| DOMAIN NAMES | |
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This
page last updated 2008 March 18 (added Vlado's contribution)
.
 |
this unit is
in the text
"Current Issues in Marketing in the Information Age, 2nd. Edition" on page 233 - 246 |
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This web page has audio clips - just click on the icon (like the one to the left) and you can hear Prof. Richardson's voice adding additional information to topics on the page. |  |
turn on your speakers to hear audio clips |
| see also witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamesregister.htm | This is about how to buy a domain with explanations about Domain Registrars |
| see also witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamesmktg.htm | This is about the marketing issues related to using Domain Names and selecting which name to use |
| see also witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamesscams.htm | This is about scams, hoaxes and problems related to Domain Name Hijacking and Domain Dispute Resolution |
| see also witiger.com/ecommerce/hackingexample.htm | This is a series of screen captures explaining how Domain Names got hacked, and why it happened |
| see also witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamephishing.htm | This is specifically about the Domain Name scam called "phishing" |
| see also witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamedisputes.htm | Concerning domain name disputes
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.
| . | This page
used in the following courses taught by Prof. Richardson
.
o
considerations to buying a Domain -
name search
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 |
During
the 4th week of December 2007, Richardson's comments to CP about Domain
Names were carried at length in an article on the CBC and CTV websites.
Richardson was quoted as saying
www.cbc.ca/cp/technology/071226/z122604A.html www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071226/domains_names_071226/20071226 |
| "The .ca tag, said Richardson, has become the next logical step for net-savvy users already connected and interconnected on such social sites as Facebook and MySpace. "It's the whole empowerment thing of the Internet,'' he said. "As people realize that the ability to put content on their little Geocities web page and MySpace and Facebook is limited by the built-in software that those circumstances allow, they say, `I don't want to be limited by only putting up five pictures in a square.' "And they realize that they can just buy their own domain and put up their own domain however they feel like it.'' |
 |
As
a result of being quoted in the Dec 26th 2007 CP story on Domain Names,
Richardson's quotes ran in a number of newspapers (online and printed)
throughout North America, including national sites like Yahoo.ca,
http://news.yahoo.ca/s/capress/071226/technology/technology_cyberfile_personal_domain_1 the Washington Post, and local papers such as the Edmonton Sun, Belleville Intelligencer, Lethbridge Herald, the Thunder Bay Chronicle, Halifax Daily News |
| Domain
Registration - Selecting a Name  |
"When deciding on a name
for your business, think in the long term"
Chpt 6, page 107 Creating Stores on the Web by Sawyer, Greely, Cataudella o make your name easy to remember and short o choose words appropriate to the circumstances o don't use cute abbreviations for serious situations o use your imagination o try to incorporate nouns and short phrases that match your existing promotional material |
| How to Choose a Good Domain Name? |
Everything You Wanted
to Know About Domain Names
|
To help your website and business flourish, pick a domain name that:
1. Is easy for Web users
to remember and find
2. Suggests the nature of
your product or service
3. Serves as a strong trademark
so competitors won't be able to use a business name or domain name
similar to it.
4. Is free of legal conflicts
with trademarks belonging to other businesses.
What makes a good domain
name?
from www.stir.ca/webtips/website_domain_names.html
Good extension - If a person is surfing around looking for a site, and they know its name, most people will try .com. So, for the web site owner who wants their site to be found, the rule is: if at all possible, get a .com name.
Short - "Less than 7 characters, ideally. A simple name will roll off the tongue more easily in conversation, look more professional, and have less chance of being mis-typed. "
Easy to spell - "Make sure it passes the phone test: if you were to say the domain name of your website to a friend over the phone, would your friend be able to spell it correctly the first time without your having to spell it for them? If not, you’ve failed the phone test and should likely try a different domain name. Also, be careful about double letters. Take CyberRodeo, for example. Their domain uses a double R, as you might expect, but there is an uncertainty there. The two R’s together look a bit strange if written without capitalization, and a good name will not force the user to assume anything about the name. If you must have a double letter, the best solution is to buy both versions of the domain. Avoid using dashes in your domain name. "
Descriptive - "A good site or business name will describe exactly what the site is about. In most cases it's important for a person to be able to get some sort of sense what the website is about just by reading the domain name. Of course that logic doesn’t work for sites like ebay, amazon, ivillage, etc, but then again you likely don’t have a multi-million dollar budget to help you brand your name and teach people what it means."
Keywords – "Include
descriptive keywords that describe your business, product or mission in
your domain name. This will play a very small part, in some cases, in increasing
your search engine ranking for search phrases that include the keywords
used in your domain name. "
.
