Aug

1

Copyright of domain name

Filed Under Companies, Domains | 5 Comments

In the conventional business world, two companies may have the same name if they do not conduct a similar business or do not have similar product lines. Both the companies having same name but different line of business can coexist comfortably. However, in the world of internet and web, same name for two different cannot own the same domain name.

One puts a lot of money and energy into building a business and if one is forced to give up the domain name; the business is likely to suffer due to it. So, you need to put your best efforts in choosing a domain name that is both distinctive and non-infringing and keeping a check with the help of law to see to it that it is not taken by anyone else.

Selecting a domain name that is same or very similar to another well-known brand, can lead to legal action. The regulations governing these issues are dealt by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

There are certain copyright policies regarding domain names which have been set up by ICANN. The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) was introduced by ICANN to avoid domain name copyright violation during the registration process. All registrars accredited by ICANN have adopted the policies for all top level domain names such as .com, .org, .net and others.

Under the law in U.S.A., it is not mandatory to request for copyright registration. However, registration has numerous attached benefits. Copyright registration can be done with a single application available from some reference books and public libraries and is valid for a period of three months. Submit the application forms plus registration fee to the US Copyright Office. If anyone violates the copyright law then the copyright owner can file a complaint against the offender before the court. Using the IP address and ISP, the person who uses unauthorized copyright domain names can be identified and subjected to high penalties. The rules have which have come up due to heavy irregular practices on the net are now controlled to a certain extent by these rules. In practice how much are they followed and up to what level are they successful is another story.

A person who is trying to misguide the users by intentionally choosing a domain name  very similar to another domain name is very likely to lose right of that domain name.

The laws have changed and another factor which can lead to dispute of a domain name is that the person taken a particular domain name may have never carried out any business under that name or there is no person in that company similar to that name. Financial gain for reselling a domain name will lead to loosing a particular domain name.
If your domain name is same as your name then you may be allowed to continue to use it, in spite of the fact that it is similar to someone else’s domain name. But the usage of such a name is governed by certain conditions set by court.

With the increase in the use of the internet world wide the viability of cyber laws ahs becomes all the more important so it is best in the interest of your business that you get your domain name copyrighted.

Jun

26

ADVANTAGES OF HAVING A DOMAIN NAME

Filed Under Domains | 16 Comments

Domain name is not just a publicity gimmick, it does matter having a good domain name.  A good Domain name will attract visitors, weird names are not easy to remember and one does not want to access it. It is just like your company name, the business will always follow a good name.  It is a part of company name and is imperative for the success.

Domain name is a unique identity of your company. Even when the company is growing and you need a new web site with a different web host your domain name won’t change and your customers won’t forget you. No matter how many times you change your web hosts people will be able to find you through your domain name.

Sending emails with your domain name will be good business promotion as you will be promoting your domain name and not someone else’s.  Domain name can lead to better traffic to you site as people will remember your domain name and remember you, many search sites like Yahoo index only those sites who have domain name.

A good name should be short, though it is difficult to find a short one, it should be easy to remember as well be related to your business. A domain name matching with your competitor should be avoided as people can go their site instead of yours.

Domain name allows any company to have their professional presence felt on the net.  With a domain name access on the World Wide Web becomes a simple matter of entering the domain name and access the site. The first impression one has on any person is very important and a domain name gives this professionalism to the site. It is likely to   pronounce to others that you are a serious business person, operating an established business, in a professional manner.

Having a registered domain name is a very important step for all businesses and organizations. It does not matter that your business does not need it, as you feel that Internet is not important to your business. All of us are aware of the fact that Internet growth continues at a phenomenal rate, so even if you don’t feel you have a need for a professional net presence right now, it won’t be long before your customers, suppliers and others demand it from you.

Domain name are intangible assets and should be protected by the business houses. They have become profitable to people on different levels. The advantage of having a good domain name will be clear to you when you try to win over the search engine dilemma. If you have at least one of your best keywords within your domain name, the search engine and the directories give higher preference when your domain name is relevant to your site content or theme.

Booking and registering for Domain names also leads to having a profitable business. People book for good name and then sell those names at a later stage. This way they make profit through domain names.

The Domain Name lets you have different email aliases like sales@example.com, manager@example.com etc. It is a permanent address on the net. It not only lets you feel free as your address will never change.

Feb

16

Good domain names

Filed Under Domains | Leave a Comment

No matter what domain name you buy its unlikely to be worth $ millions straight away, but with some careful though and preparation you can maximise your domain names potential.

Using hyphens
Almost every word in the dictionary has been registered already so its more than likely that you will have to register a combination of words. Should you buy a domain name with a hypen in it?
Generally speaking the answer is no. There are several reasons why not.
Describing a domain name with hyphens can be awkward. Customers have a habit of forgetting the hyphen and typing in the wrong URL. It’s a misconception that hyphens improve search engine rankings, the leading search engines now concentrate on content and pay only limited attention to the URL itself.

