Registering A Domain Name

Your blog’s domain name greatly reflects upon how people think of your blog. Is it something cool and hip, or is it completely boring. Is it spammy, or is it legit? The answers to those questions depend on your domain name.

The Extension Matters!

I think before you even pick the domain name you should understand one simple rule - do not get .biz or .info domain names. Simply put - 99% of the sites that use those extensions are spam sites. It was a huge mistake for the ICANN to allow the extensions, and it is a huge mistake for them to let the extensions continue to be registered - but they do.

This isn’t just my opinion either, anyone who has dealt with a splogger (spam blogger) knows what I am talking about. Unless it is impossible to avoid, do not get a .biz or .info domain name!

The Name Itself

Alright, now that you understand that one simple rule it is time to pick a name. The easiest way to do this is to use a nifty domain name generator, but that is cheating isn’t it? The best way is to simply look at your topic. Let’s use computer repair as an example.

Let’s say you are blogging about computer repair. Which domain sounds better for a computer repair blog, “joesmith.com” or “fix-my-comp.com”? Well, they would both work. It is important to understand that in the Web 2.0 world the domain doesn’t have to reflect what is on the page, it is more of an indicator of if the site is legit, and if it is “cool” (domains are mostly branding tools). Take del.icio.us for example - does that tell you “bookmarking”? Does Digg.com tell you “social news sharing”. Those are two extremely popular sites, but neither domain reflects the site’s content.

I think a good guideline of how to pick a domain is A) Use your name/your company’s name, B) Put your topic in it (like fix-my-comp.com) , or C) Choose something extremely catchy like “del.icio.us” or “digg”.

Trademark Issues

Something that most people don’t think about when purchasing a domain is possible trademark issues. Some companies don’t care if you register a domain that uses one of their trademarks, but others absolutely hate it and they will sue you. If you can avoid it, don’t use registered trademarks in your domain. To check if one is registered use the search functionality on the US Patent and Trademark Office website.

As a general rule of thumb you can use a name if it is trademarked if you are in a completely different market and are not competing with the company. If someone owns the “Bob’s Fish Farm” trademark and literally run’s a fish farm, and then you create a site called “Bob’s Fish Farm” which hosts a flash game, chances are you could defend any possible trademark lawsuit. It would be up to the farm to prove you were causing them harm or that you maliciously registered it - which is incredibly hard to do.

Also, if you register a domain based off of a town/city/state name or even your own name, chances are you could also defend any possible trademark lawsuits. But even with all that said, you shouldn’t go around trying to steal business from the trademark’s owner. To make things easier just avoid registering domains with trademarked names or phrases.

Think About The Future

I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make when registering a domain is making it so it only works for one type of site. If your domain is “exampleblog.com” then you can really only run a blog on it. What happens if you get sick of blogging but want to do something else with the site? Wouldn’t it sound weird if you visited exampleblog.com and found a site selling video games?

I suppose that is something that kind of went through my mind when registering nusuni.com. I wanted to originally make it a game site, so I chose NuSony (Nintendo + Sony). Obviously that’d cause trademark issues, so I chose NuSoni, then in the end I registered Nusuni.com. Nusuni doesn’t really equal video games, it doesn’t scream much of anything, which is quite an advantage.

I can really do whatever I want to with Nusuni.com and it wouldn’t look weird. It wouldn’t be like buying free-goodies.com and trying to sell computer desks on it.

Then again, you can always just sell your domain if you get sick of it.

Extension Rules

There are some rules that you should follow when picking your domain name’s extension, here’s a few of them:

• COM/NET - .Com and .Net domain names don’t really have any rules. They prefer that they are used for commercial and personal purposes, but nobody really cares about that.
• ORG - Should be used by non-profit organizations.
• INFO/BIZ - Don’t use, like I said above 99% of the .info/.biz sites are spam sites. Other than that they are for personal and business purposes.
• EDU - For education sites, schools, etc.
• GOV - Government sites.
• TV - For television and media resources.

You can view a full list of the rules here.

Finding A Registrar

There are literally 1,000s of domain registrars out there, you can find the official list at the ICANN website. Most registrars are good and won’t screw over their customers, unlike some of them.

If you want to avoid falling into the trap of getting a bad registrar, your best bet is to stick with well known ones like GoDaddy or Register.com. If you do use a less-known one, make sure you read the terms of use over and over. There are quite a few registrars out there who will put in clauses that essentially make them the owner of the domain.

Privacy?

And finally, should you get the extra privacy protection for your domain? Personally, I think it is worthless.

I have owned domains since 2002, and only used the privacy protection on one of them. The open domains don’t get spammed more via e-mail, and I only get maybe 1 of those stupid “register with us” letters in the mail per year (the protected one didn’t get that). Privacy protection is one of those things that is a waste of money, but then again that is just my opinion. Some people love it and get it on all of their domains.

It should be noted that some registers take ownership of your domain if you order the “whois protection” feature. But once again, the well-known registrars usually don’t do this.

Well, that’s it. Stayed tuned for even more Back To The Basics posts!

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