https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/ Sat, 09 May 2026 03:06:16 +0000 MyBB https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=203 Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:31:28 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=203 Common rules

1. Only one account per person is permitted.
2. Do not pretend to be/represent somebody else. Your account will be deleted if found to be in breach of this rule.
3. When registering, a valid email address has to be used. Disposable email addresses are not permitted. If found, we will remove the account in question.
4. Keep all posts on-topic.
5. All posts must be in English, unless posted in a specific international forum. If posting in a international forum, please use the language of that forum, and not English.
6. DO NOT SEND SUPPORT REQUESTS VIA PM, unless expressly invited to do so. Using PM to actively solicit work is not allowed. Post, in accord with the rules in the correct forum. Abuse of the PM system in this way can lead to your membership being removed.
7. Do not discuss illegal activities.
8. No useless posts. This includes: Thread bumping, useless one liners, repeated requests about new versions, Flamewars, Trolling and Spamming.
9. Do not propose/link to any site that contains warez/copyrighted software/materials that can be downloaded illegally.
10. Do not link to any site that contains adult content, sexually oriented material or might otherwise be considered offensive. Any post containing an inappropriate link will be deleted and the poster will receive a warning.

At all times

1. Keep all commentary civil, and be courteous at all times. Constructive criticism is welcome, but insults directed towards other users or the site admins will not be tolerated. Coarse/insulting language will not be tolerated.
2. Choose an appropriate subject line. Try to summarise the problem briefly in the subject, and elaborate in the message itself. A title like "Have you seen this..." or "Help needed!!!!" will be deleted.
3. Spend 10 minutes with the admin panel before posting common sense questions like "How do I see orders", or "How do I add products". If you go through each admin menu you will find all you need to know about the basic features.
4. Search before posting. You may need to search multiple variation of the terms.
5. Any posts deemed to be self promotion, advertising, or spam can and will be removed. NO SPAM - NO ADVERTISING eg. Posting and making excessive, inappropriate and unnecessary references to your products and websites is self promotion.
6. Don't lump sum mods and inquiries in one post. People asking for help and at the same time attaching a contribution should be avoided. Contributions go in the contrib thread. Help goes in one of the support threads, based on the affected element (modules, templates, languages, general, etc).
7. Bugs go into the bug area ONLY after you have searched the bug forum and found nothing similar.
8. Hijacking threads because you feel the need to whine or complain about your personal opinions that have nothing to do with the main topic of the thread will be instantly deleted at will!
9. If you feel a post violates any of these rules, or you need to bring it to the attention of a moderator (move threads/close/split), please use the ‘report this post’ link to notify the moderators.

Signatures & Avatars

1. Must be setup in your Profile (user Control Panel) , and not manually added to your messages.
2. May not contain any pricing, sales, product etc. details.
3. Only exact URLs allowed ie not LOOK HERE - No tinyurls, affiliate links etc either, only exact, literal URLs
4. Maximum font size should not be larger than normal +1.
5. Signature shall not have more than 4 lines (at a line width of 75 chars).
6. Any signature or avatar that is offensive or insulting to either us, our members, or our staff, is prohibited.
7. Signature size should not exceed the maximum size of 60 x 180 px (height x width).
8. Avatar size should not exceed the maximum size of 75 x 75 px (height x width).
9. Signature & Avatar images may not contain any copyright material (e.g. trademarks)
10. We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your signature or avatar at any time, for any reason.

Failure to abide by these rules may result in an editing, negative moderation or deletion of your post.
We reserve the right to ban users from the site.
We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.]]> Common rules

1. Only one account per person is permitted.
2. Do not pretend to be/represent somebody else. Your account will be deleted if found to be in breach of this rule.
3. When registering, a valid email address has to be used. Disposable email addresses are not permitted. If found, we will remove the account in question.
4. Keep all posts on-topic.
5. All posts must be in English, unless posted in a specific international forum. If posting in a international forum, please use the language of that forum, and not English.
6. DO NOT SEND SUPPORT REQUESTS VIA PM, unless expressly invited to do so. Using PM to actively solicit work is not allowed. Post, in accord with the rules in the correct forum. Abuse of the PM system in this way can lead to your membership being removed.
7. Do not discuss illegal activities.
8. No useless posts. This includes: Thread bumping, useless one liners, repeated requests about new versions, Flamewars, Trolling and Spamming.
9. Do not propose/link to any site that contains warez/copyrighted software/materials that can be downloaded illegally.
10. Do not link to any site that contains adult content, sexually oriented material or might otherwise be considered offensive. Any post containing an inappropriate link will be deleted and the poster will receive a warning.

At all times

1. Keep all commentary civil, and be courteous at all times. Constructive criticism is welcome, but insults directed towards other users or the site admins will not be tolerated. Coarse/insulting language will not be tolerated.
2. Choose an appropriate subject line. Try to summarise the problem briefly in the subject, and elaborate in the message itself. A title like "Have you seen this..." or "Help needed!!!!" will be deleted.
3. Spend 10 minutes with the admin panel before posting common sense questions like "How do I see orders", or "How do I add products". If you go through each admin menu you will find all you need to know about the basic features.
4. Search before posting. You may need to search multiple variation of the terms.
5. Any posts deemed to be self promotion, advertising, or spam can and will be removed. NO SPAM - NO ADVERTISING eg. Posting and making excessive, inappropriate and unnecessary references to your products and websites is self promotion.
6. Don't lump sum mods and inquiries in one post. People asking for help and at the same time attaching a contribution should be avoided. Contributions go in the contrib thread. Help goes in one of the support threads, based on the affected element (modules, templates, languages, general, etc).
7. Bugs go into the bug area ONLY after you have searched the bug forum and found nothing similar.
8. Hijacking threads because you feel the need to whine or complain about your personal opinions that have nothing to do with the main topic of the thread will be instantly deleted at will!
9. If you feel a post violates any of these rules, or you need to bring it to the attention of a moderator (move threads/close/split), please use the ‘report this post’ link to notify the moderators.

