Author Archives: Logen

Where Can I Buy A Domain Name

May 23, 2010 12:09 am , Leave a Comment ,

How Do I Register A Domain Name?

All domain names are registered through registrars (e.g. GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot, etc.). They are created during the registration process for a fee of around $10 per year. And can be renewed yearly for the same amount.

Even though you can register new domain names, you can buy existing domain names from domain resellers/investors.

These are the two basic means of acquirng domain names:

  • Directly from your good old domain registrar
  • From domain traders and investors

Best Place To Register Domain Name

Domain Registrars

There are many domain name registrars on the internet. These are the few whom I have dealt with: GoDaddy, Namecheap, Moniker, Dynadot and Name.

www.godaddy.com

The one registrar that I highly recommend would be GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy has one of the most intuitive domain management system and have discount deals that make the domain name less than $10 a year. Their customer service is excellent and has resolved issues that were due to my carelessness.

In any case, the advantage of acquiring a domain name with a registrar is being only charged the standard annual fee (e.g. GoDaddy’s fee for .com before discount is $10.69). This is lower than that of a domain trader’s price.

Domain Name Traders

A domain trader would sell a domain name at a mark up of the standard fee.

They are certainly justified to do so. A domain trader’s inventory of domain names are well selected for natural traffic and brandability. They are often quality domains.

What do I mean by quality domains? How can the quality of a domain name be better if it has existed for a few years and is now being resold?

Domain names sold by domain traders are likely to have relevant traffic. The domain name may even have been used for a website before. This would mean very valuable traffic for you. Search engines also tend to rank older domain names better. So, you get a quality domain name, which your visitors will remember. Definitely worth the money.

It seems to me that the best place to get affordable (if not downright cheap) domain names from traders is from Ebay. Try the Logish Empire Domain Search Store!

However, be sure to check the seller’s feedback and reputation when dealing on Ebay.

Warnings on Domain Name Safety

Domain name registrars are involved no matter how you acquire your domain name. Be sure to dig up news on your registrar. I was reminded by a commenter, Thor, about registrars with unethical practices.

This includes registrars that hijack their customer’s domain name and registrars that impose fines on customers due to supposed ‘abuse’ of policy.

Remember, no registrar is perfect and are bound to have dirt on them. But too much dirt may prove to be a problem.

Just stay away from NetworkSolution. Do not even search for domain names on their site. There are accounts of them registering searched domains, to prevent the person searching from registering the domain elsewhere.

If in doubt, stick with the domain name registrars I have dealt with and recommended.

Also, when dealing with domain traders, maintain reasonable skepticism over their reputation unless they have proven themselves otherwise. Check their trader’s reputation, Ebay reputation, Paypal reputation or anything that verifies that they are true to their word when they transact.

I have created the Logish Empire Domain Name Search Store, which extracts quality domain names from a select group of Ebay domain name traders. I have personally reviewed each traders reputation so that you need not do so.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Intro To Domain Names , Tagged: , , , ,

Register Dot Com Domains Before The Price Rise

May 22, 2010 10:53 am , Leave a Comment ,

VeriSign (the authoritative registry of domain names such as .com, .net, .tv, and others) will increase .com and .net domain names prices with effect from July 1st. The price increase affects the wholesale prices to domain name registrars by up to $0.50. Apparently, the price rise will extend to the end consumers.

The increase in fees will be used to upgrade Verisign’s infrastructure to cope with the huge rise in domain names registration (Increase in 15 million domain names from the close of 2008 to 2009).

Therefore, if you plan to register or renew .com/.net domain names, take advantage of the lower prices from now up till July 1st of 2010.

Logen L.

Sources: Verisign Press Release


Posted in: News

How To Choose A Domain Name

May 21, 2010 3:14 am , 3 Comments ,

Choosing A Domain Name

Choosing a quality domain name depends on the purpose and nature of your website. Is your site for a professional business, personal blog or hobbyist community?

Whichever it is, the main objective for your domain is to allow visitors easy access to your website. Therefore, the general rules in choosing a domain name are as follows: (1) Memorable and unique and (2) Convenient to type.

Memorable Domain Name

A memorable domain is a reflection of your website branding. Visitors will remember your website through a unique brand. This keeps the visitors coming.

Choose any top level domain name that reflects your site. For example, a personal blog might benefit with a .me domain name. Short and unique are the key guidelines here!

