Mastering Your Domain

If you’re receiving this newsletter, chances are that you already have gone through the process of registering a domain name, or work for a company that does. But like everything else we talk about here week to week, there’s a marketing angle in the process, so we thought we’d enlighten you a little.

First comes the chicken-before-the-egg syndrome: do you get a concept for a web site and then pick a domain name, or do you pick a domain name and then build your site concept around it? The whole question about branding comes into play with this issue. You want a domain name that’s going to be easy to remember, easy to spell, and somehow helps describe your concept. If you want some more information on branding, please visit our marketing tip “Just What is a Brand” from 07/27/00.

Since ICANN, the organization overseeing this process, has opened the doors to other registrars, Network Solutions now has its share of competitors to contend with.

In addition, there are now discount domain registration companies offering their services. Some will even “park” your domain name for free. What this means is that you can register your domain name with them to protect it, but you don’t have to worry about building your web site right away because the domain registration company will hold your domain name on their server.

Two sites, LowcostDomains.com and DomainDirect.com, offer discounted domain registration (U.S. $24-$25 per year), free domain parking, e-mail forwarding and domain forwarding (to another URL or free web site).

As with all purchases, buyer beware. Click here if you’d like to see the ICANN’s list of accredited registrars.

What Network Solution’s web site still does offer best, however, are some tools to help you “peak through the keyhole,” and do some competitive intelligence. For example, if you type in a domain name and it proves to be already taken, they have a “NameFetcher” which compiles a list of available domain names based upon three keywords. You can also look up who owns domain names and other interesting searches using their WHOIS Lookup (located in the upper right-hand corner of their home page). At WHOIS, you can even do “reverse searches,” which allow you to find domain names registered all to one company, or to one individual or to one host.

If you like this kind of search-and-find game, you might also want to check out WhoIs.net. Here you can type in a domain name OR a keyword. If you choose the latter, you’ll be able to see up to thousands of domain names all containing the keyword you’d selected. You can then click on the WHOIS record to see more information about this domain name registrant. This process can be very revealing — it almost feels like spying!!

Now, if you have ever had a wish list of domain names or are having a difficult time even figuring one out, you might want to look into a domain name marketplace. Over the past couple of years, domain names have been gobbled up faster than you can say “dot com,” with some of the registrants doing so for the sole purpose of reselling them at a profit. If you’re a business looking for some instant branding, some valuable domain names are available for sale at domain name marketplaces…for the right price. For example, as of this writing, the domain name www.weightloss.com was available for $1.3 million at GreatDomains.com, while www.loans.com was available for a cool $3 million!

Other sites to shop for pre-registered domain names include:

Ebay
Domain Auctions
Afternic

There are some people who believe having a great domain name will make or break a site. This might not be altogether true, but it sure helps at least knowing where to start!

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