DomainingOnline.com

There are two means of ‘transferring’ a domain name; first is between domain name registrars and the second, is between direct holders of the domain name.  This article will discuss the transfer between registrars.

One scenario of choosing the registrar to register your domain name may be due to price and there may be other services that are not featured from that domain registrar that will will then require a transfer.

For those that have multiple domains, perhaps you would like to simply consolidate all with one registrar, to assist in managing the domains.  Since most registrars offer a management interface or account manager to make changes, this could be a significant cost savings as a volume customer will receive certain benefits, such as reduced costs, etc.  In all, the choice of which registrar you use is 100% up to you.

Steps in Transferring Domain Names to a New Registrar

The following is a rough guide for you in transferring a domain from one registrar to another.

1. Start by verifying your domain status, updating records such as the information found on any whois search site (http://www.whois.net/).  Pay particular attention to the email address on the domain account.

2. You will need a line of code from your current registrar called the authentication code

3. Make certain your domain is not ‘locked’

4. Next, you will want to contact the registrar you want to transfer your domain to, provide your authentication code and request the services desired

5. Upon successful connection, your current registrar will contact you to confirm that you initiated the transfer request. Pending your current registrar and where you are transferring it to, there may be a few additional steps you have to take in order to make the transfer confirmation.  This will allow your current registrar to release the domain to the your newly chosen registrar. Note that this process may not, and probably will not, be immediate; domain transfers can take up to two full weeks, so be sure to initiate a transfer with plenty of time before the expiration date on a domain name registration, otherwise you may find your domain name in limbo.

6. Upon notice from your new registrar that the transfer is complete, check the administrative data to make certain the domain server, DNS, and all other information is correct.

Transferring a domain name may have some costs involved.  These costs may vary depending on the top-level domain (TLD) of the domain name and other factors.

The 60-Day Rule

ICANN Transfer Restriction: If any domain name was acquired or renewed within the past 60 days, it is not available for transfer until the 61st day per ICANN transfer restrictions. If this is the case, payment in full will still be due as agreed but we will change the "WHOIS" information from our ownership, contact and nameserver information to your information after payment in full. You will then have ownership and nameserver control so you can host a web site, park the domain name or forward the domain to an existing web site right away. You can then complete the transfer away yourself after the 60 days have elapsed. We will provide you with the date of the 61st day from acquisition or renewal.

Here are a few specific registrar links discussing this process:

GoDaddy: http://help.godaddy.com/article/3560 – Transferring Domains to Another Registrar

eNom: http://www.enom.com/terms/agreement.asp – in the seventh paragraph labeled TRANSFERS

NameCheap: http://namecheap.simplekb.com/kb.show?show=article&articleid=263&categoryid=8 – FAQ

Maybe it has taken you a lot of time, thought, and effort, but once you have finally found the best domain name for your website and find that it is available, you may think you have it made. Perhaps you have come up with a name that looks very promising commercially, so you grab it because the domain name company told you it was available.

But then after a few weeks or months go by, you receive a letter from an attorney saying that the domain name has violated somebody’s trademark. this means you could be in for a legal battle that could cause all manner of difficulty, like losing your domain name or worse. However, there is a procedure called domain name arbitration that can help you get out of the situation while avoiding a lawsuit.

Domain name arbitration is an out-of-court process where the complainant and the person holding the domain name to work out some reasonable solution about who actually gets rights to the domain name in question. The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) does the arbitration itself. This method of arbitration is set forth by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers organization (ICANN). It is used mostly for domain name conflicts because it costs much less than a traditional lawsuit. (more…)

Choosing and registering an internet domain name can be nerve-wracking. Many times, the domain name you want to register has already been taken, so you have to think of another one. It’s entirely possible that that domain name will be taken too. Under pressure, it’s difficult to think of something unique and memorable. One thing you might try is using a domain name generator. A domain name generator is just what it says: a creator of names not likely to have already been used. There are basically three different techniques by which these word: using suggestions, giving random names, and giving names based on input.

Domain name generators that base names on human creativity generally charge a fee. Some of the fee goes to the person responsible for coming up with the domain name – a sort of “finders fee.” After the generator company receives your fee, you provide them with information related to your website and they come up with a name for it. (more…)

A short domain name that is memorable and easy to spell is the kind of name you need to help visitors get to your website. If the domain name has keywords that are likely to rank high in search engines, that’s a sign of a good domain name. So then, what do you do as a webmaster if you are promoting an affiliate program or a website that you created with a free web hosting service like Geocities? The best way to do this is by using a domain name redirect service.