[wordbay]short domain name[/wordbay]

Convenient-to-type Domain Name

A convenient-to-type domain refers to the length of your domain name and the proximity of the keys on the keyboard when your visitor types your domain name. Keep the domain name below 13 letters or characters. And avoid awkward names like 1-halqf-207d.com. Such a domain name is forgettable, inconvenient to type (try it to see what I mean) and is boring.

Business Domain Names

If you own a business that provides professional services, I would recommend that you stick to .com domain names. This is mainly because the dot com is still considered professional above other TLDs.

However, if you own a business in the creative, retail or entertainment industry, feel free to get domain names ending with: .me, .tv and others. Imagine if you have a fashion website. Fashion.me would sound more intimate to your visitors rather than Fashion.com.

Search For Multiple Domain Names

As a business, you should consider registering multiple domain names (e.g. myname.com, myname.info, myname.net) and link them to the same website. This protects your branding of your business site since no one else can use similar domain names with different suffixes.

Furthermore, as a traffic tactic, you might want to register domain names with commercially valuable relevant keywords. Comercially-valuable keywords are keywords that can target a specifc group of visitors (e.g. Gaming.com targets gamers).

Let’s say you own iDeadly.com, a strategy gaming website. To bank on organic search traffic from Google and Yahoo, you can also register strategygames.com (relevant keywords) and point it to the same website.

Registering multiple domain names is not a must. But it can protect your interests and help you by gaining more traffic.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Intro To Domain Names , Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Why Get A Domain Name?

May 18, 2010 2:45 am , 10 Comments ,

8 Reasons To Own A Domain Name

Logish Empire has compiled  8 reasons why you should own a domain name.

1. Expressing Your Thoughts and Interests

You can create your own space on the internet to express your thoughts and opinion. Build a website on your interests, such as martial arts, knitting or shopping. You may even earn some money from advertisements on your site.

2. Marketing Yourself

Human resource personnel and job agents are increasingly reaching out online to find potential employees (or freelancers). With a domain name, you have a professional web address to feature your resume, testimonials and portfolio of freelance samples.

This would no doubt increase your chances of reaching out to prospective employers.

3. Have A Personalised Email Address

Why have an email account at yahoo.com or gmail.com when you can have an email like name@yourdomainname.com?

4. Sell Stuff Online

Build an online store to sell your the latest fashion, gadgets or homemade art. You can even point yourdomain.com to your ebay store!

Your customers will be able to find you more easily.

5. Credibility

Investing in a domain name for your website tells your visitors that you are committed to your site. It makes your content all the more credible.

6. Traffic

Domain names are more likely to be clicked on by search engine visitors for 2 reasons.

One, websites with keyword domain names are ranked better on search engines. Two, people tend to view shorter domain names with fewer slashes, unlike http://jsnkfjds.com/dfwe/efw/efwef/w/trhrt/hello.html, to be more credible.

[wordbay]business domain name[/wordbay]

7. Community

Use your domain name as a place for people to interact. You can build a discussion board or forum for martial artists, soccer fanatics and so on.

8. Gifts

Domain names are great gifts for family and friends. Give a domain name to your sister who has a blog or your parents who are running a home business.

Logen L.

Posted in: Intro To Domain Names , Tagged: , ,

What Are Domain Names?

May 15, 2010 2:32 am , 7 Comments ,

What Is A Domain Name

To simplify things, a domain name is an address to a website. It works by identifying the IP address of the computer where your website files are stored.

Therefore, a domain name (aka domain) is just an address; not the website itself. In a simple analogy, a domain name is like a name of a person, whereas the website is the person himself.

The screenshot below, shows the internet browser with LogishEmpire’s website. The address bar shows the domain name, logishempire.com. The actual website is stored on a computer in the internet; this storage facility on the internet would be called webhosting.

Key point: The domain name simply points to those files that make up the website.

Purpose of a Domain Name

Since a domain name is a mere web address, it has to point towards the website files located on your webhost’s computer(server). This computer where your files are hosted have IP addresses that looks something like this: 216.239.51.99.

Can you imagine typing 216.239.51.99 just to visit Google (and every other website)? Of course not! It would be damn difficult to remember a series of numbers each to visit Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Logish Empire and so on. Hence the purpose of domain names.

Key point: The domain names are used to identify websites, without the hassle of remembering IP addresses.

