Register Domain Names

How To Register Domain Names (Web Addresses)

Would you like to know how to buy your own website address (.com, .net, .org, etc) for under $20/year? This article is a tutorial to educate readers on the actual process of registering and reserving a domain name internet address (a .com, .net, .org, etc.) to use for a website for business or personal use. If you are interested in starting a new business website it’s going to need a name and address which requires purchasing your own web URL. The below information, including screenshots, will walk you through the processing or searching and finding a name which is available for registration as well as point you towards worthwhile tools to better your choices.

Choosing Domain Names

The first thing you should do if you are creating a new company is to choose a good and easy to remember as well as easy to spell ‘.com’ domain name which is related to your business. Your domain should either be the actual name of your business or it should be a keyword driven domain name which reflects exactly what your business does. For example, as a domain name registry service, our domain name is Registrating.com as it reflects what someone can accomplish with the service.

Having keywords in your domain name can not only help people remember it, but it can also quickly and easily describe what people can do by visiting your business website. In the example of Registrating.com, the name itself suggests exactly what someone will be able to accomplish there. It also helps the website get found in search engines by having keywords right in the domain name itself. This also helps build keyword-rich and keyword related links to the website.

Although you can name your site just about anything you want (provided that it is available), creating a domain name with keywords in it increases the likelihood and opportunity to generate keyword rich links to your website which can help you pop-up in search engines (Most often when people link to the website, those words will appear).

For instance, every time someone links to our website utilizing the phrase “Registrating,” it will help our website ‘rank better’ for words and phrases related to registering. So registering a domain name which contains words related to what you would benefit from being found by people searching those words increases your potential for attracting new customers (the most important thing for just about any business entity is sales – or the ability to acquire new customers).

Some people may suggest alternative domain names, such as names ending in .net, .org, or many new extensions which have become available due to the scarcity of good premium names being available. You should try your best to avoid these alternative URLs, as the majority of Internet surfers navigate their way to a .com by basic instinct and by default usually assuming that the site they are looking for will be located at a name ending in “.com” since it has been so widely promoted and advertised over the last two-and-a-half decades.

If you need help registering a domain name and are unsure of what to do and what names you should be registering for your company you can contact us for assistance. As long as you plan to register your domain name with our registry we have support people available to assist you in choosing the best name for your company.

Domain Name Retail Prices

Domain names are very inexpensive and are usually priced between $12 and $20 per year, so domain names are an extremely minimal expense for a new or active business. In fact, it is often a good practice to register similar and multiple domain names as each name serves as an additional entry point to your business.

As another example of this we do something similar; we also own the domain name RegisterWebNames.com. People often search for the term “Register web names” and in some cases people just type “Register web names and add a .com on the end of it” expecting to find a site by simply typing what they are looking for and adding a “.com” on the end. This is another reason why utilizing a “.com” domain name is a wise choice.

For the last twenty five years roughly, there has been countless advertisements for “.com” and many people just assume that all domain names end in “.com” especially people who are not very savvy when it comes to the internet. Entire businesses have been branded off “.com” domain names. For example, think 1800MATTRESS.com, 1800FLOWERS.com, and 1800GOTJUNK.COM. There are huge advertising campaigns behind “.com” and they have literally built entire businesses.

Domain Name Registrars

A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names and provides search services for findi9ng and selecting a domain name. A domain registrar must be an ICANN-accredited registrar who will check if the domain name is available for registration and if so, create a WHOIS record with the domain name registrant’s information upon purchase. It is also possible to search and register domain names through a registrar’s reseller. There are over 900 registrars who have entered the market for domain name registration services. Both registrars and registrar affiliates (resellers) will provide an interface to search, find, register and administer a domain name including managing the domain names “name servers” which allow it to host websites on the Internet or provide custom email services. Most resellers are mirrored, or identical, to their parent registrar and commissioned providers.

The Necessity of a Domain

The main reason that you want to buy a domain name is necessity. While it is possible to have a website and not have a domain name it is incredibly foolish. While all websites have an address without a domain name, they have a numerical address, such as 184.168.131.241 which is how people can get to a website without a domain name; by typing in its exact numerical address. However, doing so is extremely unprofessional and inconvenient. No normal person is going to be able to remember your websites address if it is a long number such as 184.168.131.241.

Domain names ‘convert’ or ‘translate’ a numerical addresses into an easy to remember web name such as www.mywebsite.com. When you own a domain name, the purpose of the domain name is to convert a series of words into a numerical address and thus making it extremely easy to remember what a website address is. For example, the website located at shoes.com, as in the example earlier, is translated to 140.174.12.92 (its actual numerical address), but no human is going to remember that numerical address. The reason shoes.com is so valuable, is because it is so easy to remember, and when people type it in their web browser address bar, it is configured to send people to 140.174.12.92 thus delivering the site with ease. Imagine running a commercial or radio ad and asking people to remember www.140.174.12.92.com; never going to happen effectively. A domain name makes this process realistic.

