ICANN Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.

Created: 1997-09-15

Expires: 2011-09-14

Registrar Status: clientDeleteProhibited

Registrar Status: clientTransferProhibited

Registrar Status: clientUpdateProhibited

Name Server: NS1.GOOGLE.COM

Name Server: NS2.GOOGLE.COM

Name Server: NS3.GOOGLE.COM

Name Server: NS4.GOOGLE.COM

Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com

There is a band account in the lookup abstracts labeled Status. In the case of this domain, the cachet are listed as clientDeleteProhibited,clientTransferProhibited and clientUpdateProhibited Listed beneath are the assorted states that can arise in this field, and what they beggarly (There are two accepted protocols, RRP and EPP – RRP is the earlier agreement that is actuality phased out in favor of EPP which is added accomplished grained. There is a specific mapping of statuses amid the earlier RRP and EPP).

Below are the all RRP statuses, followed by EPP statuses.

Registry Operator Cachet codes: (RRP) Anthology Agent Agreement (Com/Net Anthology Operator – Verisign Global Registry)

ACTIVE: The anthology sets this status. The area can be adapted by the registrar. The area can be renewed. The area will be included in the area if the area has been delegated to at atomic one name server. A area can alone change registrars if in this state.

· REGISTRY-LOCK: The anthology sets this status. The area can not be adapted or deleted by the registrar. The anthology charge abolish the REGISTRY-LOCK cachet for the agent to adapt the domain. The area can be renewed. The area will be included in the area if the area has been delegated to at atomic one name server.

· REGISTRAR-LOCK: The allotment agent sets this status. The area can not be adapted or deleted. The agent charge abolish REGISTRAR-LOCK cachet to adapt the domain. The area can be renewed. The area will be included in the zone.

· REGISTRY-HOLD: The anthology sets this status. The area can not be adapted or deleted by the registrar. The anthology charge abolish the REGISTRY-HOLD cachet for the agent to adapt the domain. The area can be renewed. The area will not be included in the zone.

· REGISTRAR-HOLD: The allotment agent sets this status. The area can not be adapted or deleted. The agent charge abolish REGISTRAR-HOLD cachet to adapt the domain. The area can be renewed. The area will not be included in the zone.

· REDEMPTIONPERIOD: The anthology sets this cachet back a agent requests that the area name be deleted from the anthology and the area has been registered for added than 5 agenda canicule (if the annul appeal is accustomed aural 5 canicule of antecedent area allotment it will instead be deleted immediately). The area will not be included in the zone. The area can not be adapted or purged; it can alone be restored. Any added agent requests to adapt or contrarily amend the area will be rejected. The area will be captivated in this cachet for a best of 30 agenda days.

· PENDINGRESTORE: The anthology sets this cachet afterwards a agent requests apology of a area that is in REDEMPTIONPERIOD status. The area will be included in the zone. Agent requests to adapt or contrarily amend the area will be rejected. The area will be captivated in this cachet while the anthology waits for the agent to accommodate appropriate apology documentation. If the agent fails to accommodate affidavit to the anthology aural 7 agenda canicule to affirm the apology request, the area will backslide to REDEMPTIONPERIOD status. The area cachet will be set to ACTIVE alone if the agent provides affidavit to the anthology aural 7 agenda canicule to affirm the apology request.

· PENDINGDELETE: The anthology sets this cachet afterwards a area has been set in REDEMPTIONPERIOD cachet and the area has not been adequate by the registrar. The area will not be included in the zone. Already in this cachet all agent requests to adapt or contrarily amend the area will be rejected. The area will be purged from the anthology database afterwards actuality in this cachet for 5 agenda days.

EPP Domains (The newer bigger protocol)

Domain Status: Normally operating domains accept a cachet of “OK” or “Active.” Added cachet ethics detail awaiting operations and restrictions apropos the domain. If the cachet is OK again the area can be transferred.