Do's and Don'ts when
registering a domain name for your business
 |
Wenbin L. in BCS 555 in Sept 2004, found a great site www.associate-design.com about Do's and Don'ts when registering a domain name for your business. The site that Wenbin found is run by Richard Fincher. |
 |
Richard Fincher www.richardfincher.comis the original author of this list as posted on www.room101.co.uk/ |
| How
to Choose
a Good Domain Name for your business?
|
Do's and
Don'ts when registering a domain name for your business
from Robert Fincher 1. "Make sure that your provider is a reputable company that has been trading for some years". There have been may takeovers and bankruptcies in this business and you do not want to lose your domain because the registrar no longer exists. 2. "Think carefully before going with a company offering a "loss leader" service." If the price is too low, they may not be a legitimate company. 3. "Ensure that once you have registered your domain name, you are allowed to transfer it to another provider, and that there are no expensive "release fees" to do this. " Fincher explains "Later, when you have your site built, you may very well need to change provider. Some providers offer a tiny registration cost but a large release fee, so that they " catch you out" down the line." 4. "When you register your domain name, always put the correct legal name for your trading operation." Sometimes it is wise to do a corporate name search to make sure the name you select is not used slightly differently by another existing business 5. When you register your domain name, you will be asked to put down an email address. Fincher advises "Don't put down an email address based on the domain name you're registering, for instance, if you're registering amce.co.uk, don't put the contact email down as "me@acme.co.uk". Also, try not to put down an email address which is part of a free, quota-limited webmail service such as hotmail. This is because occasionally, very important emails (such as renewal reminders) will come to this address, and if your quota is full on the day such an email arrives, you may miss it and lose your domain name as a result." 6. "If you've registered a domain name in the past, try to make sure that the provider you chose has your latest email address.... which is to ensure that you don't miss a renewal reminder email." permission to link, and quote, was given by R. Fincher in an email 2004 Sept29 |
|
|
.Keeping
your Hosting Service separate and distinct from your Domain Registrar.
Usually, in the class that accompanies this unit, Prof. Richardson will explain the advantages of keeping your Hosting Service separate and distinct from your Domain Name Registrar. see also ISP Hosting Service
witiger.com/ecommerce/ISPs.htm
After explaining in class one time about the advantages of keeping your hosting service separate from your domain registration service, I received an email from a student who came up with a good way to explain this. Annie F. in BCS 555 in Oct 2004 emailed to say..
"yes, thanks Annie, that is a good analogy, and sometimes the Agency and the Producer have different objectives which might not be good for the Star so this is why you want to make sure they are not the same person" |
| Keeping your Hosting Service separate and distinct from your Domain Registrar | ..
- yes, good example Jeff, if your band starts to load a lot of MP3s on the site, and you begin to get a lot of hits, you might want to switch hosting plans in order to get a better rate - if your hosting was also with the domain registrar, they might give you a hard time about cutting off your hosting cause then they'd be losing money if you got hosting someplace else. They might delay switching the IP address, or might incorrectly re-name the DNS servers - any number of things to cause you to think it might be better to just stayy with their hosting. |
| KEY
POINTS |
We
do we spend so much time and space discussing the registration of domain
names?
Its
a bit like buying an expensive Italian motorcycle and focusing only on
financing the cost of buying the bike, without any consideration for licensing
and insurance costs which are necessary in order to be "legal" to ride
it.
WTGR MSS |
| Reasons
for having your own Domain
|
"You will want
to own your own domain for several reasons, the biggest of which is that
it will give you a more professional-looking store and a Web brand name
to promote. You will be taken more seriously and customers will find you
more easily"
Chpt 6, page 125 Creating Stores on the Web |
| KEY
POINTS |
By owning your own domain,
you will also have some degree of independence, and can minimize your risk.
You can have independence
from a particular hosting service. If the service has problems, or increases
the fees and you wish to change then your domain has to change from
If you own the domain, then
you can change hosting services and
Minimizing risk relates to
the competitive economic environment in which hosting companies exist.
If, for some reason, your hosting company goes bankrupt, or is bought out,
then you hosting may change from
|
| Domain
Registration - Selecting a Name |
Some people launching an
internet commerce venture are also concurrently launching a business. In
this case, the process you go through to develop a domain will involve
consideration of the legal name of the company and the "legal entity" under
which you will carry out your business.
|
| This
is a screen capture from one of the companies that provides NUANS name
search services for companies that need a search done - in order to incorporate
click on this screen capture to read more about NUANS |
 |
"NUANS Name Searches are printouts that are required by Government offices in order to incorporate a company. NUANS is an acronym taken from the words "Newly Upgraded Automated Name Search". It was a system developed in order for Industry Canada to search and maintain its ever-increasing corporate name file.