What Are The Different Domain Names

There are many domain name suffixes (a.k.a. Top Level Domains). They include: .com, .net, .org, .info, .mobi and more. Some Country Top Level Domains include: .us, .sg, .co.uk, .in and .be.

The most common domains are .com’s followed by .net and .org. This is mainly due to the fact that these top level domains have existed the longest. People are also accustomed to typing domainname.com rather than domainname.be.

However, fairly recently, interesting domains like .info, .me and .tv have become popular.

In the next few articles, I’ll guide you on how to choose a domain name.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Intro To Domain Names , Tagged: , , , , , ,

Increasing Your Domain Name’s Value – Part 2 of RDNIU

July 30, 2008 6:03 am , Leave a Comment ,

The entry today serves to guide you on making your domain name more valuable. Thereby, increasing the chance that it will be sold. This is part 2 of Reduce Domain Name Investment Uncertainties.

Our objective today is to understand:

  • What makes up the value of a domain name? (there are 2 components)
  • What are the factors affecting each part of a domain name’s value?

What makes up the value of a domain name?

When we talk about value, there are 2 separate components that makes up a domain name’s value. They are the domain name’s:

  • Natural Value
  • Development Value

Natural value refers to the value that the domain name gives itself. For example, the domain name, ChocolateCoffee.com, was recently sold for US$2500. Its keywords and market demand solely determined its value. In plainer terms, it means that without further development, the domain name’s natural value was $2500.

Development value, however, refers to the value of a domain name after some effort was put in to develop it. In other words, you try to affect the domain name’s value by gaining more relevant traffic. And traffic represents money-earning opportunities to serious buyers.

The chart above shows you how the development value and natural value add up. Basically, Natural Value is the base value that cannot be easily affected. While, Development Value is the added-value on top of a domain name’s natural value. Natural Value + Development Value = Total Value of Domain Name .

So, the question is how can you influence both the natural value and development value of your domain name? Read on.

The Factors of Natural Value

We have covered this briefly on an entry about how to choose a domain name. Nonetheless, let’s recap. Here are the determinants that affect the natural value of a domain name.

  • Length of domain name -should ideally be below 20 characters
  • Easy to remember
  • Keywords or Dictionary Words – should have a ready market or niche (commercial value)
  • Easy to pronounce
  • Brandability
  • Natural Traffic – traffic gained from the keywords alone

How do we appreciate a domain name’s value through  above determinants?

By using the determinants to choose the right domain name in the first place! Because after registering a domain name, next to nothing can be done to appreciate its natural value. (I will dedicate a/some post(s) on some techniques to find a good domain name.)

The Factors of Development Value

picture by clix of sxc.hu

These are the determinants of development value.

  • Quality Content -do you have content that attracts return-visitors
  • Relevant Traffic -is your traffic related to the domain name’s keywords
  • Monetisation Potential -can your developed domain name be readily monetised

Whatever I’m trying to say should be clear now. A domain name with a website will naturally be valued more. Because it fulfills the three factors above. With a website of quality content, you gain relevant traffic and with some form of marketing, even more traffic will be gained. And traffic means money!

Through the process there is a high possibility that your site will gain pagerank from google. And many buyers take pagerank as an indicator of your site quality.

The question is, are you willing to spend time to develop a site for your domain name? If not, what can you do. Watch this space.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Investment How To , Tagged: , , , ,

Behind the Scenes at Logish Empire Domain Investment Guide

July 28, 2008 6:16 am , Leave a Comment ,

I have been doing some maintenance behind the scenes of Logish Empire. This includes creating a logo, changing the site layout and installing better plugins for this blog. I wanted a semi-professional look for Logish Empire and have the backend work towards the aims of this blog as efficiently as possible.

Anyway, due to my upcoming exams, I’m placing this blog on hiatus. The hiatus will be effective on Friday midnight for 3 to 4 weeks. However, do check back. I will still post something because I definitely will get tired of studying and revising for my Accountancy modules.

Your anticipated part 2 of Reduce Domain Name Investment Uncertainties will be posted this week. This entry will give an overview of how to appreciate your domain name’s value. I have proofread and edited the entry several times during the past few days to ensure quality.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Site News , Tagged: ,

Reduce Domain Name Investment Uncertainties – Part 1

July 20, 2008 5:12 am , 4 Comments ,

What makes an investment, an investment? An investment is an asset that you spend money/time on, which eventually earns you more money. This asset we are talking about is your domain name. And the goal is to earn a return from your domain name, without burning much of your time, resources and money.