Signatures & Avatars

1. Must be setup in your Profile (user Control Panel) , and not manually added to your messages.
2. May not contain any pricing, sales, product etc. details.
3. Only exact URLs allowed ie not LOOK HERE - No tinyurls, affiliate links etc either, only exact, literal URLs
4. Maximum font size should not be larger than normal +1.
5. Signature shall not have more than 4 lines (at a line width of 75 chars).
6. Any signature or avatar that is offensive or insulting to either us, our members, or our staff, is prohibited.
7. Signature size should not exceed the maximum size of 60 x 180 px (height x width).
8. Avatar size should not exceed the maximum size of 75 x 75 px (height x width).
9. Signature & Avatar images may not contain any copyright material (e.g. trademarks)
10. We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your signature or avatar at any time, for any reason.

Failure to abide by these rules may result in an editing, negative moderation or deletion of your post.
We reserve the right to ban users from the site.
We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=154 Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:45:02 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=154
Recurring Fees

Firstly we have the obvious model, where users are charged a set fee for membership to access a product, for example on a monthly or annual basis. This method is good when the user will continue to use the product, for example if your content is the product then you will need to update your content regularly to keep users returning and paying for their membership. So for example, if you were selling access to a book then a monthly fee would not be suitable because once the user has read or downloaded the book they would no doubt discontinue payment - in this case, a one-time fee is more appropriate.

One Time Fees

If you are selling a product which is only used once, or for example when a user would only need to access the content once, then a one time fee may be more suitable, since if the user is unlikely to return to use the product or view the content then they will be unlikely to want to maintain regularly payments or membership.

Trial Memberships

Another model is the free trial, this is where we offer users a free period of membership, where they are given access to the product for a set period of time, free of charge or at a reduced cost. Then once the trial is over, the user is required to pay in order to continue accessing the content. This membership model is ideal if the product or service is one users are likely to build a reliance on, for example offering a trial of a product for building a web site, then once the user has built their web site around the product they need it to continue maintaining the site, and therefore must pay the fee after the membership trial. This membership model is also good for attracting customers and allowing them to try a product before committing to pay.

Conclusion[/b]

The model you choose all depends on the products you have and often it makes sense to use multiple models for different products, the key is to choose the right membership models which will attract the most customers to use your products and services.]]>
Recurring Fees

Firstly we have the obvious model, where users are charged a set fee for membership to access a product, for example on a monthly or annual basis. This method is good when the user will continue to use the product, for example if your content is the product then you will need to update your content regularly to keep users returning and paying for their membership. So for example, if you were selling access to a book then a monthly fee would not be suitable because once the user has read or downloaded the book they would no doubt discontinue payment - in this case, a one-time fee is more appropriate.

One Time Fees

If you are selling a product which is only used once, or for example when a user would only need to access the content once, then a one time fee may be more suitable, since if the user is unlikely to return to use the product or view the content then they will be unlikely to want to maintain regularly payments or membership.

Trial Memberships

Another model is the free trial, this is where we offer users a free period of membership, where they are given access to the product for a set period of time, free of charge or at a reduced cost. Then once the trial is over, the user is required to pay in order to continue accessing the content. This membership model is ideal if the product or service is one users are likely to build a reliance on, for example offering a trial of a product for building a web site, then once the user has built their web site around the product they need it to continue maintaining the site, and therefore must pay the fee after the membership trial. This membership model is also good for attracting customers and allowing them to try a product before committing to pay.

Conclusion[/b]

The model you choose all depends on the products you have and often it makes sense to use multiple models for different products, the key is to choose the right membership models which will attract the most customers to use your products and services.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=142 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:22:00 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=142
FREE! 1 Year Extension Included.

We will add one year to the current expiry date of your domain name for no additional cost. For example, if your domain expires on 5th Nov 2006 and you place a Transfer request on 17th Sept 2006 then after the transfer is complete, the new expiry date of your domain name will be 5th Nov 2007 i.e. you will not lose anytime even if you choose to transfer months before your domains expiry date.

All Transfers are Seamless.

Your domain name's name servers are not altered anytime during the transfer process, hence your domain will not face ANY downtime during this process.

Once the transfer order is placed, the administrative contact of each domain name for which you have placed a transfer request will receive an email, which asks for confirmation of such transfer. You would need to click on a link inside each of these emails for the transfer request to be sent to the registry. The losing registrar in almost all cases will send you emails asking for confirmation per domain name - you can typically choose to ignore these emails.

IMPORTANT:

If your domain expired with your old Registrar, and you renewed it with them, then do not Transfer it within 45 days of the previous expiry date since it will not add 1 more year to your domain name, and you will lose out on the Renewal fees paid to the older Registrar.

ICANN & Registry regulations prohibit the transfer of domain names that have been registered or previously transferred within the last 60 Days. Please wait for 60 days from the date of registration or previous transfer before applying for a transfer of such domain names.

Check if your Domain Name can be Transferred

There are various cases where a Domain Name MAY NOT be Transferable to another Registrar. This could happen in the following circumstances:

Domain Name is less than 60 days Old

If the Domain Name you are trying to Transfer is less than 60 days old, the request will get rejected by the Registry itself. Domain Names less than 60 days old are not allowed to be Transferred to any other Registrar as per ICANN Guidelines.

Domain Name has been Transferred less than 60 days ago

A Domain Name cannot be Transferred to another Registrar within 60 days of a previous Transfer. For example, a Domain Name cannot be Transferred from Registrar B to Registrar C, if it has been Transferred to Registrar B from Registrar A within the last 60 days. An exception to this rule is the Transfer back to the previous Registrar in cases where both Registrars so agree and/or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs.

You have Locked your Domain Name

If you have Locked your Domain Name from the Control Panel provided by the current Registrar, then a Transfer Request for that Domain Name will not be allowed. You will first have to unlock the Domain Name from the Control Panel and then proceed with a Transfer Request.

Your Registrar has applied a Lock or Hold on your Domain Name

If the current Registrar has applied a Lock or Hold on the Domain Name due to some pending issue, you would be advised to get in touch with their (current Registrar's) Support Team to resolve this issue, before applying for a Transfer.

If the Domain Name is in the Redemption Grace Period or in the Pending Delete status, the Domain Name can not be Transferred.

Third level .ME domain names cannot be Transferred since Registrar Me-Net is the only Registrar through which Third level .ME domain names can be registered/managed. However, no such restriction applies to Second level .ME domain names.

