Here is a fact – almost all “good” domain names are booked or are for sale at a very high price. People who want to start a business online are finding it very difficult to get a domain of their choice. Therefore what most people do is compromise with adding really ugly looking numbers or characters in front or behind their desired domain name. For example – 123keyword.com, keywordabc.com, keyword-someotherkeyword.com. You get the idea.

So how do you get a great domain name?

If a domain name you are searching is already bought by someone else, then you can backorder that domain and wait to see if the owner eventually leaves that domain and the domain expires.* Your backorder domain registrar will then try to “catch” that domain and offer it to you. Interestingly backordering a domain comes for free. But there may be a 3 day auction if two or more people are interested in the expired domain. The highest bidder gets the domain.

*A domain expires when the owner is not willing to renew the domain (pay the domain registration fee on or before the domain expiry date). Of course the owner has up to 3 months to re-register the domain. During this time the domain search will show “pending delete”. If she/he doesn’t pay even in the pending delete period – the domain is freed and goes back to ICANN and anyone can register the domain. However if there is a backorder, then an auction takes place.

There are many companies that offer backorder of expired domains. Some of them are Snapnames.com, Namejet.com and Pool.com.

If you have backordered, then be ready for an auction as good domains are being bought by domain name selling business people. Unfortunately these people sit on a lot of cash, and its really hard to beat them. They get the domain and sell it (not backorder) at 3x to even 10x the price.

However if you are the only person who has backordered, then you can get the domain for as little as $59.

If the domain is profitable, chances are the owner will keep renewing the domain every year. In that case what do you do? Some domain registrars like GoDaddy.com try to “negotiate” with the current owner on your behalf and try to buy the domain for you. However please remember that this is a very complicated process as a third party will try to contact the current owner and talk on your behalf. This can be costly too as you have to pay the current owner as well as commission to the broker.

This option is good only if you have a lot of cash and are willing to get the domain “at any cost”. Of course this is much faster way of getting a domain you want if it’s already bought and the owner is willing to sell. Most of the news you read regarding someone buying (or selling) a domain is because of this. And these run in the millions, even billions of dollars for really good domains and business. For example Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn. But if it’s a small business, you can get the domain in some thousands of dollars.

All these options are good if you have a lot of money and can buy a domain from someone else or can bid to get that excellent domain. Unfortunately if your budget is only $10 for a domain, you have no other choice but to invent a good domain.

One of the best ways is let your target keyword be there and combine this will a general word that goes well with the domain.

For example see my domain – WebMarketingArt.com. Web Marketing is my keyword (I can’t call it a target keyword as it’s extremely difficult to get good rank for Web Marketing – but it serves my purpose.) Combined with “Art” it makes sense and is memorable too.

So what you need to do is combine the main keyword and a general word to get an attractive domain.

Hope this article helps you in getting a good domain name. If you happen to buy a domain with the help of this article do come back and post in the comment. Looking forward!

Do you conduct a proper research before you buy a domain name from a domain registrar?

If not, you should.

Here is why:

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) on 28 October 2008 sent a letter to EstDomains Inc saying it terminated its registrar accreditation agreement.

The action is swift too, it says the termination will be effective within 15 calendar days i.e.… on 12 November 2008.

The official letter notifying EstDomains:

http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-tsastsin-28oct08-en.pdf

NOTE: ICANN is a non-profit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA.

(The latest news is that the notice of termination is under review and is stayed.)

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-29oct08-en.htm

According to ICANN, EstDomains has approximately 281,000 domains under its management. I hope you understand – the owners of these domains must be really worried.

Of course one can transfer a domain to another registrar, but the process is not very easy especially for dynamic database driven sites (example blogs, ecommerce sites etc).

Think of the unnecessary hassle they must have gone through.

So before buying a domain look for the following in the domain registrar’s website:

1. ICANN Accreditation: See that they have ICANN Accreditation. It will be in the form of a logo, link or text. If not they CANNOT register a domain for you. If they are still doing it, they are basically domain resellers and purchase domain on behalf of a registrar. Unfortunately since these companies get a commission, you will have to pay a higher amount for the same product. My advice is to stick with the original registrar and not buy a domain from a reseller.

2. 24/7 Customer Support: Make sure that your domain registrar has a 24/7 customer support phone line, a contact us page and other forms of contacting them. It’s important because business online is 24 hours a day and if need be you should be able to contact them in the middle of night.

One easy way to know about the quality of their customer support is to write them a mail and see how long they take to respond back.

3. SSL Certificate: They must be able to provide SSL Certificates. Also known as secure sockets layer (SSL) – they are required for e-commerce sites. If in future you feel the need to add credit card processing application in your website, the SSL certificate will be an absolute essential.

The SSL protocol is the Web standard for encrypting communications between users and SSL sites. Data sent via an SSL connection is protected by encryption. This is a method that prevents tampering with any transmitted data. SSL provides businesses and consumers with the confidence that private data sent to a Web site, such as credit card numbers, are kept confidential.

SSL websites have https rather than http and their browser displays a little gold padlock at the bottom.

Again, you may not need SSL while booking a domain, but you may always need it in the future.

4. Privacy Protection: While purchasing a domain you need to provide your name, address and phone number. Please note that you are required to provide your real name, address and contact number while registering. This is required by law. If in future it is found that you provided false information, legal action may be taken against you.

Anyone who wants to know the owner of a domain can do a whois search and know about their name, phone and address. However, if you don’t want your name to be displayed, you can always buy a privacy protection. This way your contact details will not be displayed in whois search and you will still hold the domain.

5. Domain Transfer: A domain registrar should allow easy domain transfer. Say after a year of service you are not comfortable with your registrar, you should be able to transfer your domain to another registrar without any hassles.

6. Domain Parking: It’s important from branding point of view. Let’s suppose you own seo.net. You work hard and make it a huge brand. Someone buys seo.com. What happens? People who will not remember .net may type in .com and land straight in your competitor’s website. Unfortunately this is still happening. To prevent this domain parking is done.

You can buy seo.com and point it to seo.net or vice versa. Domain parking is a great tool, it helps traffic stealing.

Try these:

http://www.Google.net/ – Goes to http://www.google.com/

http://www.Yahoo.net/ – Page not found, but you are still in Yahoo!

http://www.Live.net/ – Goes to http://www.live.com/

7. Good Reputation: Finally the domain registrar should have a good reputation in the online community. To know their reputation you can search forums, social networking sites, do a search in search engines with their names + the strings “good or bad”. For example if you want to search for abc.com domain registrar, you can search for “abc.com good or bad?” I am sure you will get some interesting results. Don’t bother if a few people are not satisfied, but if a lot of people are not happy from their service, then its better to avoid such registrars.

You can also search Google News with their names to know the latest about them.

Have I missed something? Are you a EstDomains customer? If yes what are you doing with your domains?

Recommended Reading:
 
1. InterNIC – FAQs on the Domain Names, Registrars, and Registration
2. Domain Name Registration FAQ