A NUANS report is a five-page document that includes a list of corporations, business names, and trademarks that appear and sound similar to the name you are proposing. This list is taken from a national data bank of existing corporations, business names, and trademarks in Canada. This report must be ordered and submitted to the pertinent jurisdiction, along with your incoorporation Articles when you go to incorporate your company. The report has a life of 90 days from the date the NUANS report was requested."
The process is to pay $75
to the company to confirm the name you want is available. Then you take
the PDF printout of the search results when you go to the Ministry to register
your corporate name.
| Registering
a name - the name search process |
.
"The CIPO website offers a lot of great services and should be looked at if you ever plan on filing for a trademark, copyright, or patent." |
| Registering
a name - the name search process |
. |
click the audio icon to hear an explanation of more detail describing the difference between how the NUANS and the CIPO cover the list of company names |
| Selecting
a Name
- Int'l considerations  |
.
Javed has a list of 6 considerations, a couple of his suggestions are relevant for us to follow |
|
|
#4 global "domainization"
and how do you expand your reach?
Javed suggests you consider "How many domain names do you have, and why? The art of cyber-branding now demands sharp skills in the areas of domain registration and Web site management. Multiple domain names create multiple problems in multiple markets. There are rules to be followed. Great opportunities are missed by not having a sophisticated naming system for global cyber branding." Javed recommends "... to solve this problem, have a proper system in place to manage global complexity. Be aware that there are too many fancy services offering strange global registrations and localization, and most are flaky, faceless and without references." # 5 linguistics, and why do they embarrass your international customers? Javed exlains "A site name in one country can mean something entirely different when it circumnavigates the globe. How do you tackle such language issues? The answer is to acquire skills and a deeper understanding of global communications. Even if you're a regional player, your sites are still visible and exposed to the entire world. Cyber branding is an extremely global phenomenon." |
| KEY
POINTS |
When Prof. Richardson was
developing www.larkhill.com back
in 1999 it was considered that one of the possible markets was Japan -
so, the translation of larkhill into Japanese was done in order to understand
any possible negative or positive consequences.
"Higari ga oka" is what Larkhill means in Japanese and interestingly it is the name for a high class residential neighbourhood in Tokyo, which would fit the branding plans of Larkhill. |
| Domain
Names the
.MOBI |
UPDATE
FEB 2006.
"New .mobi Domain Approved
but Challenges Remain"
Mello explains "Among the problems that the carriers are grappling with is why so few mobile users access the Web from their phones. According to one of those touting the .mobi domain, the GSM Association, there are 1.8 billion mobile users in the world but only 12 to 14 percent have ever used the Web from their phones." "By carving out an Internet domain for mobiles, companies such as Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Telefonica Moviles, T-Mobile and Vodaphone believe more mobilistas can be lured to the Web by destinations that they can be sure will work fast, efficiently and effectively with their handsets. "This is not a technical standard," observed Paul Twomey, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which approved the .mobi domain yesterday at a meeting in Luxemburg. "It is geared toward what the sponsors think will offer Web sites and content to mobile users in a way that is easily accepted on present and future mobile devices," he told TechNewsWorld/E-commercetimes. "The new domain will be administered by a company called mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd, of Dublin, Ireland, which reportedly will have 20 to 25 people and an annual budget of US$10 million to run the operation." |
| KEY
POINTS .MOBI |
Some people are saying that
.mobi is just a gimmick and that the real focus should be on making your
web pages WAP enabled so that cell phone browsers can see your content
whether or not you have a domain ending in .mobi
Other people say the web is a very "shallow" place and trends come and go very fast - if people think that having a .mobi site will help them get their content viewed by cell phone users, then a lot of people will start building such sites - we have to wait a few more months and see WTGR Feb 2nd 2006 On this |
| Domain
Names the
.MOBI |
UPDATE
March 2006.
Hello Prof. Richardson, I recall you discussing
the “.mobi domain” in your lecture on “Domain Names”
Title: New .mobi Domain
Approved but Challenges Remain
According to this article,
the .mobi domain will be administered by a company
It is stated that the
domain name will not have a huge impact because people
Sarah Dean
|
| Domain
Names the
Domain
the
|
UPDATE
FEB 2002.