Consider a ccTLD
There is no evidence that Country Code Top level domains (ccTLD’s) are treated differently by Search Engines, though there can be advantages and disadavantages if your business is regional Submitting your domain to search engines Once you have configured your domain to point to your Web site, you will need to ensure that search engines are aware of it. If they aren’t, your site will receive very few visitors - even if you have managed to find a memorable, snappy domain name.

This can be achieved by either directly submiting your URL to the search engines through using a submission service such as the free submission service on our site .
Free submissions

Please be careful when using automated submission tools as the Search engine are penalising sites submitted in this way. Ours is manual for this very reason.

Or by linking your site to others, this is the preferred way for search engine to “discover new sites”.

Ensuring you own your domain

Just because you buy a domain name doesn’t mean you own it. Some less reputable suppliers register domain names in their own name. You can see who owns a domain name by using a lookup call a WHOIS search e.g WHOIS If you look at the registrant details the name here is the legal owner. For example if you enter discountdomainsuk.com you will see the legal owner is us – Discount Domains Ltd

Selling your domain name

Is your domain name near to expiry? Don’t let it lapse without offering it for sale first, there are lots of good sites who only charge if your domain sells. You might be pleasantly surprised, domain names have fetched a $1 million before now!

Feb

16

Domain name hijacking!

Filed Under Domains | Leave a Comment

Domain names are becoming “hot” property - as in *theft* for resale. More and more companies are finding they cannot get their trademarked names as a domain name because so few good names are left. But sometimes it’s outright extortion as when a Fortune 500 company name is reserved by someone that has no intention of developing a site under the domain, but simply “parks” it somewhere and waits to be contacted by the big boys to purchase the name for astronomical fees.

A more lucrative market for domain names exists in short, memorable generic names like Loans.com or Homes.com which can apply to an entire industry as can be seen in recent news.

One of the lesser known and more frustrating issues is when a small business name or new product domain name is reserved by someone hoping to make a buck or two. Here’s a question faced by small business owners getting started online.

“I’ve trademarked a name, but the domain name is taken, it was reserved by another company right after I registered my trademark. Do I have a legal right to the domain name?”

The following link is to a page titled “Domain Names, A Trademark Owner’s Nightmare”

http://www.mdweblaw.com/home/domainnames.html

It discusses legal issues and cites two cases that have been taken to court over domain name hijacking.

People who do this may be doing it intentionally or innocently, but generally, you don’t have a case unless you’ve got a long established use of the trademarked name and can prove that the registrant was intending to extort excessive fees from you in the hopes you’d buy the name back from them.

You can take it to court if you like, but it’s not likely to do you any good unless you can prove that the registrant had the intent to squat on the name and not use it, hoping that you would be willing to pay excessively to get it back.

Still, the case may cost you more than it’s worth.

This is an unresolved battle with more and more companies. Until laws are passed (not likely) there will be no way to protect a domain name other than being the first one to reserve it. You may have a case if they are harming your business in some way by the inappropriate use of that name. But if they are simply using for another purpose, you might consider selling them the trademark instead. ;-)

Contact the registrant of www.your-trademark.com to see who it is, there’s a way to find the registered owner by going to this address and typing in the domain name.

http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois/

It will return a registrant name, host name and the name servers. You might consider contacting them and simply explaining your trademark situation, your desire to own the name and then simply ask if they would consider a reasonable solution. Possibly something as simple as a suggestion that you’d like to avoid a court battle and make it worth their time to sell it to you by offering twice what they paid for it.

If they have not spent large sums developing a branding strategy for the name, they may be willing to give it up. If it’s only few months old it may be possible that they haven’t begun to develop their site or their strategy yet. You may be assuming the worst but then be confronted with a friendly and accomodating person willing to look for an equitable solution!

Good luck with your own names and trademarks!

Feb

14

How To Host Several Websites Under One Account

Filed Under Domains, General Issues, SEO and Strategies | Leave a Comment

If you operate several websites, each with its own domain name, signing up of separate hosting accounts can be an expensive proposition. Even if your hosting company offers the add-on domain feature (which will allow you to add different domains to the same hosting account) you will be charged a monthly fee for each domain you add, sometimes costing almost the same as your full hosting fee.

The solution is to open a reseller account. Reseller accounts were created to allow web designers to offer hosting services to their customers, to create a one-stop-shop for all their web design and hosting needs. However, you don’t need to be a reseller to buy a reseller hosting plan.

Reseller accounts are usually slightly more expensive than regular hosting accounts, but they will allow you to host different domain names without incurring in the add-on domain fees, making more efficient use of your space and bandwidth.

You want to choose a reseller account that offers:

-no limit to the number of domains you can add.

-the possibility of hosting your main website free, without using any of the space and bandwidth in your hosting plan. If you are a reseller, your main website will be your business website, and the space and bandwidth will be reserved for your customers. If you are not a reseller and just want to manage different websites, you can designate one of your domains as your main website (usually the largest and/or most popular, since you won’t accrue any space or bandwidth for it).

-the possibility of upgrading to another plan without any penalties or fees.

