Low Cost Web Design
Low Cost Web Design
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A few things you need to know about domain names, domain fees your name and the guy in New Jersey who's going to steal it from you, then sell it back to you later for a lot of money. Your domain name is the internet address of your website. One real good reason to act now is that your Internet address (your "dot com" as they say), is in danger of being taken by others with the same or similar business name (as well as a few seedy characters, more on them later). For example, if your business was named Acme Plumbing, you might want to be first to reserve the web address of www.acmeplumbing.com - as there might be many businesses throughout the U.S. using that name you can expect that it have already been taken (it is). What about your name - your personal name or your business name? I'm guessing that you would want to have the web address (domain) name of your business name (www.yourbusinessname.com) ... right? You would first try for the most popular, which is dot com (.com). If that's taken you might want to grab dot net (.net). If those are out you can get dot info (.info), dot biz (.biz) or dot org (.org). Want me to check for you to see if your name is available? Give me a call. Someone else might get your domain name first: An example of this might be if your company name was AAA Shutters (a real company, located here in South Florida). In searching for the availability of this name, we found that a company in California using that same name got the "dot com" (.com) first. The South Florida company settled for the dot net (.net) name. "Cybersquatting," the speculative registration of Internet domain names, is still legal for the most part. A few domain names, such as www.business.com, fetched millions of dollars and there is nothing wrong with this type of speculation. During the rush to register dotcom domain names, many domain for company names were bought by cybersquaters only to be sold back to these companies later on. While I did not invent the name Wolfdreams (I think it comes from Native American folklore), cybersquaters purchased the domain wolfdreams.com strictly for the purpose of reselling it. They have to pay the domain fee for it each year. I wrote to the "owner" twice to ask what he wants for this domain and never received an answer. I believe that is because he is not interested in the few dollars I might offer him, but is waiting for the name Wolfdreams to become internationally famous (perhaps an NFL expansion team will name themselves the Wolfdreams, or something like that). A design group out west has the dot net (.net) although they are not using it - it sits there without a web on it. So, I settled for dot org (.org). And that's another story for another time. Trademarked names are protected from cybersquaters. One example is about a cybersquater who registered the name lanamarks.com after they noticed the famous handbag & accessories company hadn't got around to it. When Ms. Marks decided to build a website, she found the name had been registered by someone else. Rather than negotiate with the cybersquater, Marks took the matter to court. Since her name had been trademarked, the court agreed with her and made the cybersquater surrender the domain name. In some cases, if the price the cybersquater is asking for a trademarked domain (or one not trademarked) is reasonable enough, the name bearing person or company will purchase the name (chalk it up to experience). Nowadays, a company might register their domain name well in advance of opening their new business to avoid this type of problem later on. Upon purchasing your domain name it take 2 to 3 days for it to propagate through the servers of the world. You might also want to buy it at one location (cheap) and then have it transferred to a more dependable (or your own) your web host. Allow time for that as well. So, are you ready to register your domain name ... give me a call and we will check it out for you. Rob Cerreta/Wolfdreams 561-305-7221
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