"The Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved seven new top-level domains
(TLD) just over a year ago, [fall 2001] and they will soon appear on a
computer screen near you. And with their arrival, laws governing the Internet
may soon be getting a serious workout.
|
| Domain
Names the
|
The following information
was supplied by student Jennifer W. from MRK 610 Feb 2003
. "The generic top level domains (gTLDs). Domain name registrations in gTLDs are generally available to anyone, regardless of country of origin or geographic location. The gTLD serves to broadly categorize the name as to its type or purpose. However, it is not unusual to find websites that do not reflect the intent of their gTLD. The gTLDs currently being used on the Internet include" from CIRA |
| Domain
Names the
|
.com Intended
for use by commercial domains.
.org Intended for noncommercial organizations. .biz Intended for businesses. .info Intended for organizations providing information. .name Limited to names of individuals.eg. Tim@Richardson.name .net Primarily used by network-related companies and organizations. .edu Limited to educational institutions that are "four-year" colleges and universities. .mil Limited to the US military. .gov Limited to the US government. .int Limited to bodies created by international treaty. .museum created exclusively for the museum community. .coop to allow cooperatives to differentiate themselves from other types of businesses and organizations online |
| overcrowding
in the .com domain space new domains
|
UPDATE
MAY 2002
Friedman writes
""There are 28 million registered .com domains, so the name has a significant recognition value." Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Verisign Corp., the company that operates the registry for the granddaddy of TLDs How has this situation effected squatters and speculators? Friedman writes "The problem for the speculators though, is that with the asteroid that fell on the dot-com economy last year, .com's property value went through the floor, while a whole lot of legitimate .com owners went the way of the stegosaur and T-Rex. That means the margins in speculation have become razor thin just as a whole bunch of names are just now coming onto the block due to non-renewals and new TLDs. " |
| Domain
Registration Process 
Apex Organizations |
ICANN
|
| Domain
Registration Process in Canada |
The Canadian Internet
Registration Authority
"The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a not for profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the dot-ca Internet country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for all Canadians in an efficient and professional manner." - from their site www.cira.ca .ca domain names must be
registered through a certified registrar (such as www.internic.ca) . If
the registrant is not a member of CIRA, then chances are your registration
will be invalid.
|
| Domain
Registration Process in Canada an example
|
Below, we feature Internic.ca.
There are now (2005) several ways people can sign up for registering a
domain in Canada, we feature internic.ca because they are one of the largest,
and the people involved with the company were part of the initial efforts
to register dot.ca domains in the 1990's.
|
At the same time, 41,000 dot.ca domains that were registered under the old system had not re-registered, which means there may be a lot of really good dot.ca domain names become available.
| Domain
Registration
|
+, if you do not want to be "found" in whois, you can register your domain name privately, this is used when people want to avoid dealing with cybersquatters |
| Domain
Names . the "new" names  |
NSI - Network Solutions
Inc.
In the beginning, NSI was contracted by the U.S. government to assign domain addresses for .com, .net, .org etc. Europeans didn't like this and other regions protested as well. In June 1998 NSI's monopoly ceased. The company created a registration system which is shares with other companies. "Deadline's Counting Down on .ca Domains" is the title of Toronto Star writer Rachel Ross' Sept 18th, 2000 article In the past, Canadians wanting to register a .ca name had (typically Canadian) a lot of rules and regulations. As a result, 80% of the registrations Canadians were taking out were going to the .com space - which is "money going out of the country" said the president of Tucosws (which also does registrations). |
| Domain
Names the
|
The following information
was supplied by Jennifer W. from MRK 610 Feb 2003
.
Until December 2000, most Canadian companies registered dot-com names instead of dot-ca names. This was partly due to stringent registration rules for dot-ca domain names and to dot-com’s general Internet popularity. However, today, dot-ca domain names are increasingly becoming the number one choice for people and organizations.[in Canada] As the registration rules for dot-ca domain names became less stringent in the Fall of 2000, people, businesses, and organizations of all types began to choose dot-ca names over dot-com names. In December 2000, CIRA had 60,000 dot-ca domain name registrations. By January 2002, that number had increased to over 260,000. That’s still a far cry from the millions of registered dot-com names, but it means that Canada’s Internet name space will be there for you when you need it. Odds are that a domain name you may want to use will be available as a dot-ca but not as a dot-com. Having a dot-ca name immediately identifies an organization as being Canadian. This is useful for companies targeting markets within and outside Canada because Canada is well respected and liked around the world. Despite a wider selection and availability of dot-ca names, organizations should consider registering, if possible, a domain name in more than one domain using some of the available TLDs. This approach will help ensure that potential customers can easily locate the organization’s website. " |
On this page there are several
quotes from ecommercetimes.com. Permission was given by Richard Kern, Associate
Publisher of the E-Commerce Times, in an email to Prof. Richardson
2004 Dec 10th, a hard copy of the email is kep on file in Richardson's
permissions binder.
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