IMPORTANT

.EU Domain Name

If you are trying to Transfer a .EU Domain Name, only condition (e) will be applicable. This is because the .EU Registry does not support any Lock/Suspension feature. There is also no 60day Registration/Transfer Lock.

UK Domain Name

A .UK Domain Name can be Renewed upto 97 days after its Expiry, post which the Domain Name would be automatically Deleted by the .UK Registry. There is no restriction on Transferring a .UK Domain Name during this period. However, you need to ensure that there is sufficient time prior to Deletion, so that the Domain Name can be Renewed with the new Registrar once the Transfer process gets completed successfully. This is because Transfer of a .UK Domain Name does not include one year Renewal.

Apart from this, none of conditions listed above apply to the Transfer of a . UK Domain Name. This is because the .UK Registry does not support any Lock/Suspension/60 day Registration or Transfer Lock and there is no concept of a Redemption Grace Period in case of a .UK Domain Name.

.WS Domain Name

The .WS Registry does not support Transfer of Domain Names between Registrars. Hence, a .WS Domain Name cannot be Transferred under any circumstance.]]>
FREE! 1 Year Extension Included.

We will add one year to the current expiry date of your domain name for no additional cost. For example, if your domain expires on 5th Nov 2006 and you place a Transfer request on 17th Sept 2006 then after the transfer is complete, the new expiry date of your domain name will be 5th Nov 2007 i.e. you will not lose anytime even if you choose to transfer months before your domains expiry date.

All Transfers are Seamless.

Your domain name's name servers are not altered anytime during the transfer process, hence your domain will not face ANY downtime during this process.

Once the transfer order is placed, the administrative contact of each domain name for which you have placed a transfer request will receive an email, which asks for confirmation of such transfer. You would need to click on a link inside each of these emails for the transfer request to be sent to the registry. The losing registrar in almost all cases will send you emails asking for confirmation per domain name - you can typically choose to ignore these emails.

IMPORTANT:

If your domain expired with your old Registrar, and you renewed it with them, then do not Transfer it within 45 days of the previous expiry date since it will not add 1 more year to your domain name, and you will lose out on the Renewal fees paid to the older Registrar.

ICANN & Registry regulations prohibit the transfer of domain names that have been registered or previously transferred within the last 60 Days. Please wait for 60 days from the date of registration or previous transfer before applying for a transfer of such domain names.

Check if your Domain Name can be Transferred

There are various cases where a Domain Name MAY NOT be Transferable to another Registrar. This could happen in the following circumstances:

Domain Name is less than 60 days Old

If the Domain Name you are trying to Transfer is less than 60 days old, the request will get rejected by the Registry itself. Domain Names less than 60 days old are not allowed to be Transferred to any other Registrar as per ICANN Guidelines.

Domain Name has been Transferred less than 60 days ago

A Domain Name cannot be Transferred to another Registrar within 60 days of a previous Transfer. For example, a Domain Name cannot be Transferred from Registrar B to Registrar C, if it has been Transferred to Registrar B from Registrar A within the last 60 days. An exception to this rule is the Transfer back to the previous Registrar in cases where both Registrars so agree and/or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs.

You have Locked your Domain Name

If you have Locked your Domain Name from the Control Panel provided by the current Registrar, then a Transfer Request for that Domain Name will not be allowed. You will first have to unlock the Domain Name from the Control Panel and then proceed with a Transfer Request.

Your Registrar has applied a Lock or Hold on your Domain Name

If the current Registrar has applied a Lock or Hold on the Domain Name due to some pending issue, you would be advised to get in touch with their (current Registrar's) Support Team to resolve this issue, before applying for a Transfer.

If the Domain Name is in the Redemption Grace Period or in the Pending Delete status, the Domain Name can not be Transferred.

Third level .ME domain names cannot be Transferred since Registrar Me-Net is the only Registrar through which Third level .ME domain names can be registered/managed. However, no such restriction applies to Second level .ME domain names.

IMPORTANT

.EU Domain Name

If you are trying to Transfer a .EU Domain Name, only condition (e) will be applicable. This is because the .EU Registry does not support any Lock/Suspension feature. There is also no 60day Registration/Transfer Lock.

UK Domain Name

A .UK Domain Name can be Renewed upto 97 days after its Expiry, post which the Domain Name would be automatically Deleted by the .UK Registry. There is no restriction on Transferring a .UK Domain Name during this period. However, you need to ensure that there is sufficient time prior to Deletion, so that the Domain Name can be Renewed with the new Registrar once the Transfer process gets completed successfully. This is because Transfer of a .UK Domain Name does not include one year Renewal.

Apart from this, none of conditions listed above apply to the Transfer of a . UK Domain Name. This is because the .UK Registry does not support any Lock/Suspension/60 day Registration or Transfer Lock and there is no concept of a Redemption Grace Period in case of a .UK Domain Name.

.WS Domain Name

The .WS Registry does not support Transfer of Domain Names between Registrars. Hence, a .WS Domain Name cannot be Transferred under any circumstance.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=141 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:18:18 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=141
NOTE: This is not a complete list.

.ASIA 1-10 yrs 5 days Requires a Charter Eligibility Declaration (CED). Open to anyone who can meet the CED requirement.

.BIZ 1-10 yrs 5 days gTLD dedicated exclusively to the business community. The .BIZ domain can only be used for a "bona fide business or commercial use".

.COM 1-10 yrs 5 days Short for .commercial. Domain names with the .com extension are by far the most popular, and can be purchased by any individual or business.

.INFO 1-10 yrs 5 days The first unrestricted top-level domain since .com, .info domains are available to the general public.

.MOBI 1-10 yrs 5 days .Mobi is the only TLD dedicated to the unique needs of mobile web users. Visitors can trust that a website is compatible with their mobile device if it ends in .mobi.

Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD)

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory. ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs. Creation and delegation of ccTLDs is performed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and with certain exceptions noted below corresponds to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency.

.NAME 1-10 yrs 5 days Available to the general public, .name email addresses are listed as firstname@lastname.name or lastname@firstname.name, while Web sites are listed as www.firstname.lastname.name.

.NET 1-10 yrs 5 days Short for .network, this domain extension was originally designed to be used by technical Web sites. However, domains using this extension can be registered by anyone.