· OK: This is the nominal cachet amount for a area article at all times, whether or not the area has awaiting operations or prohibitions.

· New: This is the nominal cachet for a anew created area object. The area can be adapted unless locked.

· Active: The area can be adapted and appears in a area file. This is the nominal cachet for a area article already it has been appear in a zone.

· Locked: The area cannot be transferred, renewed, or deleted. (Though the cachet amount can be changed.) Hierarchical and associated altar cannot be added or removed from the area object. Area names complex in Sunrise and added disputes may be locked, accountable to anthology policies.

· Hold: The area will not be appear in a area for DNS resolution. Names after at atomic two nameservers may be placed on Hold status; in this case abide nameserver abstracts through your registrar.

· pendingTransfer: A alteration appeal has been accustomed for the domain, and achievement of the appeal is pending. The area cannot be renewed, deleted, or adapted while in this state.

· pendingDelete: A annul appeal has been accustomed from the agent for the domain. The area has been removed from the zone, but has not yet been purged from the anthology database. The area cannot be renewed, deleted, transferred, or adapted while in this state.

· clientHold: The area will not be appear in a area for DNS resolution. This cachet is placed on the area by the registrar.

· clientLock: The area cannot be transferred, renewed, deleted, or updated. This cachet is placed on the area by the registrar. An amend command may be acclimated to change the cachet value. Hierarchical and associated altar cannot not be added or removed from the area object.

So, for those of you absorbed in registering ahead registered – but now expiring domains: the area will consistently go into REDEMPTIONPERIOD cachet afore it is appear to be re-registered.

It will abide in REDEMPTIONPERIOD cachet for 30 canicule at which time it will again move to PENDINGDELETE status. Afterwards 5 canicule in PENDINGDELETE status, the area will be appear to be re-registered.

If a area is renewed by the aboriginal apprentice during the REDEMPTIONPERIOD status, the area will NOT go to PENDINGDELETE status. Already a area alcove to PENDINGDELETE status, it will become accessible to re-register.

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A group of investors headed by Jake Weinbaum (the guy behind Disney’’s go.com) paid $7.5 million for the name Business.com back in 1999, aiming to make it a showcase B2B site. According to their own press they have succeeded. Yes, it’’s a terrific name ? short, sort of descriptive and easy to remember. There’’s some cachet there, but is it $7.5 million worth? That cash could have bought a lot of promotion or branding for whatever name they could have had for ten bucks, or a hundred, or two hundred grand.

Each year for 15 years The first $500K in profit goes toward amortizing the cost of that domain name. That could also pay for a terrific affiliate program, a truckload of banner and PPC advertising, and a nice BMW lease for Mr. Weinbaum (who probably doesn”t need a BMW).

But the Business.com thing has set off a wave of domain name speculation that staggers the mind. People are snapping up domain names and ransoming them off to wide-eyed entrepreneurs with business plans and dreams of riches. Being a hardcore capitalist I am torn about domain name speculation ? I am tempted to applaud the person making a buck by getting there first and grabbing up the good names, but I am annoyed at the restraint of commerce that takes place while someone negotiates with one of these guys to get the right name.

So if I look at the top 50 websites on Alexa, most of them should be easy to remember names, right? Wrong. I would argue that only one, match.com, is an easy-to-remember name that describes what the site is about.

I keep hearing that the reason these so-called generic or descriptive domain names are so valuable is that some people just type domain names into the address bar of their browser rather than using a search engine. This fact seems to be intuitively false. I find it hard to believe that someone looking for information on a particular business would type in www.business.com. Furthermore, if I look at the top 50 websites on Alexa only one, match.com, is an easy-to-remember name that describes what the site is about.

I wondered how many people actually type in their address bar (address bar?) instead of using a search engine anyway. I didn”t find the answer, but Jupiter Media tells me that 64% of people looking for something use a search engine.

