|
DOMAIN SELECTION
There are many parameters for the domain
selection, but the most important parameters are expressed as follows;
- Fit
for purpose in terms of name and the extension : The domain name should be
relevant with the purpose of the website and/or the name of the company for
convenience and the extension (.com .org .net .biz .info...... etc) is
recommended to conform to the status of the company and/or the website (i.e.
.com for private companies, .gov for public bodies, .org for non-profit
organizations, etc),
- It
is advised to avoid use of hyphens and alpha-numeric characters together
(which makes it hard to remember and decreases the value of the domain
unless such use is relevant with the company name and/or brand such as
''Subsea7'' and ''CH2M'' which are the companies' original names,
- It
is also advised to avoid abbreviations and substitutions,
- The
name should be easy to remember; usually the shorter and one word domains
are preferrable to longer because they are easier to remember.
You
may also refer
''Domain Name Basics Guide''
provided by GoDaddy.
LOOKING for the AVAILIBILITY
of a DOMAIN
Whois.net
provides domain-based reserch services. You may use
Whois
tool to lookup registration data for the domains, and you may also search by
a domain or keyword you are looking for.
DOMAIN APPRAISAL
You may not need
to appraise a domain name value, but for those who also consider domains as
an investment, appraisal may be used to estimate buying and selling prices,
asset values, and for insurance and tax values.
The best tool for
determining the values of the domains is recent comparable sales which can
be found in some of the related websites (GoDaddy's
TDNAM: The Domain Name Aftermarket
).The
domains' values are
based on
several factors, the most commonly used domain appraisals (such as
GoDaddy's Express Domain Appraisal and
Certified Domain Appraisal Services,
SEDO's Domain Name Appraisals,
etc)
take into
consideration the performance in some critical factors such as;
- Commercial Use
Potential which considers the ability of the domain to be used as a brand,
forwarding, etc, (it
is usually
considered that this parameter may refer to popular search engine rankings
such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. and it should be noted that such rankings
may subject to continuous changes depending on modifications on the contents
of the web pages not being tied and limited with the domain name alone),
- Brand
Recognition which refers to the market recognition and/or recall value i.e.
ease of remembering or memorising,
- Name Length
which usually refers a higher value for shorter domain names,
- Dot or Extention
Value which usually refers highest values for .com names followed by .net
and some national domains (such as .de, .co.uk, .us etc), and .org etc,
however the current trends show that .info and the national domain .ws
(implying as if it is an abbreviation of ''website'') are gaining value,
- Hyphen/Numeric
and Word Count which consider that one word names are better than more and
suggest to avoid use of hyphens and alpha-numeric characters.
There are many
other websites for ''Domain Appraisal Services'' such as
''All
for Domains'', ''Accurate
Domains''
and among all
''Domain
name appraisal and research services by Zetetic''
seems to be one of
the most comprehensive ones taking into consideration
- Word Setup
(Extension, hyphens, letters, singular/plural, prefix characters, suffix,
word count, etc),
- Popularity
(Ranking, no. of visitors),
- Advertising
potential (pay per click score),
- Directory
Listing,
- Website factors,
- U.S. Trademark
competitiveness
and they fairly
state that they do not claim to measure brands, trademarks, website or
company values since they are considered broader measurements that may
include domain value as one component. Zetetic's
''Fair
Market Value Domain Appraisal''
and
''Free
Domain Appraisal''
services are some
alternatives for an indication. Zetetic also provided a list for
''Comparision of Domain Name Appraisers'' which unluckily no longer exists.
Another serious
alternative for Domain Name Appraisal seems to be
EchoArts
who claim as
follows (as of October 2006);
''EchoArts.com is
the world's leading independent domain name appraisal
company. Having completed over 500,000 domain appraisals to date for
literally thousands of individuals, corporations, media companies and
academic
organizations, our domain name appraisals have been instrumental in
assessing the value of domain names for buyers and sellers.
We also provide domain name appraisal services for the web's leading
domain
name sites such as Afternic.com and URLbuyers.com.
Our domain name valuations have become the most trusted estimation of a
domain
name's value and have been accepted by both the IRS and Revenue Canada.''
For those who just
want to have an idea about what a domain name be worth
SwiftAppraisal
provides free
domain
appraisal services considering most of the significant factors (which may
have impact on the domains' values) in a very user friendly way;
- Marketability
(referring to the Profitability, Size and Coverage of the Market),
- Clarity
(referring to match with content, a product, a service, a brand),
- Memorability
(referring to ease of remembering and recognition),
- Popularity (of
the the name and/or website which impacts ranking on search engines),
- Extension (TLD
i.e. Top Level Domains are preferable),
- Length (shorter
is better),
- No of
Words (one word or few words are better),
- Hyphens (names
with hyphens are less preferred),,
- Numerals
(numbers usually are considered to lower the value),
- Sustitutions
(usually substitutions are considered to lower the value) and
- Abbreviations
(usually abbreviations are considered to lower the value)
which are referred
by all domain appraisal services providers.
It should also be
noted that most appraisals provide automatic values without any associated
brand value and the potential revenue generating capacity (in case of a
website).
BUYING a DOMAIN and
SELLING a DOMAIN
There are the
registrars, sellers and resellers for domain names which will not be
detailed here. Among the many sellers accross the globe, the Owner of the
website has been satisfied with the value and services of the two Domain
Name Sellers:
Netfirms and
GoDaddy
both
of which provide additional features with every domain purchase.
You may also look
for available domains for sale (at higher values) in the Domain Sales and
Domain Auctions websites which you may also use for marketing/selling your
websites such as;
-
SEDO
which is a Global Marketplace for buying and selling domain names and
websites,
-
GoDaddy's
TDNAM
Domain Name Aftermarket for World Marketplace for
Domain Auctions,
-
GreatDomains
which is A VeriSign Co. for buying and selling
secondary market premium domain names.
If you are willing
to sell your domain or website be sure to
have your
domain names pointed somewhere. When someone types in your domain
name, he should be having an access to your ''Domain Auction page'',
your ''Domains for sale site'' or as a minimum a one-page site with your
contact information.
HOSTING a WEBSITE and
PARKING OPTIONS
Many domain name
sellers such as the recommended
Netfirms
and
GoDaddy
provide
free basic hosting features. It is easy to identify many hosting service
providers
- depending on the
needs, and
- through any one
of the search tools.
The owner of the
website has been using
ix-Webhosting
with great
satisfaction to date which is recommended to the parties who are willing to
host several websites.
For those who have
purchased the domains as an investment and not yet developed a website, it
is advisable to benefit from parking services provided by various companies
which offer advertisement revenue sharing programs i.e. when your domains
names are parked in their servers (or your domain names are forwarded to the
addresses identified by the service providers) you are credited a share of
the revenue generated through targeted advertisement placed on your domains
pages. Some of the websites that may be referred are;
-
SEDO
which is also a Global Marketplace for buying and selling domain names and
websites,
-
ActiveAudience
providing Free Domain Parking Services and
-
DomainSpa
for Domain Parking
Services.
|