.ORG 1-10 yrs 5 days When you buy a .ORG, your organisation is linked to a well established brand of trust and integrity. One of the original top-level domains (TLDs), .ORG became the registry of choice for organsations dedicated to serving the public interest, and today .ORG is considered one of the most trusted domains on the internet.

Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD)

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory. ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs. Creation and delegation of ccTLDs is performed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and with certain exceptions noted below corresponds to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency.

.AC 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.AT 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.BE 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.BZ 1-10 yrs The country-coded Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the country of Belize. Anyone in the world can register a .bz name.

.CA 1-10 yrs Canada's ccTLD. There are additional contact attributes required for the Canadian ccTLD.

.CC 1-10 yrs Top level domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Anyone in the world can register a .cc domain for any purpose.

.CN 1-10 yrs One of the hottest and fastest growing ccTLDs in the world is the .CN domain. As of January 2008, .CN has over 9 million registrations and ranks as the 4th largest TLD. According to figures reported by CNNIC in June, 2007, China now has 162 million Internet users or 12.3% of the country's total population, up from 137 million users in 2006.

.DE 1-10 yrs Germany's ccTLD The administrative contact must have a street address or P.O. box within Germany. .DE names require a minimum of 2 name servers. Please review our Registration Agreement for .DE specific legal information.

.EU 1 yr To register a .EU domain name, you must meet one of the following requirements:

Undertakings having their registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the European community; Organisations established within the European Community without prejudice to the application of national law; iii) Natural persons resident within the European Community

.GS 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.IN 1-5 yrs Top level domain for India. Anyone in the world can register a .in name.

.IO 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.IT 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD. Individual registrants may only register one .IT domain. Companies may register more, but must provide a tax ID number. Registrants must reside in the European Union.

.JP 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD. Please see terms and conditions during the registration process.

.LA 1 yr Open TLD, great for Los Angeles residents and businesses. Totally open TLD.

.ME 2-10 yrs 2 days One of the fastest growing ccTLDs of 2008 is the new .ME domain. .ME is used to personalize your web presence and make a statement by a name. Plus it is a great tool for both individuals and businesses to help people remember where to find them online.

.MS 1 yr WHOIS changes must be made at the Registry.

.NL 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD. You must fax in info after purchase to complete registration.

.NU 2-10 yrs "NU" means "NOW" in some European countries and is a very popular TLD. No restrictions and can be registered by anyone.

.NZ 1 yr The ccTLD for the country of New Zealand. There are no residency restrictions, these domains can be registered by anyone. These domains have special renewal restrictions. Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.SH 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.TC 1 yr WHOIS changes must be made at the Registry.

.TM 10 yrs Trade Mark

.TV 1-10 yrs 5 days .tv is the address for rich and dynamic

Country Code Second-Level Domain (ccSLD)

A country code second-level domain (ccSLD) is a second-level domain to a country code top-level domain. It may be set apart by the domain name registry for the registration of third-level domains or registered to a third party as a subdomain. Many registries reuse common top-level domain names at the second-level such as "com", "net" and "org", e.g. .com.sg.

.TV 1-10 yrs 5 days .tv is the address for rich and dynamic media on the web.

.TW 1-10 yrs 5 days Taiwan's ccTLD

.US 1-10 yrs 5 days Note: You must meet all the .US Nexus registration requirements to register a name in the .US TLD.

CO.UK 2 yrs 5 days Currently, contact information modifications are not immediate. .UK names require a minimum of 2 name servers. Name servers hanges/updates may take up to half an hour. A renewal cannot be issued until at least five (5) months prior to the domain's expiration date and effects of a renewal do not occur instantly.

.VG 1 yr WHOIS changes must be made at the Registry.

.WS 1-10 yrs The country-coded Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the country of Western Samoa but branded as WebSite. Anyone in the world can register a .WS name.

.BR.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Brazil.

.CN.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for China.

.DE.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Germany.

.EU.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Europe.

.HU.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Hungary.

.NO.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Norway.

.QC.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Quebec.

.RU.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for the Russian Federation.

.SA.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Saudi Arabia.

.SE.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Sweden.

.UK.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for the United Kingdom.

.US.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for the United States.

.UY.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Uruguay.

.ZA.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for South Africa.

.COM.MX 2 yrs Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.UK.NET 2 yrs 2nd Level Domain for the United Kingdom.

.SE.NET 2 yrs 2nd Level Domain for Sweden.

.KIDS.US 1-5 yrs .KIDS.US.]]>
NOTE: This is not a complete list.

.ASIA 1-10 yrs 5 days Requires a Charter Eligibility Declaration (CED). Open to anyone who can meet the CED requirement.

.BIZ 1-10 yrs 5 days gTLD dedicated exclusively to the business community. The .BIZ domain can only be used for a "bona fide business or commercial use".

.COM 1-10 yrs 5 days Short for .commercial. Domain names with the .com extension are by far the most popular, and can be purchased by any individual or business.

.INFO 1-10 yrs 5 days The first unrestricted top-level domain since .com, .info domains are available to the general public.

.MOBI 1-10 yrs 5 days .Mobi is the only TLD dedicated to the unique needs of mobile web users. Visitors can trust that a website is compatible with their mobile device if it ends in .mobi.

Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD)

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory. ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs. Creation and delegation of ccTLDs is performed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and with certain exceptions noted below corresponds to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency.

.NAME 1-10 yrs 5 days Available to the general public, .name email addresses are listed as firstname@lastname.name or lastname@firstname.name, while Web sites are listed as www.firstname.lastname.name.

.NET 1-10 yrs 5 days Short for .network, this domain extension was originally designed to be used by technical Web sites. However, domains using this extension can be registered by anyone.

.ORG 1-10 yrs 5 days When you buy a .ORG, your organisation is linked to a well established brand of trust and integrity. One of the original top-level domains (TLDs), .ORG became the registry of choice for organsations dedicated to serving the public interest, and today .ORG is considered one of the most trusted domains on the internet.

Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD)

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory. ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs. Creation and delegation of ccTLDs is performed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and with certain exceptions noted below corresponds to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency.

.AC 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.AT 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.BE 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.BZ 1-10 yrs The country-coded Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the country of Belize. Anyone in the world can register a .bz name.

.CA 1-10 yrs Canada's ccTLD. There are additional contact attributes required for the Canadian ccTLD.