That means that 36% of people use something other than a search engine. What makes me believe that people typing stuff into their address bar doesn”t happen much is this simple fact…of the people using search engines last November, 43% searched for common websites like Ebay. In other words, instead of typing in http://www.ebay.com, people Googled Ebay and clicked on one of the results. That is absolutely hysterical. And totally believable.

What do all these facts mean? They mean that as far as getting the person there the first time, everyone starts off on the same square. If your domain name can get the minority of people who just type into their address bar to your website without a search engine, it’’s worth more than someone who can”t.

Here are some of the legendary domain name sales in the past several years, according to Zetetic:

$14,000,000 – 2006 – sex.com
$7,500,000 – 1999 – business.com
$5,500,000 – 2003 – casino.com
$5,000,000 – 2002 – asseenontv.com
$5,000,000 – 1999 – korea.com
$3,500,000 – 1996 – worldwideweb.com
$3,350,000 – 1999 – altavista.com
$3,300,000 – 1999 – wine.com
$3,000,000 – 1999 – eshow.com
$3,000,000 – 1999 – loans.com
$2,750,000 – 2004 – creditcards.com

All of these with the exception of eshow.com (computer networking) should get address bar traffic, because people who type will type in the descriptive names ? if I”m looking for sex-related stuff, I”ll type in sex.com. Where my mind gets boggled is in ROI. If you”re selling something on asseenontv.com that nets you $25, you”ll need to sell 200,000 of those George Foreman grills just to pay for your domain name.

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’’s a 6) – $7,000,000
ajobformom.com – $3,500,000
Exbay.com – $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’’s some good news and some bad news. Remember back a few paragraphs when I said that everyone starts on the same square? That’’s really the good news. You can choose a pretty good domain name, put together some terrific content, employ some simple Search Engine Optimization and buy some keywords or exchange some links and you have a pretty good chance of getting people to your site the first time. Since most of them are coming via a search engine they”re not going to notice your domain name until they get there anyway, so your domain name means the same thing (nothing) to the majority of people using the search engine.

One last thing: if you”re hoping to be close to the top in the search results (the so-called organic SEO), having your keywords in the name of your website gives you a huge boost. For example, if you”re looking for affiliate blog, we will be in the top five search results. In this case, Google ignores TLD unless you tell it otherwise. Affiliateblog.info will come up before us because their pagerank is higher (that’’s a discussion for another day). So if you think getting near the top of the organic search results is more important than having someone type your name directly into the address bar (and you very well could be right), then grab yourkeyword.cc or yourkeyword.to. I”ve done it, and I”ve suggested it to others.

Once the user comes to your site the name just needs to be memorable enough so they type it in to get there the next time. Or they may forget and Google you again. I do it every day. No matter how great your name is, if the content is lousy they won”t come back anyway.

So should you buy a domain name? I don”t know ? I bought this one. And I made honorable mention in the Domain Name News for the price I paid ($2500). I bought the name because I liked it, I liked the number of incoming links to it, and I felt comfortable paying for it. I”ve never paid more than a couple hundred dollars for a domain otherwise, and I have more than 200 of them. My favorite by far is Blozzo.com, which I just bought for $25. I have a pretty terrific idea in mind for Blozzo too.

I would try to come up with my own name before I bought someone else’’s. Here are some tips:

1. Try to go with a .com. It’’s the name everyone associates with the Internet. Any other Top Level Domain (TLD) like .org or .net is just going to confuse people, unless it sounds better than the .com. For example, if you are about networking or a network, a .net is more natural. If your site is informational, you should use .info if it sounds okay. One of my favorite $10 domains is seosecrets.info. I think it sounds good. Hands down the most ingenious use of a TLD is del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. The use of the .us TLD is absolutely brilliant.

2. Leave out the dashes and meaningless numbers. If it’’s a choice between this-domain.com, thisdomain123.com and thisdomain.net, take the .net. No one remembers to put the dashes or the numbers in, unless they are an integral part of the name like studio54.com or e-books.com.