To find out how much space and bandwidth you will need, first determine how many sites you are likely to host, how many pages each site may have, and how many visits will those sites most likely have. If you plan to host 10 sites with 20 pages each, at an average of 50KB per page and 100 page views per site per day, you will need 10MB of space (10 x 20 x 50KB) and 1.5GB of bandwidth per month (10 x 100 x 50KB x 30).

As far as pricing is concerned, there are reseller accounts costing as little as $10 / month up to several hundreds (or even thousands). It all depends on your requirements and the hosting company you choose, so shop around to get the best possible deal in terms of cost and reliability.

Source: The Internet Digest

Feb

14

10 helpful tips to follow when switching web hosts

Filed Under Companies, Domains, General Issues, Server Hosting | Leave a Comment

You’ve made your decision to move from your website from your current web host to a new web host. The following tips will help you make the transition easier and make you aware of some potential pitfalls to avoid.

1) Make sure the new web hosting plan you’ve chosen offers you the storage capabilities to handle all of your current website storage requirements. If your website is 50MB, you need to make sure your new hosting plan offers that much space, or more. If you’re not sure how much space your website is using, ask your current host. You can also usually find this information on your web hosting control panel.

2) How does your current web host determine what your storage amount is used for? Find out what your current and new host includes in your plan’s storage amount. Are your emails and log files counted towards your total storage, or just your web files?

3) What operating system does your current hosting plan use? Windows or Unix? Sometimes this can make no difference, in other cases it can make the difference between a working website and a broken website. If your site is currently on a Windows server and your website uses ASP scripting, you’ll find it difficult to make things work well on a Unix server, as ASP is a Windows based programming language. Find out ahead of time whether your current hosting plan is on a Unix or Windows server.

4) Does your site currently use FrontPage? Find out if your new host supports FrontPage. And make sure your new host supports the same version of FrontPage you currently use.

5) Find out if your new hosting plan offers you the same amount of bandwidth that your current host offers. You don’t want to be surprised by unexpected overage charges at the end of the month.

6) Does your new web hosting plan give you the same amount of email accounts, autoresponders and mail forwards that you currently use?

7) Does your site use a shopping cart that your current hosting plan provides? Can you move the cart to your new host? If not, does your new host have a suitable shopping cart replacement?

8) If you are using any scripts on your website, make sure that your new hosting plan supports all of your scripts. Find out in advance if you’ll need to make any modifications to your scripts to get them working on the new server.

9) Make sure to set up your existing email accounts on your new server before transferring your domain name to the new server.

10) Do you know how to upload your website files to the new server? If you don’t, you’ll need to find out if your new web host will upload your files for you. Some hosts will do this at no charge, some will do it for a fee, yet other hosts won’t do it all because of liability issues.

Once all your files are uploaded to the new server, you’ll want to double check that the site looks and functions properly on the new server. Most hosts can provide a preview link for you to see how your site looks before the domain name is transferred over. If your host does not provide a method for you to preview your site, you can modify your hosts file to preview your site. The host file tells your computer where to go to look for sites that are listed in that file. This works with any version of Windows. The file name is the same, the location can change. Here’s how to modify your hosts file:

The file HOSTS should be in the c:windowssystem32driversetc You might only find a file named HOSTS.SAM (as in SAMPLE). That is OK; we can modify the HOSTS.SAM file as well and do a SAVE AS HOSTS.

In either case, double click on the HOSTS file to open it. You will be prompted by Windows to select an Application (Program) to use to VIEW the file.

Scroll the list and select Notepad. Click the OK button. The NOTEPAD program will now open, displaying the file HOSTS. You will see examples listed (The # symbol is used to comment out line or remarks.), the format is this. IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx SPACE name)
So, to tell your computer that www.yourwebsite.com is at the address (replace with your real IP) 12.345.678.90 add the following entry to the bottom of the hosts file:
12.345.678.90 www.yourdomain.com (As in the example).

Click on FILE, slide down and click on SAVE AS.

In the Save As Type field, select ALL FILES. (Ensure that no .SAM is shown after the filename HOSTS. Click SAVE. You may be warned that the file already exists; this is fine, click YES.

Close Notepad, by clicking on FILE, slide down to EXIT, and click.
Now when you open your web browser, or try to ping the site, your system will go to the IP address you typed in the HOSTS file.

Remember to undo this when finished testing or your machine will always want to go to that IP address whenever you want to go to that site.

After you’re satisfied that your site looks ok and functions ok, you can go to your registrar (the company where your domain name is registered) and modify the nameservers associated with your domain name to your new web host’s nameservers. If you don’t know your new host’s nameservers, ask them. Most hosts have that information listed somewhere on their website or in the email you first get after signing up for an account.

Once the dns modification is completed it’ll be 24-48 hours before you’ll see your site on the new server.

Most whois utilities will display the nameservers of the current host. A good one is at http://whois.sc./ Check your domain name and see if the nameservers you added are listed. If so, you have completed the website transfer to your new web host. Only after you’ve confirmed this is it ok to cancel your old web hosting account.