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Domain Name Registration Tips

Part 2

Keep Those Contacts Right!

If you change your e-mail address from whatever you've included in your contact record for the domain(s) you registered, be sure to submit a contact change request to alter this contact to your new address before your old address stops working. If you wait until the old address is "dead" before trying to change your contact to the new one, you'll have a lot of trouble completing the change, since registrars want the change request to either originate or be confirmed from the current contact address. (This might not apply with some registrars who make password-protected Web forms available for domain changes. But if you forget your password, you might be in trouble if your e-mail address is no longer reachable.)

Long Domains: Are they a good idea?

Most registrars now accept domain registrations for names longer than the traditional 25 character limit. This has caused some of the online marketing newsletters to hype this and encourage people to grab all the long domains they can. However, such long domains are likely to require too much typing to be very good as addresses. Actually, the main use proposed by those marketing newsletters is for "keyword spamdexing," where sites would supposedly get indexed better in search engines if lots of keywords are in their domain. If this speculative concept is actually correct, you can probably get similar results by using keyword-laden hostnames and subdomains in your existing domain, like here.are.some.neat.keywords.yourname.com. But if lots of people try this, the search engines are bound to re-tinker their algorithms to disregard it, anyway.

Think long-term.

Too much on the Internet is based on "trendy", flavor-of-the-week thinking, where everyone tries to pander to every momentary craze that comes along. People's choice of domain names often reflects this, with little thought of the long-term sense of what they're doing. When you register and use a domain name, you're adding to the permanent infrastructure of the Internet; you should think this way. Once a site is on the Web, there will be links to it forever, so you should try to put some foresight into making something that will be meaningful for a long time to come, not just for the lifespan of a mayfly.

One big benefit of the long-term approach is that you don't get saddled with heaps of no-longer-useful domains that you have to either keep paying renewal fees on until the end of time, or else face the indignity of possibly having a cybersquatter grab them after they expire and putting something embarrassing like pornography there to ensnare anybody who follows lingering links and search engine indices of your old site. This fate has actually befallen a number of organizations. If you stick to names with permanent significance, you'll have a much more manageable task keeping them renewed. And if you make effective use of subdomains instead of getting a new domain for every temporary gimmick, you'll have addresses that nobody can ever cybersquat.

Where should I host my site?

Whatever type of domain you get, if you want it to go directly to your Web site, you'll need to get "virtual server hosting," a service provided by many companies. This is not quite the same as Web space hosting, something which many providers do without you having your own domain name (for instance, free space at GeoCities or on your dialup provider). In the old days, virtual hosting required a separate IP address (the base numeric addresses of the Internet, invisible to most users) for each site, which limited the number of sites that could be hosted that way, but present protocols don't require this (though some really ancient browsers might not be able to reach sites that don't have their own IP address). Virtual hosting is the way to host your domain if you're serious about your site, since it results in all the pages of your site having URLs in your own domain. Other, cheaper forms of hosting may cause the domain to be redirected to an address elsewhere, or to bring up a frame that contains your pages from a different host, which looks less professional.

Watch Your Expiration Dates!

There are many people who have accidentally allowed their domain names to expire, and become available for registration by others, when they really wanted to keep them. Apparently, some registrars don't always bother to inform registrants that it's renewal time. You'd think they'd take every opportunity to try to get more money out of you, but sometimes they fail to. On the other hand, there are others that, when their domains neared expiration, they got spams from just about every other registrar trying to get them to re-register the domain there, it's still possible that you might not find out that your domain is about to lapse until it's too late.

Don't rely on your registrar (or competing registrars) letting you know when it's time to renew your registration. Keep track of your own domains and when they expire. It can be as simple as making a file of it and putting it on your computer's desktop so you can check it regularly -- it's up to you whether to do it as a plain text file, a spreadsheet or database, or integrate it into your computerized appointment book if you use such software -- just put it where you keep up with it and notice when a domain is coming due.

If you're thinking of saving money by switching your domain to a less expensive registrar, be sure to do it well in advance of the expiration date. Registrars will not let you transfer a domain after it's expired, so you have to complete a registrar switch before the lapse date, and the transfer process has enough bureaucratic hoops that it's best to start early.

Changing Registrars

Since there is competition in registrars, you have some choice of where to register a .com, .net, or .org domain (and also in most of the new TLDs, and in some of the country code domains). There is a lot of variation in price and in quality of service (e.g., how easy it is to make changes to your domain, what level of security is used to prevent unauthorized changes, and what kind of customer service they give you if there's a problem). You should shop around. But you may have settled on one registrar for your new registrations, but be stuck with some old domains that were registered with a different registrar that imposed high prices for lousy service (e.g., the old monopoly registrar, Network Solutions). But that doesn't have to be the permanent situation. You can transfer your domains to a different registrar.

To do this, follow the instructions on the site of the new registrar you're moving to. They usually have a form to apply to transfer a domain. You will then receive e-mail messages with further instructions; you might have to reply to a message or go to a Web site to confirm the switch with your former registrar. This is usually a reasonably easy process, but sometimes it can be a pain; especially if the previous registrar is Network Solutions, which has been adding hurdles to the transfer process allegedly to prevent domains from being transferred against their owner's will, but probably in reality to make it harder for their customers to ever leave them. This has prompted some battles, and a message from ICANN counsel informing registrars that it is in fact the gaining registrar rather than the losing one which has the responsibility of verifying transfer consent, and the losing registrar can't unreasonably hold up the transfer through its own verification process.

Pay careful attention to all the details of the instructions, because if you do something wrong the transfer will probably be denied. Also, be sure you do the transfer before the domain expires; you're not allowed to transfer a domain that is not fully paid up, so if you wait too long you'll be stuck having to renew it with the old registrar before you'd be allowed to transfer it. However, most registrars will let you keep the remaining paid period from the old registrar in addition to the new period (usually 1 year) you're required to purchase from the new registrar when you transfer.