3. Use the fewest letters possible to describe what you do. I own Purple Monkey Media Group. Purplemonkey.com would have been perfect. It’’s taken, of course. Purplemonkeymedia.com was not. I grabbed it. I could have taken purplemonkeymediagroup.com, but it would have been too long. Remember, every additional letter is a potential typing error.

4. If you have a domain name that needs to be reinforced, get a good logo and sprinkle it liberally on your web site, along with some slogan that will reinforce the name in people’’s minds. You would be surprised at how inexpensive this can be.

5. If you can save a few bucks with your own domain name or by buying a cheaper domain name, do it, and use the money to get yourself placed higher in the search results or Adsense placement.

6. If you can”t come up with a descriptive domain name, go the other way. Depending on your site’’s focus, pick a memorable short name that will stick in people’’s minds, get a great logo and include the name prominently in your advertising and marketing. It’’s called branding, and it’’s tried and true.

7. Ask your wife, friend, boyfriend, husband, dog, lawyer, associate, Mom, Dad, cousin, uncle, Police Chief, blog writer. They”re smarter than you anyway, and they are going to be the one looking for the site, not you. Some of my best ideas have come going to or from somewhere with my wife and just brainstorming.

Here’’s the bad news: it may take you a while to come up with the right name. There’’s more good news though ? in the real world most domain names sell for $1,000 or less.

Can”t get started? ? Go to a site that sells domain names like Silogopher.com (http://www.silogopher.com) , and put in a word that describes your business. See if the name is taken (it probably will be). Open your word processor or go to thesaurus.com and put the word in. Get a few more words. Check those. If there’’s a .com available and it looks good, grab it. If not, add the word site or blog or online to your word, and see if that works. Don”t wait. If you think it might be useable, spend the few bucks. I came up with blogduck.com. I liked it. I decided to think about it some more. Someone grabbed it that afternoon. Just chisel loose the nine bucks (or less) and buy the domain.

Domain Name Journal tracks domain name sales. Going there is always fun.
Matt DeAngelis runs Affiliate Blog. Matt is the former CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. Matt devised the technology behind ad campaigns and online presence for a good portion of the Fortune 100, including GE, AT&T and Compaq.

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Let me give you a example, if you are selling shirts on your website you want to make sure your domain name includes shirts. A name like www.shirts-r.us make work just fine. I wouldn’t suggest a name like www.coolstuff.com because that domain does not include the word shirts and the search engines like google may not index your site well because if someone was doing a search on shirts your domain name will not be considered irrelevant to what that person is searching for.

Personally I like to pick domain names that has keywords in them that will be relevant to what the content of my site is mainly about. Taking this advise will make it so much more easier for your site to get indexed by all the major such engines like yahoo, aol, google, msn etc. With this being said, it can be a real pain to find a great domain name that goes well with your web sites content.

This is why I strongly believe that investing in domain names these days are just like holding stocks and bonds. Because if you are just sitting on a domain name that is aging you can be sitting on gold to the right buyer. Okay, so you now are aware of domain investing however are you aware of domain parking? Parking a domain is also a great why to make money while you are sitting on a domain name. We have all visited a parked page while surfing the web.

A parked page is basically a page full of ads that are normally related to the domain name. The internet just got personal with the new dot me top level domain extension. This extension is great for blogs because the tld ( Top Level Domain) is all about you. I would highly consider putting up some cash to invest in a dot
me domain now because not only is it a new extension but because you can scoop up some great names now before they are all taken.

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Just because you come up with a funky cool url, doesn’t mean you should go ahead and register it. Unless of course you’re building a website which you only want your close friends and relatives to know about…but then what’s the point? Isn’t it much more fun when your site is discovered by hundreds, even thousands of people from all over the world?