.CC 1-10 yrs Top level domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Anyone in the world can register a .cc domain for any purpose.

.CN 1-10 yrs One of the hottest and fastest growing ccTLDs in the world is the .CN domain. As of January 2008, .CN has over 9 million registrations and ranks as the 4th largest TLD. According to figures reported by CNNIC in June, 2007, China now has 162 million Internet users or 12.3% of the country's total population, up from 137 million users in 2006.

.DE 1-10 yrs Germany's ccTLD The administrative contact must have a street address or P.O. box within Germany. .DE names require a minimum of 2 name servers. Please review our Registration Agreement for .DE specific legal information.

.EU 1 yr To register a .EU domain name, you must meet one of the following requirements:

Undertakings having their registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the European community; Organisations established within the European Community without prejudice to the application of national law; iii) Natural persons resident within the European Community

.GS 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.IN 1-5 yrs Top level domain for India. Anyone in the world can register a .in name.

.IO 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.IT 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD. Individual registrants may only register one .IT domain. Companies may register more, but must provide a tax ID number. Registrants must reside in the European Union.

.JP 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD. Please see terms and conditions during the registration process.

.LA 1 yr Open TLD, great for Los Angeles residents and businesses. Totally open TLD.

.ME 2-10 yrs 2 days One of the fastest growing ccTLDs of 2008 is the new .ME domain. .ME is used to personalize your web presence and make a statement by a name. Plus it is a great tool for both individuals and businesses to help people remember where to find them online.

.MS 1 yr WHOIS changes must be made at the Registry.

.NL 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD. You must fax in info after purchase to complete registration.

.NU 2-10 yrs "NU" means "NOW" in some European countries and is a very popular TLD. No restrictions and can be registered by anyone.

.NZ 1 yr The ccTLD for the country of New Zealand. There are no residency restrictions, these domains can be registered by anyone. These domains have special renewal restrictions. Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.SH 1 yr Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.TC 1 yr WHOIS changes must be made at the Registry.

.TM 10 yrs Trade Mark

.TV 1-10 yrs 5 days .tv is the address for rich and dynamic

Country Code Second-Level Domain (ccSLD)

A country code second-level domain (ccSLD) is a second-level domain to a country code top-level domain. It may be set apart by the domain name registry for the registration of third-level domains or registered to a third party as a subdomain. Many registries reuse common top-level domain names at the second-level such as "com", "net" and "org", e.g. .com.sg.

.TV 1-10 yrs 5 days .tv is the address for rich and dynamic media on the web.

.TW 1-10 yrs 5 days Taiwan's ccTLD

.US 1-10 yrs 5 days Note: You must meet all the .US Nexus registration requirements to register a name in the .US TLD.

CO.UK 2 yrs 5 days Currently, contact information modifications are not immediate. .UK names require a minimum of 2 name servers. Name servers hanges/updates may take up to half an hour. A renewal cannot be issued until at least five (5) months prior to the domain's expiration date and effects of a renewal do not occur instantly.

.VG 1 yr WHOIS changes must be made at the Registry.

.WS 1-10 yrs The country-coded Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the country of Western Samoa but branded as WebSite. Anyone in the world can register a .WS name.

.BR.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Brazil.

.CN.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for China.

.DE.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Germany.

.EU.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Europe.

.HU.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Hungary.

.NO.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Norway.

.QC.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Quebec.

.RU.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for the Russian Federation.

.SA.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Saudi Arabia.

.SE.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Sweden.

.UK.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for the United Kingdom.

.US.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for the United States.

.UY.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for Uruguay.

.ZA.COM 2yr 2nd Level Domain for South Africa.

.COM.MX 2 yrs Special renewal terms exist for this TLD.

.UK.NET 2 yrs 2nd Level Domain for the United Kingdom.

.SE.NET 2 yrs 2nd Level Domain for Sweden.

.KIDS.US 1-5 yrs .KIDS.US.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=138 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:19:16 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=138
When the new suffix went live on 17 July, over 50,000 domain names were registered in just two days. This created a running total of 80,000 registrations, including pre-registered names.

However, not everything went according to plan, so we here. Technical glitches at domain reseller GoDaddy meant that several people were able to `register' the same domains, including the much sought-after www.aweso.me. A search of Twitter reveals a dozen or more punters claiming to have their hands on the prize. The domain still fails to resolve at the time of writing and a whois search fails to return registration details. GoDaddy issued an apology after setting the blogosphere alight with indignation, apologising for connectivity issues caused by high traffic volume. Nevertheless, the company claimed a triumph, issuing a press release trumpeting 20,000 registrations in the first 24 hours of the suffix's availability.

Ultimately though, is a .me domain name worth it? Anecdotal evidence suggests that casual web users in the UK still expect web addresses to terminate in .com, with .co.uk coming a close second. There are few high profile sites that dare to deviate from this norm, but exceptions suggest that it's not the domain but the site and its content that count in the end.

If the domain name aweso.me is coupled with a globally useful service, it will trip off the fingertips. It would be a waste for it to end up as a vanity site or the gateway to a local furniture warehouse.]]>
When the new suffix went live on 17 July, over 50,000 domain names were registered in just two days. This created a running total of 80,000 registrations, including pre-registered names.

However, not everything went according to plan, so we here. Technical glitches at domain reseller GoDaddy meant that several people were able to `register' the same domains, including the much sought-after www.aweso.me. A search of Twitter reveals a dozen or more punters claiming to have their hands on the prize. The domain still fails to resolve at the time of writing and a whois search fails to return registration details. GoDaddy issued an apology after setting the blogosphere alight with indignation, apologising for connectivity issues caused by high traffic volume. Nevertheless, the company claimed a triumph, issuing a press release trumpeting 20,000 registrations in the first 24 hours of the suffix's availability.

Ultimately though, is a .me domain name worth it? Anecdotal evidence suggests that casual web users in the UK still expect web addresses to terminate in .com, with .co.uk coming a close second. There are few high profile sites that dare to deviate from this norm, but exceptions suggest that it's not the domain but the site and its content that count in the end.

If the domain name aweso.me is coupled with a globally useful service, it will trip off the fingertips. It would be a waste for it to end up as a vanity site or the gateway to a local furniture warehouse.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=136 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:16:58 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=136
A custom domain will come at a hefty price when the first applications are processed in April or May 2009. While we're used to buying domain names now for a few pounds, creating a custom TLD will require a six-figure sum.

