Getting Your Domain.
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Domains are important to the Internet entrepreneur. Picking up the right domain can improve your search engine optimization, provide you with incoming links as soon as you grab the domain, and improve your business branding. Many of the good domain names are taken, so here’s how to get the domain you want:
# The most obvious case is when your domain is available. In this case simply register the domain with a registrar such as “iPowerWeb.”:http://www.ipowerweb.com/cgi-bin/tracker/trackeraf.cgi?rid=afftrend They have a special on at the moment where you can register a new domain for $2.95. This is way below the industry standard of about $8.
# If your domain isn’t available then someone else has it. Try asking them if they will sell it to you. You will need to guess an initial offering price. You could use “sedo”:http://sedo.com or some other domain market as a rough guide of the going domain prices.
# So you’ve asked the current domain owner and they don’t want to sell. If you insist that you must have the domain then your only option is to wait until the current owner doesn’t pay their domain renewal fee. Beware, this could take a while! When a domain is not renewed the domain goes through an expiration process. This expiration process provides a buffer for the existing domain owner to buy back the domain before it is released to the public. Check out this “illustration”:http://expireddomains.com/image/domaincycle.gif of the domain life cycle. Your chance to buy the non-renewed domain is after the domain completes the “Deletion” stage. This may seem pretty obvious from looking at the chart, but there is speculation that some domains will re-register the domain before this point to the right bidder. If the domain is a _good_ domain then you will need to employ the services of a company such as “pool”:http://www.pool.com/index.aspx?aff=R-AACLT or “snapnames”:http://www.snapnames.com to grab the name for you as soon as it expires. There is no guarantee that they will grab the name before someone else does, but they will definitely beat anyone trying to grab the domain manually.
For those of you who are not fussed about getting the exact domain you want, and are happy with something similar, there are a heap of services out there to help you get a domain your happy with. Essentially you will need to grab a list of domains that are about to finish the deletion phase and parse this list for keywords, or patterns in the domain name you are interested in. You will need some patience if you choose to take this route.
Here’s some excellent resources I came across while learning about the domain expiration process:
* “Sedo”:http://sedo.com - this company specialises in the domain after market. They provide a market place for domain buyers/sellers and also provide domain parking facilities where you can earn revenue by forwarding your domain to your page on their site.
* “DNJournal”:http://dnjournal.com - An online magazine discussing everything domains.
* “DomainState”:http://domainstate.com - A great active board discussing the domain industry.
* “Mike Davidson’s Blog Entry”:http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/03/how-to-snatch-an-expiring-domain - this is a great introduction to the world of expired domains. Read all the comments too, theres a heap of them but there are some real gems.
* “Expired Domain Software”:http://www.expireddomainsleuth.com/index.asp - this is the software I use. I’ve joined up as a gold member. This is a really useful product. If you don’t like EDS, I’ve read “dropshark”:http://dropshark.com is a good product also.
After my journey in to the domain market I’ve come to realise how important this market is and how much more powerful I am as an entrepreneur after having learned what I have. If you want to earn money on the Internet you need to understand domains and their associated business models.
