[e9999]

I'm thinking about buying the rights to a domain / web site name.
Seems like there is a ton of companies handling this.
Any advice as to which to use (or not) and what to do or not?

[monniepoo]

Godaddy I just got one today

[johnny4ever]

Originally Posted by e9999

I'm thinking about buying the rights to a domain / web site name.
Seems like there is a ton of companies handling this.
Any advice as to which to use (or not) and what to do or not?

I have three domains hosted by Aplus.net. They offer turn key website options and all kinds of bells and whistles.

When choosing the name consider the target audience and their willingness to type long url's.

J

[e9999]

prices seem to be all over the place. Is it one of those things where the end result is all the same provided the registrar is accredited with ICANN etc and price does not matter?

are there subtleties about the need for reregistering often or not?

[monniepoo]

I just bought CHATTY4X4.COM

[sundaypunch]

I have used Godaddy with excellent results. They had the best prices (when I bought mine anyway). You can have pretty much anyone host it. Godaddy is cheap for this or sometimes you can get a deal from a local internet provider as well.

[e9999]

thanks
any other thoughts about the process?

[johnny4ever]

Originally Posted by e9999

thanks
any other thoughts about the process?

Use a domain name search tool (usually provided by sites that offer registration and hosting services) and mess around with various experimental domain names. The tool will generate a list of names available if your example was already taken.

.com, .net, .org, etc.

Have fun.

[IronYuppy]

Originally Posted by e9999

I'm thinking about buying the rights to a domain / web site name.
Seems like there is a ton of companies handling this.
Any advice as to which to use (or not) and what to do or not?

Get disapprovingstewardess.com before she does. She'll do anything to get it back from you.

[e9999]

Originally Posted by IronYuppy

Get disapprovingstewardess.com before she does. She'll do anything to get it back from you.

ohmygod! supersmart! and I can think of a few naughtier ones than that too...

[e9999]

anybody uses an anonymizer service for the Whois database?
(otherwise all your private info is out there for the world to see...)

[e9999]

OK, it's done. Registered several names after quite a bit of research.


Main findings:


- Domain registration is dirt cheap (about $10-15/yr). But all the good names are about gone. Do at least your family name or an obvious business name right away so you can have it forever if you wish!!

- lots of registrars there. Godaddy is far the biggest and prices are as low as any other ones. Some much more expensive. I went with it thinking it'll be in business longer than most likely and may stay competitive. More services too.

- the anonymizing service is worth it in my opinion. First year free if you register 5 names or more with godaddy.

- there are services that will watch existing names to grab them for you when/if they become available.

- the "name" domain is great to have for info and genealogical purposes. Grab your family name if you still can.

- one can always add a hyphen if your favorite name is taken.

good luck!

[sundaypunch]

Originally Posted by e9999

- the "name" domain is great to have for info and genealogical purposes. Grab your family name if you still can.

I bought my last name .com in 1997. A guy in Sweden bought the .net version a few weeks later and emails me every year asking me to sell him the .com

I mentioned this in passing to a guy I work with a few years ago. He told me he didn't see why anyone would want to own a domain for their last name. I told him I was going to buy his and put up a porn site. I checked it a couple of months later and he had bought it.

[Mikesta]

I use namecheap.com for my domains.

And ADDR is my host. $160 a year, 99.9 uptime. and a ton of goodies... they set up my gallery and junk for me and help out via 24 hour chat.

9$ domains are cheap compared to what they were a long time ago $100.

I have around 20 left out of 200. Last one I let go went to Woody here.

[TJDIV]

missed this one.

are you talking about just plain buying a domain or buying one from someone who already owns it?

Godaddy is by far the best in my opinion for buying a regular domain name.
If for no other reason than their customer service is pretty decent when you need help with it.

If you're talking about buying a domain from someone who already owns it...good luck.

I'm working on one right now, he's finally come down to $8,000.

If I can get him to five I'll feel lucky. Unfortunately, I have to have it.


Best of luck to you with the new site. Let me know when it's SEO time.

[e9999]

just regular domain name buying, not a bidding thing.
No immediate plans to put up a web site but I wanted my name reserved in case my kids or myself want to open up a business, never know...
The cost is low now when available compared to the hassle and expense if you wait too long.

[TJDIV]

Originally Posted by e9999

just regular domain name buying, not a bidding thing.
No immediate plans to put up a web site but I wanted my name reserved in case my kids or myself want to open up a business, never know...
The cost is low now when available compared to the hassle and expense if you wait too long.

Not a bad idea! Cool that you thought of your kids on it.

I just registered a guys last name for his brand identity and company overhaul. Never in a million years thought the name would be available but it was.

I snagged tjdiv.com a while back too.

Did you use GoDaddy?

[e9999]

yup, used Godaddy. It's odd, when you think about it, that the mother of all registrars has a not-to-the-point name, don't you think...?

but I did some searches and they were clearly the biggest registrar out there. One belated discovery issue is that it appears that the private registration feature has to be paid for *each* domain name. Not good. Some other registrars had a fixed fee regardless of the number of domains.

Interestingly, some (paranoid?) folks claim that if you do searches on a name, you will trigger some speculators snatching it up before you do. Hard to believe that this could be easily done, but anyway, you may want to practice searches etc with a bogus name, you never know...


A question for you all: my "firstnamelastname.com" is already taken. But I was thinking that if I did "firstname-Lastname.com" with a hyphen that it would show up just as easily in the searches and looks better on the address and when typing. Thoughts?

[TJDIV]

Originally Posted by e9999

yup, used Godaddy. It's odd, when you think about it, that the mother of all registrars has a not-to-the-point name, don't you think...?

Interestingly, some (paranoid?) folks claim that if you do searches on a name, you will trigger some speculators snatching it up before you do. Hard to believe that this could be easily done, but anyway, you may want to practice searches etc with a bogus name, you never know...


A question for you all: my "firstnamelastname.com" is already taken. But I was thinking that if I did "firstname-Lastname.com" with a hyphen that it would show up just as easily in the searches and looks better on the address and when typing. Thoughts?

This is all essentially intertwined.

Godaddy has a great marketing department. Plain and simple. I still remember their fist superbowl "make me or break me" ad.

the "paranoid folks" issue is very real. I would only recommend searching for domain names once you are securely logged in to your godaddy account.

if you search on google, or have any sort of profile page, myspace, etc, there is a very good chance whatever handle or name you are using can get registered. I know it seems silly, but it happened to me on 3 different domain names. All 3 were very unique, but I did have them exposed online before I searched for the domains.

IMO, hyphenating a URL isn't the greatest thing to do. You can still get good search results if you do your web positioning properly (which, interestingly enough, godaddy has gotten much much better at providing as an add on)

I think for $500 a year you get their full on line web positioning package, and there are countless other SEO and SEM options available once it's time for "as close to the top of page one" as possible.

Don't get discouraged though, getting high returns in searches involves a lot of work and constant supervision. Unless you're trying to sell something like dried up semen encrusted ear rings, which "should" be rare.

Enjoy.