Even so, there's likely to be a gold rush period when the application dates are first announced, as organisations rush to register the most lucrative domains. Though cyber-squatters are now routinely thwarted by international trademark and intellectual property law, it will still be interesting to see the battle over disputed marks like Under the new rules, successful applicants will take on the mantel of a domain registry and be able to administrate the use of their custom domain. ICANN has already suggested that local organisations might use this to set up and administrate highly specific registries. "There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain like .nyc, .berlin and .paris," an ICANN statement confirms.

There are also a range of new opportunities here, with businesses having the option of setting up their own mini-registry with a handful of choice, custom TLDs. As the chairman of ICANN suggested after the announcement, this is a "historic resolution".]]>
A custom domain will come at a hefty price when the first applications are processed in April or May 2009. While we're used to buying domain names now for a few pounds, creating a custom TLD will require a six-figure sum.

Even so, there's likely to be a gold rush period when the application dates are first announced, as organisations rush to register the most lucrative domains. Though cyber-squatters are now routinely thwarted by international trademark and intellectual property law, it will still be interesting to see the battle over disputed marks like Under the new rules, successful applicants will take on the mantel of a domain registry and be able to administrate the use of their custom domain. ICANN has already suggested that local organisations might use this to set up and administrate highly specific registries. "There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain like .nyc, .berlin and .paris," an ICANN statement confirms.

There are also a range of new opportunities here, with businesses having the option of setting up their own mini-registry with a handful of choice, custom TLDs. As the chairman of ICANN suggested after the announcement, this is a "historic resolution".]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=135 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:16:11 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=135
To boost conversion of prospects and repeat purchasers, you need to get serious about the web experience you're offering. Working hard to really understand online buyer behaviour, then delivering more personalised messages to returning visitors, can pay dividends.

Start with your web analytics tool (like our VrStats.com), which will have full information on the proportion of returning visitors. Google Analytics also offers Visitor Loyalty and Regency reports.

You should determine your purchase latency or how Long on average (and how many visits) it takes between first visit and purchase.

Cookies offer a simple, practical approach to personalising visitors' experience. Easy Jet does this well for initial country selection. Four UK Premiership football teams use a similar approach, with a splash page for first-time visitors to highlight current promotions —funny how businesses in a sector tend to copy each other!

Getting a little more sophisticated, the CIPD (www.cipd.co.uk) has a personalisation container to welcome new visitors to the site, but gives different messages for repeat visitors or product recommendations for logged-in users.

Then there are tools like Touch Clarity, used by larger sites such as the UK banks Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds TSB, which automatically deliver personalised messages in containers on the home page or key product pages based on referring site, search key phrase, product pages browsed on previous visit and even browser platform.

Finally the Amazon 'customers who bought X also bought Y, recommendations still work 10 years since their introduction]]>
To boost conversion of prospects and repeat purchasers, you need to get serious about the web experience you're offering. Working hard to really understand online buyer behaviour, then delivering more personalised messages to returning visitors, can pay dividends.

Start with your web analytics tool (like our VrStats.com), which will have full information on the proportion of returning visitors. Google Analytics also offers Visitor Loyalty and Regency reports.

You should determine your purchase latency or how Long on average (and how many visits) it takes between first visit and purchase.

Cookies offer a simple, practical approach to personalising visitors' experience. Easy Jet does this well for initial country selection. Four UK Premiership football teams use a similar approach, with a splash page for first-time visitors to highlight current promotions —funny how businesses in a sector tend to copy each other!

Getting a little more sophisticated, the CIPD (www.cipd.co.uk) has a personalisation container to welcome new visitors to the site, but gives different messages for repeat visitors or product recommendations for logged-in users.

Then there are tools like Touch Clarity, used by larger sites such as the UK banks Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds TSB, which automatically deliver personalised messages in containers on the home page or key product pages based on referring site, search key phrase, product pages browsed on previous visit and even browser platform.

Finally the Amazon 'customers who bought X also bought Y, recommendations still work 10 years since their introduction]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=134 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:15:21 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=134
Use your keywords The more you use your keywords on your site, the higher the rank you'll achieve — and using your keywords in the domain name will give you a further ranking boost.

2 Tweak the URL Ensure page URLs are descriptive and use your commonly searched-for keywords to do this.

For example, instead of www.sportshopexampte. co.uk/shop.php?object=7&item=4&cat=7

use www.sportshop example.com/shoes/ tennis shoes.

3 Use sub-domains A sub-domain is part of a larger domain and can be used to assign a unique name to a department. Google views them as separate websites, which enables you to capture an increased share of the search results page.

4 Go local Buy the top-level domain of the country your site is targeted at (co.uk, co.fr, etc).

5 Buy existing (or dropped) domains. Look for domain names with a high number of back links to take advantage of their Page Rank. Google also takes into account a domain's age, so if you can buy an old name, you'll get a boost.

6 The right domain and good content If you can find a domain name with a keyword related to your site's topic, great — but remember that other SEO) techniques must be used as well. Adding relevant and up-to-date content to your site is invaluable for the search engines and will see your web profile lifted. Our site for example, uses its blog to keep our content fresh.]]>
Use your keywords The more you use your keywords on your site, the higher the rank you'll achieve — and using your keywords in the domain name will give you a further ranking boost.

2 Tweak the URL Ensure page URLs are descriptive and use your commonly searched-for keywords to do this.

For example, instead of www.sportshopexampte. co.uk/shop.php?object=7&item=4&cat=7

use www.sportshop example.com/shoes/ tennis shoes.

3 Use sub-domains A sub-domain is part of a larger domain and can be used to assign a unique name to a department. Google views them as separate websites, which enables you to capture an increased share of the search results page.

4 Go local Buy the top-level domain of the country your site is targeted at (co.uk, co.fr, etc).

5 Buy existing (or dropped) domains. Look for domain names with a high number of back links to take advantage of their Page Rank. Google also takes into account a domain's age, so if you can buy an old name, you'll get a boost.