Especially if you’re building a website for your business, practice, shop, charity cause or even fan club, you want people to visit your site. And, you’ll probably want to make some money with it as well. Follow my 5 tips below, and you’ll be off to a great start by choosing the right domain name.

1. Will your website be about a famous brand? In other words, is your business already well known offline? Then you don’t have to make things harder than they are. Just register for web and domain hosting with your brand name.

2. Use a product name or job description in the url. For example, if you’re a plumber named John Doe, your domain could be plumber-John-Doe dot com. When using a product name, make sure it’s not trademarked.

3. Better yet, do some keyword research before deciding on any kind of domain. If you incorporate a popular or targeted keyword(s) in the url, you’ll get a lot more love from the search engines. For example, people living in Huntsville will look for a plumber in… Huntsville. Your url could be plumber-huntsville-john-doe dot com.

4. Okay, so the search engines love keyword rich domain names. But they can be long and difficult to remember. Not to mention the risk of typo’s. I’ve a great tip for that. Get two domain names. Seriously, a domain is the cheapest investment to make, so get two. One to please the search engines, and one to please the people you give your web address. Following the above example, you could print business cards, ads, whatever with your second domain name johndoe dot com. Does that mean you need two websites? Nope, all you have to do is redirect your short domain to your search engine friendly domain. That’s an investment of $9 and 2 minutes which could create a massive stream of traffic.

5. For search engine optimization purposes it’s a good idea to register your url for more than one year. So many sites are abandoned in less than a year that Google will pay more attention to domain names that have been registered for 2 or 3 years instead of just 1 year. Like I said before, domain names are cheap so this shouldn’t cause a huge financial burden.

If you want traffic, money and success in general, you’ll need more than a good URL though. What you need is reliable domain name and hosting to keep your site from drowning in the waves of the internet. I’ve built a life raft for you at my web and domain hosting page. Go there now and enjoy the surf.

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When you decide to start an online business, you can do so with as little as a few hundred dollars and a good idea. However, don’t be misled into believing that the Internet is an arena for instant riches with little or no effort. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like any business, it takes creativity, planning, money and hard work to be successful.

Get a domain name
The first step in creating an online business is to register a domain name. If you have no website yet where you could open a store, then you need to find and register an appropriate domain name for it – www.your_domain.com (or .net, .org, .info, whatever). Get a domain name that meet your best needs.

Get a web hosting
A web host provides you with the space, tools and support to create your web pages and email accounts (you@yourdomain.com). It is easier for a startup to LEASE a web space from a data center. There are hundreds of web hosting service provider to choose from. Here are some criteria choose a good web host
Assess Your Needs

The very first item to address in selecting the best hosting service for your needs is to actually identify what those needs are. What sort of website are looking to host? Small personal homepages will have very different hosting criteria from large company websites. To find the best hosting service for you, it is important to determine exactly what you plan to host now, and ideally take into consideration anything you are planning to host in the immediate future.

Rate

Different hosting companies offer a large variety of rates. Companies offering dedicated servers will be substantially higher than others offering budget hosting with limited bandwidth. Competition from overseas is priced temptingly low for many, but there are many factors to consider. Don’t stop at price, and if you plan on using your website in a professional capacity, it is important to move beyond free web hosting. Free hosts are great for small family or fun sites, but are not suited to the needs of internet marketers – even those just starting out. Rate should not be a top determining factor until you have narrowed a list based on other criteria such as:

Reliability and Speed

The best hosting services will offer uptime of over 99%. This should be a guarantee to motivate the company to keep all servers up all the time. Of course, visitors should also be able to access your site quickly.

Data Transfer and Disk Space

Bandwidth requirements grow with your site. Web hosting companies pay for bandwidth, so you, the one using that bandwidth will be billed accordingly. It is far better to pay for the required amount of data transfer upfront rather than get a surprise bill in the mail for having gone considerably over your allotted amount. By the same token, be sure you have an appropriate amount of disk space reserved. Most websites require less than 3GB.

