Cshel Chicago SEO, PR and Web Development

SEO 101: Domains – Picking them, getting them, keeping them

Posted on 27. Nov, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

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Ouch. Brian’s office had a cable cut or something, we’d occasionally lose Neo, and for once I was the one NOT having connection issues, but the sudden silence made me paranoid… it was a rough episode. Technical difficulties aside, there is some good information about choosing, registering and hanging onto domain names which verily I shall summarize here.

Choosing a domain name for your business (key points)

1. Keyword domains are always a safe bet, but they can be a tad on the bland side. Is it better to go for a cool brand or a dull keyword laden domain? My vote is for the cool brand… people love their brands. People do not *love* keywords. Not to mention, brandable names tend to be more readily available on the open market than awesome keyword domains.
2. (Easy to Say + Easy to Spell) or (Clever + Easy to Say) = Easy to Remember
3. Hyphens are okay, and in some cases good, but remember to think about the big picture. If your primary domain has a hyphen in it, make sure you also snag the non-hyphenated version and 301 it to your hyphenated domain. This way you don’t end up with gross sounding radio spots, i.e. “Visit Bob’s-Tech-Hut.com. That’s Bobs Hyphen Tech Hypen Hut Dot Com!”
4. Make sure you’re not stepping on someone else’s trademark before you sink your entire life’s savings into a project. You don’t want to have to change domain names after you’ve already printed your literature and spent money on producing your ads, etc. We’re not saying it can’t be done; we’re just saying it’s incurring an avoidable expense and causes avoidable pain and anguish.
5. Domain Tools has a nice domain suggestion tool. Be prepared to jump on a domain once you find one you like… it might not be there when you come back the next day.

Getting the Domain You Want (key points)

1. Use a reputable domain registrar, and register as many years in advance as you can comfortably afford.
2. Check the backorder services to see if the domain you might want is going to expire soon. Backorders are generally free unless they successfully “catch” a domain for you when it drops.
3. Check after market sites for registered, but for sale domain names… search for “domains for sale” and you’ll come up with dozens of sites offering after market domain sales.
4. If you need to buy a domain from a broker, have a price in mind ahead of time and be prepared to walk away from the domain if the price isn’t right, or be prepared to write a really big check.
5. Consider having a third party contact the domain registrant to negotiate a sale, or at least contact them via a throw-away email address. Sometimes sellers up the sale price if they think you’ve got deep pockets, or if they figure out what your business name is and know how desperately bad you want the domain.

Keeping Your Domain (key points)

1. Make sure the contact information you have in the domain registration file is accurate and current.
2. Make sure your registration is paid up.
3. Throw some backorders on your own domains just in case… especially if you know you’re prone to bouts of forgetfulness.

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Changing the WHOIS Service isn’t necessary

Posted on 23. Mar, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

The Generic Names Supporting Organization’s final Whois Task Force report (something like 2 years in the making) recommends that ICANN restrict the amount of contact information publicly available via the whois service, and completely do away with technical and administrative contacts in favor of an “Operational Point of Contact”, or OPoC, in an effort to minimize domain related scams like phishing, identity theft, fraudulent renewal scams, etc.

“Protecting the identity of the registrant…” 

While the intent is noble, I have to wonder exactly what this is going to accomplish that private domain registrations don’t already cover? Aside from sort of ruining the private registration business in general. If a registrant is truly concerned about protecting their identity and their contact information, private domain registrations are a perfectly good way to do it, are already available, and are administered by private companies (rather than some pseudo-governmental agency).

If you’re not doing anything illegal, immoral or fattening with your domains, then you probably don’t have to worry about anyone using your whois data to track you down and sue you.

If you *are*, then you ought to have a private registration. Period. I don’t recommend using bogus whois data because I secretly hope ICANN (or someone) starts enforcing the existing rules about that being a bad-bad-bad offense and revokes registrations from people who are caught doing it.

Also, whether this new recommendation is enacted or not, the people who want to sue you will still be able to get their hands on your registration data, they just might have to pay their lawyers for a couple more hours of work (and then turn around and take it out of your ass when they finally get a hold of you).

Eliminating the Technical and Administrative Contacts

Switching from Admin and Tech contacts to an OPoC is all fine and good, but really, it’s not going to alleviate the issue of fake whois data because no one enforces the rules about NOT using fake whois data. I checked in my usual domaining haunts and no one had any concrete evidence anyone has ever lost a domain for using fake data. There were two third hand accounts of someone knowing someone who knew someone who had their domain revoked, but nothing that could be substantiated.

What it will possibly accomplish is clarify the purpose of the contact and hopefully businesses/individuals who are not well versed in the terminology will better understand the role the OPoC plays in their domain registration and will use better judgement in selecting the responsible party.

Also, the recommendation doesn’t really address how the registrar is going to verify that the designated OPoC *knows* he’s been named. If correspondence is no longer being sent to the registrant and is only sent to the OPoC (as recommended), you’re really putting a LOT of trust into this contact person. Even assuming the OPoC info is real and not completely fake, the system still breaks just as badly as before if that contact can’t be gotten in touch with, or forgets to renew their P.O. box, etc.

So… what’s to be done?

Ultimately, I think we already have mechanisms in place to protect our privacy if we choose to utilize them, and the means to address the bogus whois data also already exists, but needs to be enforced. Serious, legitimate registrants will either opt for privacy protection or just stop using fake info if they care about not losing their domains.

The system is just a little broken, not in need of an overhaul. Just enforce the rules and let the private registration companies do their thing.

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We have a visitor

Posted on 10. Jan, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

A visitor from wcsp.wipo.int (193.5.93.24) was logged once, starting at 12:30:02 AM on Monday, January 8, 2007.
The initial browser was Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 4.0).

This visitor first arrived without a referring URL,
and visited www.cshel.com/domains/2006/12/wipo-is-chewbacca/

In keeping with the Star Wars theme, I was going to say something about the “empire striking back”, but it was just one visit and there’s been no subsequent legal action or other contact. I’m thinking perhaps the surveillance droid just paid me a visit to check things out.

Popularity: 20% [?]

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