Domain Names Tutorial

What is a domain name? Quite simply, it is an easy to remember text name, such as topicguru.net, used to identify an Internet resource. Everything on the Internet has a numeric address, but people obviously prefer to give things meaningful names. For the common user a domain name generally refers to the name used to reach a web site. Using a name means that your web server can move to a different physical location, and hence an IP address, but the domain name can stay the same.

These days most people are familiar with the concept of buying a domain name. Domain names can be bought from any number of registrars. For basic domain name purchases I'd recommend just going with something like GoDaddy.com, which also offers economical hosting plans.

However, the domain name game goes much deeper than this. There are various strategies and schemes taking place that people are attempting to profit off of. While the term cybersquatting gave the practice a bad image there is nothing wrong with buying a domain name that doesn't purposely relate to a company or a trademark at the time of purchase.

Simple Domain Name Speculation
There are many people that buy domain names that they think up and then attempt to auction them off for profit. This can be difficult to do, but from time to time you may be struck with an inspiration or an opportunity and make some decent money. There are still domain names that sell for very large sums. It seems mostly to be a matter of having ownership of a domain that catches the interest of a group with deep pockets.

Personally, while I haven't made big sums, I have bought a domain name for several dollars and then later sold it off for several hundred dollars. The return is fantastic, but of course you never know when you might be able to sell a domain and you just can't plan on the price you'll get. You can count on holding onto most of the domains you purchase without ever finding a buyer for them. You'll end up paying a yearly fee for nothing.

Domain Parking
Some enterprising people park the domains they purchase. If they find an expired domain that still has links pointing to it, then the traffic that arrives at the page can earn revenue on a CPC basis. It isn't easy to do this because a lot of people are looking for such situations. One of the companies that allows you to park and also auction off your domains is SEDO.

Most parking sites allow you to suggest a keyword that you would like to associate with your domain. Obviously, you want to choose a keyword that you can earn revenues for. However, the people arriving at your site must find the ads in place relevent to what they expect to find on your site or your click through rate will be very low. Generally, some type of category chaser style advertising will be displayed, allowing the arriving person to either click on the default material or conduct a "search" and click on newly generated results.

Domain Name Kiting
This is a black hat activity carried out by some fairly large organizations. What they do is register a large quantity of domains, so that they can be parked, but then cancel the registrations within the five day refund deadline. If they are sophisticated, they find domains that are worth actually purchasing and then hold on to those ones.

The problem with this practice is that millions of expired domain names can be snapped up over and over again. They are not available for legitimate registration during this activity and it leaves the general Internet user locked out of acquiring most of the domain names that are expiring. However, due to the quantity of expiring domains, these groups can't register all of them and many do in fact slip through the cracks.

If you search for them you will find various companies that allow you access to lists of domains that are going to be expiring soon. Some of these lists are free and some are paid. Basically, the paid sites do extra processing and analysis to determine which domains have traffic and perhaps some left over Google PageRank. They'll tell you how many backlinks are present in the major search engines also.

Domain Name Professionals Forum
If you are getting very serious about the domain name game, then I can only suggest that you register at one of the forum sites that serves this industry. While access to some areas requires payment you'll still learn a ton if you spend some time reading up on the threads at Dnforum.

Only after spending some time there should you venture into this area. You'll learn about what domains are worth money. You'll learn what self-declared professionals feel about the services offered by various registrars and parking companies. You'll pick up on strategies and ideas that they are willing to share with you. Basically, if anyone has some secrets that are really valuable, you can bet that they won't be too likely to tell everyone about it.

So, from here you are on your own. Check out the resources I've linked to. They are a good starting point and will lead you to much more.