Technical Support

It is very important to be able to reach the hosting company if your website begins experiencing problems. The best hosting support one can hope for is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Most companies know this, so take their stated hours with a grain of salt. Always spot check the companies with email at random times to see if they really have someone available to help 24/7.

Get a customer support number
You want a online business, communication with your customers are essential. Phone call is first important approach to bring your services and products close to your customers. Even more and more people use emails, but phone call is still the most popular and efficient way for both macketing and support. Now this new voip technology allows you to own numbers in oversea. Just like your company is in uk, you can get a american phone number without actually having a brunch office there. Call coming in from that phone number will be forwarded to your uk office. for more information, please refer our website www.go4numbers.com.

We provide more service bundles based on the phone number, like fax binding, conference binding, etc. And we have the following products:

Personal number with call forwarding
One phone number you get from any country. And you can redirect this number to any other numbers.
For instance, you live in United States, and you purchase a British number and redirect it to your home phone or mobile phone number. When your friends or families in UK call that British number, you will be reached.

Enterprise Numbers
Enterprise numbers have the all the functionalities which personal numbers have. But they are specially customized for enterprise customers

Fax Numbers
Fax numbers are terminated to receive faxes. It works like a fax machine but you receive fax in electronic copy. You will deeply agree with our idea if you have received tons of hard copy spam or useless information from your fax machine and have no idea where to dump them. And now you have options to own an oversea fax number.

Conference Numbers
There are so many reasons for your company to have a teleconference system. But most of the solutions will cost you a fortune. Our solution is cheap and convenient to use.

Tollfree Numbers
International tollfree numbers are available. You can get USA tollfree or UK tollfree numbers in cheap price. And tollfree numbers have all the functonalities which are available to the enterprise numbers.
20 channels conference number
We have maximal 20 channels number allows maximal 20 incoming concurrent calls.

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In terms of format, domain names have a number of parts. The first part is known as the URL, (which stands for Uniform Resource Locator). The URL tells the browser what the domain name is going to point to. This will typically be ‘http’, which means the browser can look forward to to find a hypertext document. In layman’s terms this means webpage. In the rare cases the URL is not ‘http’ it may be ‘ftp’, which means file transfer protocol. A webmaster would opt to purpose ftp if they will like visitors to download files from their server.

The second part of the domain name will be “www,” which stands for “World Wide Web.” This phrase permits computers & humans know the site the domain name is pointing to is indeed from the Internet. It’s followed with the actual domain name, which could be a combination of letters, numbers or phrases. A best domain name will be short, memorable & most importantly, look-engine friendly. In fact, best webmasters tend to concentrate extra on a domain name’s efficiency through SEO, (or Search Engine Optimization), than they do its creativity. To do this they make certain to decide a domain name that possesses a widely searched keyword.

The final portion of the domain name possesses what’s known as an extension. This allows a person know a little bit more about a internet site’s origins. For example, select .com, the most common domain name extension. It stands for ‘commercial’, & was originally bound for organizations in that vein. By the way, now the extension is applied by virtually everybody appearance to create a website. And this’s for best use, since most web surfers would consider about the .com before they will consider about .org, .biz or .net. Yet, do not consider the other extensions could’t become memorable either. Consider Wikipedia.org which is a wildly famous internet site despite its .org extension.

Domain name extensions can also indicate things on a geographical level. An sample are country-based extensions such as .fr, (which stands for France), or .jp, (which stands for Japan). They could also be state-based, for example .ca, (which stands for California). Both can serve whether excellent tools for localized Internet marketing.

To accomplish a domain name, a person could either: 1) reach one from their web hosting company, provided they provide that service or 2) get one from a separate domain name company. Price-wise things will vary through both options, though classically the expenses would range from $6.50 to $35. Read more other useful articles about web hosting unlimited bandwidth and bulk domain names.

