sizeable download. The current version comes in at about 60 meg, including the manual and tutorial. On a typical broadband connection this will take about 15 minutes to download. If you have a dial-up connection you might want to request delivery of the software on a physical CD, which is just $10 extra.

The software is very easy to install. Just doubleclick on the installation file and the professional installer will guide you through the process and you'll be up and running in no time.

If you have any problems downloading or installing the software the XSitePro support staff will be happy to help out so don't worry about being left on your own - we're here to help!


The Manual Included with your software is the 400 page XSitePro manual.

This is intended as a comprehensive reference work that you can refer to whenever you need more detail on a particular feature, so don't think you need to read it from cover to cover. Indeed, many users find that they never have to refer to the manual, but it is there if you need it and contains lots of helpful advice to help you get the very most from the software. It also includes lots of helpful advice on Internet marketing and site building in general.

The manual includes step-by-step instructions on almost every feature in the software along with over 200 screen shots so that you can see exactly what you need to do.

"The quality of the tutorials and the manual are exceptional in terms of structure, clarity of concept and of the actual writing." Steve Jackson

The Tutorial

Rather than leave you to figure out using this powerful application on your own we've put together an easy-to-follow tutorial that will take you from complete novice to your first web site in just a couple of hours. We highly recommend that you take the time to follow this tutorial as it really will help you to get up-to-speed in the shortest time possible.

"I sat down with XSitePro and after spending a few minutes going through the tutorial, I built a 40 page site in about 1½ hours!" Paul Smith-Goodson

"The program is very straight forward. It takes you step-by-step teaching you all the way through the special and user friendly tutorial, I could not believe how easy a website could be put together." Richard Barron

"I found the tutorial very easy to follow. Better than Dreamweaver. It's written in laymens terms, not too much jargon." Pervaiz R. Karim

The Videos

If you prefer to learn by watching rather than reading that's not a problem at all.

As an XSitePro user you will have full access to eleven professionally produced training videos offering more than 80 minutes of visual learning.

These cover many of the key features of the software and will help you to see exactly how the software works as the presenter works through them on your screen.

The videos can be downloaded and played on your own computer or streamed directly from the Internet - whatever is easiest for you.

Here are the titles of the eleven videos.

Lesson 1: Managing Projects and Web Sites Lesson 2: Page Layout Lesson 3: Adding Web Pages Lesson 4: The Designer Lesson 5: Special Pages Lesson 6: Affiliates Lesson 7: Search Engine Optimization Lesson 8: The Other Tab, Volume 1 Lesson 9: The Other Tab, Volume 2 Lesson 10: PowerPack Features Lesson 11: Publishing

Here's what one happy XSitePro user had to say about the video tutorials:

"The videos are immaculately produced, explained in a manner which suggests that the vocal script has been worked so that it is informative while as brief as possible and all encompassing, ideal for beginners or intermediates to recap and remind, and made in the same manner as the product itself - very close to perfect." Roger Davis

Okay! I'm convinced

XSITEPRO really is an Internet marketers dream. It provides you with a web site development tool that lets you focus on building a profitable on-line business rather than wasting days, weeks and months pulling your hair out. Yes, it does require an investment in time to master it, but as you can see from all the many testimonials above and on the testimonials page even complete newbies can be up and running with the software in a short period of time if they follow the tutorial.

So now you have a choice. You can continue to struggle along with tools that were not really designed with Internet entrepreneurs in mind or you can invest in your future and get hold of XSitePro now.

"As I was going through the XSitePro tutorial, I found myself thinking "WHERE was this software a few years ago when I was struggling to learn HTML?". XSitePro is awesome! It is so EASY to use that a grade school kid (or, since kids are so computer-literate these days, perhaps I should say an 80-year old grandmother) could create beautiful websites in no time flat ... without knowing one lick of HTML." Holly Cotter

To get hold of your copy of XSITEPRO all you need to do is click on the link below and complete the secure on-line order form. You can pay using Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and many debit cards