6 The right domain and good content If you can find a domain name with a keyword related to your site's topic, great — but remember that other SEO) techniques must be used as well. Adding relevant and up-to-date content to your site is invaluable for the search engines and will see your web profile lifted. Our site for example, uses its blog to keep our content fresh.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=120 Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:29:35 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=120
Of course, there could be any number of reasons why your rankings might drop — and the reality is, you may never find out exactly why. But here are a few top tips if your rankings plummet. Waiting a while might be the best thing you can do. While the major engines are getting better than ever at ranking sites, fluctuations and algorithm shifts do occur. It could simply be that the search results are temporarily being delivered by another data server.

If your exposure is still low for terms you previously ranked well for, double- check your site's structure, usability, navigation and Look at your competition to see what they're doing differently, market trends, and evaluate who's linking to you. A mix of questionable links might be harming your credibility.

Ensure your site is free of anything resembling spammy text — consult Google's webmaster guidelines and sign up to its Webmaster Tools console. Upload an XML sitemap and look for any indexing errors that Googte flags up.

Most importantly, monitor the changes you make and the impact they have, and use it to your advantage when there's an upturn in your site's search engine success. Once you've found a search engine 'friendly fix, stick with a template that works and iterate incrementally.]]>
Of course, there could be any number of reasons why your rankings might drop — and the reality is, you may never find out exactly why. But here are a few top tips if your rankings plummet. Waiting a while might be the best thing you can do. While the major engines are getting better than ever at ranking sites, fluctuations and algorithm shifts do occur. It could simply be that the search results are temporarily being delivered by another data server.

If your exposure is still low for terms you previously ranked well for, double- check your site's structure, usability, navigation and Look at your competition to see what they're doing differently, market trends, and evaluate who's linking to you. A mix of questionable links might be harming your credibility.

Ensure your site is free of anything resembling spammy text — consult Google's webmaster guidelines and sign up to its Webmaster Tools console. Upload an XML sitemap and look for any indexing errors that Googte flags up.

Most importantly, monitor the changes you make and the impact they have, and use it to your advantage when there's an upturn in your site's search engine success. Once you've found a search engine 'friendly fix, stick with a template that works and iterate incrementally.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=118 Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:27:24 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=118
Generally, web analysts and site stakeholders use clearly identified goals and a few corresponding 'hard' conversion metrics to assess performance, but using a set of trended, softer metrics can help build a more rounded picture of visitor engagement.

Engagement metrics at their most basic are often considered in the context of average volume of pages viewed during a visit and the average amount of time taken to view them. This on its own has its problems. For instance, it doesn't answer the question of whether a visitor was engaged in the site in a positive or negative way.

As with so much in web analytics, some context is useful in assessing engagement. When looking at a set of engagement metrics over time, what happens to them when conversion to a desired goal increases? Do visitors that convert spend more or less time on your site? Do they view more or fewer pages than the average visitor? Is the site's bounce rate higher or lower? How often do they return to the site and at what intervals? In most cases a high bounce rate is bad but in some instances it may act as a filter, sorting the wheat from the chaff, leaving only the more interested or 'engaged' visitors.

Using segmentation to isolate and compare referring sources of traffic will also help in understanding which users are happily engaged with your site's content and which are less so — engagement metrics for new and repeat visitors may well differ. Alternatively, creating a segment using the combined benchmark data that's already been established for positive engagement can help in unearthing top referring sources and keywords to zero in on when developing an acquisition strategy.

Having a conversion benchmark provides a target to aim for; establishing an engagement protocol offers insight into what good and poor visitor behaviour looks like. But to truly understand engagement we must go beyond just web analytics and look at other sources of data.]]>
Generally, web analysts and site stakeholders use clearly identified goals and a few corresponding 'hard' conversion metrics to assess performance, but using a set of trended, softer metrics can help build a more rounded picture of visitor engagement.

Engagement metrics at their most basic are often considered in the context of average volume of pages viewed during a visit and the average amount of time taken to view them. This on its own has its problems. For instance, it doesn't answer the question of whether a visitor was engaged in the site in a positive or negative way.

As with so much in web analytics, some context is useful in assessing engagement. When looking at a set of engagement metrics over time, what happens to them when conversion to a desired goal increases? Do visitors that convert spend more or less time on your site? Do they view more or fewer pages than the average visitor? Is the site's bounce rate higher or lower? How often do they return to the site and at what intervals? In most cases a high bounce rate is bad but in some instances it may act as a filter, sorting the wheat from the chaff, leaving only the more interested or 'engaged' visitors.

Using segmentation to isolate and compare referring sources of traffic will also help in understanding which users are happily engaged with your site's content and which are less so — engagement metrics for new and repeat visitors may well differ. Alternatively, creating a segment using the combined benchmark data that's already been established for positive engagement can help in unearthing top referring sources and keywords to zero in on when developing an acquisition strategy.

Having a conversion benchmark provides a target to aim for; establishing an engagement protocol offers insight into what good and poor visitor behaviour looks like. But to truly understand engagement we must go beyond just web analytics and look at other sources of data.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=114 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 09:57:45 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=114
According to Nominet's 2007 Domain Name Industry Report, the global domain market has seen increasing growth rates over the last five years, with the total number of domain names now growing at a rate in excess of 30 per cent per annum compared to 10 per cent in 2002. There's an active market in buying, selling and storing domain names, with regular sales exceeding £100,000 and peak values reaching more than 1 million.

Based on current renewals trends revealed in the report, in the next two years alone, over 140,000 .co.uk domains will be re-registered in less than 10 seconds after they become available. This highlights the need for businesses and individuals to prioritise renewing their registrations. Failure to do so can result in your online brand identity being snapped up by someone else. One of clients has found this out to their cost. To buy back the domain name they allowed to expire would cost them $1600.

Our report showed that 70 per cent of owners renew their domain names and a large proportion do so well ahead of time, either a month (25 per cent), or a day (14 per cent) before they're due to expire. However, 14 per cent of businesses don't renew their domain name until the day after renewal is due. Of those who didn't renew, just under four per cent did not renew.

Renewing a .uk domain name is relatively easy and it's possible to do so up to six months before its expiry date. However, if the contact information associated with the domain name is out of date, your may not receive any renewal reminders from Nominet or from us.

Online disputes Cybersquatting is a significant problem for companies with well-known, established brands. It involves registering, trafficking in or using a domain name with the explicit intent to profit from a brand owner's goodwill or trademark, by offering to sell the domain name to the brand owner at an inflated price or making money from internet traffic accidentally landing on their page.