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There are a number of ways the “game” is played. The first is entirely legal, if more than a little questionable. In this version, the name of a city or geographic area is grabbed by a domain squatter and pointed to… “sites that you wouldn’t want your children visiting.”

(We chose that term to avoid getting caught in a lot of spam filters for the use of the word “p-o-rn.”)

A prominent notice is placed on the sites, offering them for sale at prices that range from $2500 to as much as $500,000!

The idea here is that city officials will feel that enough damage is being done to the reputations of their towns that they’ll pay to keep them from being associated with that type of material.

It’s obviously safe to say that it’s not appropriate to pop those kinds of images into people’s faces while they’re looking for info on a completely different topic.

That’s where the pressure on the cities comes from, and why this is such a disgusting scheme.

In essence, the domain squatter says: “Pay us, or continue to watch as your city’s reputation suffers.”

Many would call this blackmail…

~~~

The second variation on the theme is not always legal. When someone takes a trademarked name (or variation of the spelling of one) or a famous person’s name, and does the same thing.

For trademarks or close variations, there’s a specific procedure for addressing the problem. (See the resource section at the end of this issue.)

For the names of famous people, there MAY be a remedy. But, it can be tricky — and expensive.

For example, if someone named John Jones registered http://WalterCronkite.com and pointed it to one of “those” sites, Walter Cronkite could probably force the domain away from him.

However, if someone named Steve Cronkite registered http://Cronkite.com and did the same thing, Walter Cronkite would have no recourse. It would be very hard to demonstrate that Steve registered the domain in bad faith. And if Steve’s son’s name is Walter, the same is true for http://WalterCronkite.com.

If you feel that your name is likely to be typed into a browser when people are looking for information on you, you should consider getting both the .com and .net versions of the domain if they’re available.

It will cost you a few bucks to prevent the problem. Fixing it, assuming you win, will cost you hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars.

And there’s no guarantee you’ll win.

~~~

A third version is a bit more benign. It’s common among members of affiliate programs.

In this version names very close to, or even including, the trademark are registered. The sites are created to drive traffic to the affiliates’ URL at the main site.

This may or may not be acceptable to the affiliate program owner. If it is, it’s a good technique for getting traffic. If not, it could get you into hot water. Check with the owner of the trademark before doing this.

Less benign is an alternative version of this technique where someone grabs domain names that are close to the trademark of a competitor and uses them to grab competitor type-in traffic. This is often done by finding out the most common misspellings of the real domain name or trademark.

Watch for people doing this with your domain.

~~~

Here’s the worst version of this — and it can hit anyone if they have enough traffic and don’t pay close attention to when their domain registrations expire.

In this situation, someone grabs expired domain names and points them to “those” kinds of sites. This is a “no lose” for the hijacker, as they will profit from the traffic even if the previous owner doesn’t pay the requested ransom for the domain.

The more traffic the URL gets, the greater the clickthrough value to the hijacker. This means more potential damage to the original owner — and a higher ransom to get it back.

In effect, your own popularity is your worst enemy in this case.

The solution to this one is simple — and very important: Don’t let your domain names expire!

Useful Resources:
If you find yourself a victim of domain hijacking, there is hope for correcting the problem.

For a more formal explanation of the legal aspects of this problem, visit
http://www.llrx.com/congress/100200.htm

For specific information on the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy), the procedure for taking domain names that are being used in violation of a trademark, see
http://wipo2.wipo.int/process1/index.html

For information on taking action under the Anti-Cybersquatting Act (A US law that provides for damages in addition to the less severe penalties of the UDRP) see
http://www.domain-name.org/cybersquatact.htm

If you have a famous name or trademark, the best defense is to make sure that you register the main variations in both the .com and .net form. The .org is probably only necessary if you are heavily involved with charitable activities.

Protect yourself. Scammers come up with new schemes all the time…

So, keep your eyes open.

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