In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, a domain name redirect service is one where a long, hard to spell, hard to remember URL is masked with a more memorable domain name. That way the visitor would see the original URL in the browser without having to type in a cumbersome domain name. (more…)

Sites that don’t have domain names are specified by their IP address. A site’s IP address is an identification number that’s used by computer (or people) to determine where a particular server or website is located. But for humans, an IP address, which is a string of numbers separated by periods, can be hard to remember. That’s why domain names were invented. It’s much easier to remember several domain names than it is to remember an IP address. If you do include numbers in your domain name, they’ll probably make sense, as in domainnames101.net.

There are several parts to the format of a domain name. The first part of it is the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. This part of the domain name tells the browser what the domain name is going to actually go to. Normally it will be http, which tells the browser to expect to locate a hypertext document, or as it’s more commonly known, a webpage. If the URL is not http, it might be ftp, which stands for file transfer protocol. If your site will have visitors downloading large files or large numbers of files from your site, you may want to use an ftp address. (more…)

Choosing the right domain name is like choosing the title to your book. It needs to be original, clever, and it needs to tell what the website is all about. Otherwise, you’ll miss out on a lot of visitors. But be aware that overly eclectic domain names may not be effective, either. The reason is that if a domain name is catchy, but has few or no keywords in it, the “bots” sent out by search engines can’t index it in their listings. Therefore, your domain name has to be both creative and optimized for search engines. This article will discuss how you can satisfy those two requirements.

Step one is to find a popular keyword that search engines like that you can incorporate into your domain name. (more…)

Typical domain names are made up of a word or a phrase describing a website, followed by a period, then an extension. The most popular extension is .com, though there are lots of others like .net, .org, .edu, or a country-based name like .jp or .uk. This being the case, how can there be domain names like blo.gs or del.icio.us? It turns out that a domain name doesn’t have to be in a traditional format. When it’s created like blo.gs or del.icio.us it is known as a “domain name hack.” A domain name hack spells out the semblance of a word using a combination of periods and less popular state- or country-based extensions.

But don’t be fooled. Domain name hacks aren’t tricks created by webmasters who live in their parents’ basement and play video games all the time. Yahoo has the rights to del.icio.us and blo.gs. There are plenty of websites that are known by hacked domain names. Some examples include whocalled.us, where visitors can list phone numbers of telemarketers, and who.is, that lets a webmaster know the specific informatin about a domain name and website. Other countries have their own hacked domain names in their languages. For example, Germany has Schokola.de (which is German for “chocolate”). (more…)

Once you register your own domain name, you may unfortunately have to worry about names that are close to the one (or ones) you registered. That’s because people called “cybersquatters” buy up domain names similar to your company’s trademark and then use them dishonestly. When this happens, the cybersquatter, once he or she builds up some sales or AdSense money from the domain name will try to sell it to you, and they’ll try to sell it to you at a premium. Some cybersquatters will attempt to charge thousands of dollars for the domain name – a pretty brazen practice since you would be the one with the rights to the name and trademark in the first place.

How can you protect your company from cybersquatters? The first thing you need to find out is whether or not domain names similar to your trademark are being registered and misused. You can do this by signing up for Google Alerts. This free service allows individuals or businesses to keep track of websites, comments, or news items that are made about a particular web domain or brand. (more…)

You may not know it, but domain names aren’t actually necessary to get to a website. You can also access websites by their corresponding IP address. An IP address is a 32-bit identification number that corresponds to the machine that the website is actually on. For people, however, an IP address in a series of 4 octets isn’t easy to remember at all. That’s why domain names were invented. Remembering a domain name is far easier for accessing a website, so much so that most people probably don’t know there’s any other way of finding them.

A special computer that stores data is called a domain name server. You may have seen its abbreviation: DNS. The DNS is necessary for domain names to work properly. (more…)

For people to get to your website, they first have to enter your website’s domain name. The domain name should be a phrase denoting the name of the site, or giving an overview of what it’s about. Though you can get a domain name through a web hosting company, the domain names acquired this way are called “third level domain names.” Third level names include the name of the hosting site in them.

In other words, instead of having www.yourwebsite.com, you will have a domain name formatted like yourwebsite.hostwebsite.com. This gives you a longer, less memorable domain name. You will appear much more professional if you simply buy your own domain name. It really doesn’t cost that much anymore to do this. (more…)