In short, we want to reduce uncertainties like:

  • Will I be able to sell my domain name eventually
  • Do I have enough cash to sustain my domain name investments in the short term and long term

The overview of this series will reveal how to cut losses and increase your earnings when investing in domain names.

Let’s picture this. Logen just bought 10 domain names that he intends to resell. However, there is a risk that he will not be able to sell it at a profit. How does he reduce his uncertainty of not being able to cover the $10 cost price of each domain name.

To reduce this uncertainty, two things can be done. First, increase the demand of your domain names by appreciating their value. Second, ensure that you have a constant inflow of cash to support at least part of your cash outflow.

Appreciating The Value of Your Domain Names

The first point of appreciating the value of one’s domain name is straightforward. Part 2 of this series will deal with how to appreciate domain name value.

Receiving Cash Inflows to Support Cash Outflows

However, for the second point, it warrants a bit of explanation. What does having an inflow of cash to support outflow of cash mean?

For instance, Logen’s investment on 10 domain names will cost $100 per year for renewal. If he intends to hold it for several years, you can only imagine the costs incurred for every year. If he has a steady stream of cash inflow of $50, his cost of investment will be reduced to $50 per year.

Domain Name Renewal Cost – Inflow of Cash = Net Outflow

$100 – $50 = $50 of outflow per year

That’s all for the overview. The second part of the series will teach you how to appreciate the value of your domain name. And the third part will teach you more about cash inflow.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Investment How To , Tagged: , , , ,

What’s New On Logish Empire

July 19, 2008 2:16 am , Leave a Comment ,

What is new on Logish Empire?

Logish Empire has a new store!

Other than domain names, the store seeks to sell affordable domain tools, ebooks and articles for my reader’s investment needs. Have faith that I’ll evaluate every product to ensure its quality. I too have had enough of monkeys out there selling substandard products.

What has Logen been doing?

Other than worrying about the exams?

I’ve been planning and will be writing blog articles that will be beneficial to fellow domainers. Remember the last post where I complained about my lack of organisation and focus? I’ll be dealing with that problem, which has implications on earnings and stress-levels. 

Where domain name income comes into play, I’ll try to apply what I’ve learnt in Financial Management to manage the cash and investment plan for domain names.

Logen, are you sure that’s all? What about your own domain investments?

Hmm… I’ve been developing some of my domain names with content.

However, I have a huge problem with procrastination. To add on, I’m not really supposed to do these things at this period because my exams are round the corner.

Anyway, I’m liquidating certain domain names to fund renewals of other domains and web hosting account.

That’s all people.

Logen Lanka

Posted in: Site News , Tagged: , , , , , ,

Never Bite Off More Domain Names Than You Can Chew

July 10, 2008 11:52 pm , 2 Comments ,

I’ve been busy with school and domain investments lately and will be for the next month. My exams are nearing.

Yet, I refuse to let go of the work to be done on my domain names. Part of the reason is my lack of funds to sustain my web hosting account and some domain names. These things require renewal in a few months time.

Therefore, I’ve been trying to liquidate certain domain names and monetise the others, in order to maintain my cashflow. Now, learn from my mistakes…

When you invest in domain names, especially when starting out:

  • Buy only a few domains (less than 5)
  • Decide on how and when you want to sell your domains
  • And prepare necessary funds to sustain your expenses

In short, have a written plan and never take on more than you can chew. It will help you to move forward in times of stress due to work or school. In those times, you are bound to forget your full investment plan. Thus, you have to be organised!

Take me for an example. I bought 30 domain names, of which I intended to develop half of them. I hadn’t factored in school projects, exams and social uncertainties in time management. Right now, I’m having difficulty in focusing and completing the crucial domain investments.

To make matters worse, my information and plans weren’t expressed on paper. You can imagine trying to remember detailed plans for over 10 domain names.

Following this entry, I will try to work out some solutions on being organised with your/my domain names. And how to get an influx of cash to sustain your/my expenses in investment. I’m also planning to create a format for you and me to use to plan cash inflows and outflows.

I’d be happy to hear some tips from some of you on this matter.

Logen L.

Posted in: Domain Name Basics , Tagged: ,