Domain Name Ownership

Most companies that sell domain names are self-service platforms where you can search for available names through a database. Domain name registration websites allow a consumer (you) to search for available domain names (names which are not already taken) and then register them. Once someone registers a domain name they own the rights to utilize that domain name until it expires. Currently domain names can be registered for as many as ten (10) years consecutively, and as long as the registrant renews the domain name each registration period they can own the rights to operate that name. No one else can register it provided that the registration period does not lapse, so as soon as someone registers a domain name, so long as they do not let that name expire, they own that name, the right to use it, and no one else can have it.

This is why it is extremely important that once you register a domain name and begin using it, you never let it expire. The Registrating.com platform allows you to register a domain name for as many as ten years and you can setup your domain name on what is called an ‘auto renew’ feature so that whatever the expiration date is set at, even if it is just one year, the system will auto-renew the domain name (provided that a valid credit card is on file) and the registrant will never loose that domain name and those registration use rights.

Domain Ownership Records

Due to increased privacy legislation over the last decade, it has been increasingly difficult to reliably find out who the owner of domain name is sometimes requiring a court ordered subpoena to a registrar provider. Historically, the “Who Is” service provided a record of the original date of registration for every domain name registered including its registrant owner and technical contact details including phone numbers, physical addresses, and email addresses for its administrator. Over time, originally due to spam, private registration services emerged to mask the owner of domain name to limit solicitations and create a barrier between consumers and site owners. More recently, statewide and globally targeted legislation such as The California Privacy Rights Act (or CCPA) the EU General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR), which governs how personal data of individuals in the EU may be processed and transferred, more and more companies are hiding this information from the general public. Both laws went into effect in 2018 where California’s law protects California residents specifically, and the EU law governs any European user protection throughout the world. Each domain name registrar, by requirements of their contract with ICANN, must provide a free Who Is service, however, information has become scarce and more difficult to dig up in many cases. There are other service provider who offer both free and advanced paid for search services for finding ownership details.

Expired Domain Names

Sometimes there is opportunity to acquire a domain name which has already expired. This can represent an opportunity to utilize a domain name that was once used for something else, for your own business. As you can imagine, domain names expire for a variety of reasons, some of which include A) businesses ceasing operations, B) domain names which were not associated with an a valid credit card upon renewal, C) domain names that are no longer wanted or required by their previous owner, etc.

When someone purchases a domain name which has expired, often times this domain name purchase will subsequently include existing traffic, back-links from sites that previously linked to it, or potentially shorter better names since they are older and were purchased when better names were available. Expired domain names could help your business by leading to web traffic and inquires from past activity, especially if the domain name was used for a similar business. In fact, many savvy business owners specifically look through expired domain name lists to find domain names which have expired and scoop them up for resale on what is called “the domain aftermarket” where they are sold at a premium based on their perceived value.

Picking up and/or finding a domain name which was expired and then using it for your business can lead to a shorter time finding success and should be considered when trying to find a good domain name. However, it is important not to choose a domain name let go due to it being penalized in search engines or one that was previous used for email spam, so it is important to inspect and utilize various statistic and historical tools to measure the quality of the domain name found before purchasing it and launching your business on a tarnished domain name.

Transferring Domain Names

Once you register and own your own domain name, you can manage its settings and configuration through your domain name account, wherever it id registered, however, there are several reasons why you might want to transfer or move it to another registrar. One of the most common reasons is price as domain name prices are set at the registry level. One register might be cheaper than the other as far as yearly renewal prices. In the even you want to transfer a domain name, this requires several steps would are intended to be somewhat complicated as a security measure. Most transfer requests will involve administrative access to the account where the domain currently resides, and include a serious of processes such as

A) unlocking the domain name,
B) generating an authorization code, and
C) a purchase, the price of a registration and includes a free one year extension.

If your domain name is currently registered with an expensive registrar and you are looking for a cheaper alternative, you can simply transfer your domain to another registrar. Some registrars will include free features which other registrars might not offer such as domain forwarding. This could be another reason to transfer; to obtain a feature or function that may require a fee elsewhere.

If you have questions about registering a domain name and are unsure of what to do in securing your domain name for your website you can call us and request assistance in choosing and registering your domain name. The number to call for new domain name registrants needing assistance is (561) 513-4848, however, keep in mind that the entire process can be done online at Registrating.com.

Domain Name Aftermarket Values

“.com” domain names are also more valuable domain names on the resale market. For instance, when shoes.com went up for sale, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. purchased it for nine-million dollars. That is because the domain name itself, without anything else, has a tremendous value based on the fact that people will type in the domain name and expect to find shoes for sale. Wal-Mart purchased this domain name based on its value in helping the company generate sales.

So if you are choosing a domain name, it is a good idea to choose a “.com” because it acts not only as an address, but as a company “asset” which has resale value. Of course the value depends on the name and how many people might want to operate on that name, but in general, a “.com” domain name will be in the area of ten-times (10X) more valuable than a name ending in any other extension (.net, .org, .info).

Two publicly available tools to appraise domains are GoDaddy’s free appraisal page and Estibot, which allows a limited number of searches before requiring fees and account signup.

Another great way to apprise the value of a domain would be to use historical sales prices of similar names which can be accomplished with a database provided by NameBio.com which offers domain name sales history information.