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Many Names, One Person
Don't play the name game or you could end up losing! Regardless of whether you are a large corporation or a small business owner, you should try to buy multiple domain names to protect the investment of your current site.
Most people will only purchase their domain name in a single extension (.com, .org, .net, etc.). Meanwhile, some unscrupulous folks may just snap up the remaining extensions of the website name and try to profit from someone else's hard work. Do you really want someone else to gain usage of your well-thought out, easy-to-remember name? Of course not!
*Owning several iterations of your current website is the least you can do to protect your domain name.
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Finding a diamond in the rough.
One company's trash can be your treasure! Finding expired domain names is not as difficult as you might think. There are tons of email lists you can sign up for or websites that list our freshly expired domains daily.
Obviously, not every domain is right for you, but think outside the box. If you find a great expired domain name, snap it up! You can always use it later for another idea.
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Have You Met My Friend, Mr. Roget?
Unavailable, occupied, engaged… If domain name availability for a domain you want is, well, unavailable, you will have no choice but to try other variants of the name.
Almost every domain name registration service offers name suggestions based on your keywords of your business. For example, while the name "GreatComputers.Com" might be unavailable, a domain name suggestion service might come back with awesomecomputers.com, great-computers.com and other similar domain names or the same domain is various extensions.
*Experiment with such tools until you find the domain name that fits you best (or try looking in the thesaurus).
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Domain Privacy and Fraud Protection.
Internet scams are rampant, so think about implementing some level of domain security on your domain names. By locking domain names, you can protect yourself from having a domain hijack attempt come to fruition.
*It's easy to protect domain names via companies such as Domains By Proxy.
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Make Money While You Park
It is actually very quick and easy to monetize parked domains, but don't expect grand riches. Some services will choose the genre that your domain name falls into and target their keyword-based search results to your site. In this type of traffic monetization, you show someone else's content and get paid on every click through.
*Unless you have a top-tier domain name you won't make tons—but don't let that stop you. It's better to make a little money than to have a dead domain that does nothing!
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URL Forwarding explained.
Much like call forwarding on your telephone, URL forwarding works in a similar fashion. Your domain name will bounce the incoming visitor to a different domain.
A domain forwarding service usually consists of a single webpage at the site that handles the forwarding, and that webpage will tell the web browser to go somewhere else to get the page.
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Free Domain Names, With Purchase.
Don't expect to get something for nothing! With web host services, it is fairly common for a hosting service to give away a free Domain Name if you agree to a service contract. But, like for most things, there's always a cost.
At minimum, you can expect to sign up for a full year of service with the web hosting service to receive your free domain registration. Is this worth it to you? Is the company a good company or are you only interested in the deal? Be careful and do your homework before biting at a deal like this.
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300,000 Domain Expirations Can't Be Wrong, Can They?
Ahh, a refreshingly easy renewal! If you want to renew a domain name, follow these steps:
• Decide for how long you want to renew a domain • Decide on a company to renew with • Once you find the right company, add in your new payment information and submit
In some cases, you'll receive a confirmation email (if you do, be *sure* to follow all instructions in that email). And, you're done—maybe a total of one hour to a clean domain renewal.
*If you are looking at multi-year renewals, you can expect to pay less per year for your domain name renewal.
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What's in a Name?
The long or short of it is that your domain name doesn't have to be short. A common misconception when deciding on an available domain name is that brevity is key. Guess what, that's not always the case. Did you know that your domain name can be up to 67 characters long?
The best domain name is one that people can easily commit to memory. So, if your company name is Dynamite Wacky Widgets and Goofy Gadgets, instead of opting to name the domain something obscure like DWWGG.com why not go all out and name it DynamiteWackyWidgetsAndGoofyGadgets.com? The actual name is probably going to be a lot more memorable.
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Save Time with a Single Stop
Don't try to juggle, this isn't the circus—or it doesn't have to be, rather. For ease of use, it is recommended to find domain name services that consolidate your needs. If you choose one service to handle your domain parking and another to handle your email forwarding, you are doubling your level of work. Keeping track of a multitude of services, all being provided by different companies, is a lot of work that you don't need to take on.
*Most domain registrar parking services will offer a consolidated administration interface.
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Support is Just a Forum Away
Know the news! Weblogs and Forums are a great source of domain news. As new services come online, or people discover good toolsets that can help pinpoint domain names, you'll see discussion threads pop up online.
Often, domain name forums will offer a digest of some sort that can be received as a domain name newsletter. Visit www.domainstate.com for an example of a good domain news source.
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