All About Domains is a blog to introduce visitors to the world of domains and domaining. Whether your interest be starting a personal website, creating and monetizing a web site or buying and selling domains. It wasn’t that long ago that most people where asking what’s a dot com? Those days are gone, but there is much more to the world of domains than you might think.
In the beginning there were three extensions to domains .com, .net and .org; with .com being the more well known, trafficked and remembered. Today there are dozens of extensions to domains, from country codes to .info, .me, etc.
So, how does a person buy or purchase a domain name? You don’t. You can register a domain with registrars like Yahoo Domains, Go Daddy, Network solutions and many other registrars. You can register the domain for one or more years. You never own it – you are in essence renting it. Its yours to use until your registration period runs out. The trick is not to let it run out, and renew when the registration comes due, or lose your domain name.
Whether you are looking for a domain name to create your own website or for domains to buy and sell you will have to search for your website. What word or name best describes what you are trying to convey to visitors or potential buyers? So you have decided on a name. How to find it? With the same registrars with which you can register the domain, Yahoo Domains, Go Daddy, Network Solutions, etc. Now, you might find that the name you want isn’t available; the chances are very good that someone has also registered it. So, you can either contact the current registrant for the domain directly and offer to buy it – which could be very expensive, and much more than the 10 or so dollars registration fee for a year, you could also search for that domain or one similar in the resale market on a site such as SEDO or Fabulous.com and make the domains owner an offer, you can reserve it, and hope that the current registrant does not renew it, or you can look for a similar word, term or name for your domain. By far it is much less expensive to settle for an appropriate similar name for the one you desire than buying the one you want. If you must have that domain, then make an offer – start low and then go as high as you are willing to or must go.
Now you have your domain, you know what you want to do with it, whether it be developing it or park it with your registrar or with web services that will pay you money for pay per click, sponsored or affiliated links on the domain you park with them. If you develop it you might want to try to make some money with it, know as monetization. Are you going to get rich doing it? Doubtful. But why not make some money with your new domain and blog or site? Good sources for monetization of your domain and site are google adsense, good affiliates, an affiliate program, pay per click programs, and sponsored links. Oh yeah, lets not forget you need to physical have your domains website on the web. So unless it’s a blog like Blogger where you can set up a blog for free, you will have to build your website, pay someone else to do it or buy a templated website – already created – you ad the content. After you have built it they still will not come unless you get that site on the web and associated with your domain. You need a webhost.
A webhost is where your domain points too – where your physical website will reside. There are lots of hosting services out there, some cheap, some expensive, some good and some bad. There are web hosting companies like Yahoo webhosting, and many others that will give you web space for a monthly fee on which to have your website. There is dedicated hosting, in which you have your own server and which is expensive or hosting on a shared server which is less expensive and typically just as secure. You can also get managed hosting, where your webhost takes care of backing up your website and data and does other housekeeping chores for you, or unhosted in which you must do these tasks. There are hosting packages just for Windows servers, Linux servers, and other operating systems as well. The important thing is to choose a reputable hosting service for the best price, which you can do by researching web hosting reviews and web hosting ratings.
Hope you are a little more enlightened and less confused then before concerning domains and domaining. Please stop back often as the blog grows and thanks for stopping by!
