Category Archives: Intro To Domain Names

The Domain Name History Trivia

The First Domain Name To Be Registered

Symbolics.com was the first dot com domain name to be registered back in 1985, on the 15th of March. It has since been transferred to different owners.

Here are the first 15 domain names to be registered:

  1. Symbolics.com
  2. BBN.com
  3. Think.com
  4. MCC.com
  5. DEC.com
  6. Northrop.com
  7. Xerox.com
  8. SRI.com
  9. HP.com
  10. Bellcore.com
  11. IBM.com
  12. Sun.com
  13. Intel.com
  14. TI.com
  15. ATT.com

Top Sales Prices of Domain Names

As of today, the highest price at which a domain name was sold is at US$9,999,950. And this domain name is Fund.com.

The following domain names are the top 15 domain names sales:

  1. Fund.com
  2. Porn.com
  3. Business.com
  4. Diamond.com
  5. Beer.com
  6. Casino.com
  7. Toys.com
  8. AsSeenOnTV.com
  9. Korea.com
  10. Clothes.com
  11. YP.com
  12. Shop.com
  13. AltaVista.com
  14. Wine.com
  15. Software.com

Logen L.

Source:

https://www.iwhois.com/oldest/

https://www.iwhois.com/sales/

Where Can I Buy A Domain Name

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

How To Choose A Domain Name

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

Why Get A Domain Name?

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.

What Are Domain Names?

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