There have been developments over the last 10 years in the type of cybersquatting activity that occurs. For example, profitable results can be yielded from typosquatting. This is when a user makes typographical errors when inputting a website address into a web browser. Websites that are common misspellings of popular sites can contain pay-per-click ads from which the typosquatter will benefit each time a user clicks.

The result is that organisations (and individuals) are faced with a choice: protect the brand
at potentially significant cost or accept the infringement. While the UK is one of the more expensive countries in which to pursue litigation, the spectre of the time and money involved in protection means that small businesses are effectively disenfranchised from the court system.

Dispute resolution services are a viable alternative. Businesses can use these services as a cost-effective, efficient method of dealing with domain name disputes. There are various
online dispute resolution policies available to UK businesses, including Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) for .uk domain names and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for .com, .net and others.

These offer a quick alternative to the costly court process. For example, Nominet's procedure is founded on mediation and, if needed, an expert decision regarding the dispute. Nominet's team of mediators currently handles an estimated 13 per cent of all commercial mediations in the UK.

The success of mediation for online dispute resolution means it's possible for individuals and businesses to protect themselves from potential cyber threats cost-effectively. In addition, the lessons we've learned by administering the DRS are now being used in alternative dispute resolution services throughout our organisation and in providing advice to others worldwide:]]>
According to Nominet's 2007 Domain Name Industry Report, the global domain market has seen increasing growth rates over the last five years, with the total number of domain names now growing at a rate in excess of 30 per cent per annum compared to 10 per cent in 2002. There's an active market in buying, selling and storing domain names, with regular sales exceeding £100,000 and peak values reaching more than 1 million.

Based on current renewals trends revealed in the report, in the next two years alone, over 140,000 .co.uk domains will be re-registered in less than 10 seconds after they become available. This highlights the need for businesses and individuals to prioritise renewing their registrations. Failure to do so can result in your online brand identity being snapped up by someone else. One of clients has found this out to their cost. To buy back the domain name they allowed to expire would cost them $1600.

Our report showed that 70 per cent of owners renew their domain names and a large proportion do so well ahead of time, either a month (25 per cent), or a day (14 per cent) before they're due to expire. However, 14 per cent of businesses don't renew their domain name until the day after renewal is due. Of those who didn't renew, just under four per cent did not renew.

Renewing a .uk domain name is relatively easy and it's possible to do so up to six months before its expiry date. However, if the contact information associated with the domain name is out of date, your may not receive any renewal reminders from Nominet or from us.

Online disputes Cybersquatting is a significant problem for companies with well-known, established brands. It involves registering, trafficking in or using a domain name with the explicit intent to profit from a brand owner's goodwill or trademark, by offering to sell the domain name to the brand owner at an inflated price or making money from internet traffic accidentally landing on their page.

There have been developments over the last 10 years in the type of cybersquatting activity that occurs. For example, profitable results can be yielded from typosquatting. This is when a user makes typographical errors when inputting a website address into a web browser. Websites that are common misspellings of popular sites can contain pay-per-click ads from which the typosquatter will benefit each time a user clicks.

The result is that organisations (and individuals) are faced with a choice: protect the brand
at potentially significant cost or accept the infringement. While the UK is one of the more expensive countries in which to pursue litigation, the spectre of the time and money involved in protection means that small businesses are effectively disenfranchised from the court system.

Dispute resolution services are a viable alternative. Businesses can use these services as a cost-effective, efficient method of dealing with domain name disputes. There are various
online dispute resolution policies available to UK businesses, including Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) for .uk domain names and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for .com, .net and others.

These offer a quick alternative to the costly court process. For example, Nominet's procedure is founded on mediation and, if needed, an expert decision regarding the dispute. Nominet's team of mediators currently handles an estimated 13 per cent of all commercial mediations in the UK.

The success of mediation for online dispute resolution means it's possible for individuals and businesses to protect themselves from potential cyber threats cost-effectively. In addition, the lessons we've learned by administering the DRS are now being used in alternative dispute resolution services throughout our organisation and in providing advice to others worldwide:]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=107 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:24:46 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=107
 You have absolutely no history on which to base your keyword decisions.
 Your website has no history in Google's index.
 Your website has no inbound links.

If you were to ask around (for example, for advice on how to overcome these problems, the standard response you are likely to receive is that, until you have those incoming links in place, you're likely to fall victim to the "Google sandbox."

Reputedly, this sandbox is a staging area that lives somewhere on Google's servers, although there is some debate as to whether it actually exists. The theory is that new sites are sent to the sandbox until they age a little, at which time they are whether it actually exists. The theory is that new sites are sent to the sandbox until they age a little, at which time they are promoted to Google's regular index. If this much is true, clearly the sandbox represents a real obstacle for new web sites.

However, whether the sandbox exists or not isn't really the point -- what matters is that the effect of the Google sandbox exists.

In other words, the way the Google algorithm works leads to the hurdles that many people blame on the sandbox.

One standard approach to launching a new website is to publish the website, get some low-quality links, leave it for a year, and then come back to the site after it has an established history.

In the real world, though, it's not practical to just leave a website for a y ear -- you've got to do something. And I'm convinced that by performing good keyword research, creating good content, and soliciting high-quality inbound links, it's possible to develop new sites that quickly prove successful.

With this in mind, here's how I approach the launch of a new website:
1. Determine the primary keywords (and the hot issues).
2. Find authority sites.
3. Start publishing web content and attracting keyword-rich links.
4. Look for early evidence of search engine success -- no matter how small.

Determine the Primary Keywords (and the Hot Issues)

The success or failure of your website will depend on the quality of the research that you do. Start by looking for as many related or lateral keywords as you can find. For instance, if you were performing research for a comedy club, you could use Word tracker's lateral search to suggest related keywords such as "comedians," "comedy shows," "nightlife," "night clubs," "standup," "stand up comedy ," and so on.

This process will require you to be persistent and think outside the box a little. For example, after finding related words for comedy clubs, you should then apply the same process to keywords like "nightlife," "stand up," and so on. You'll need to spend some time and think laterally and creatively in order to build a collection of seed keywords.

Once you've compiled a comprehensive list, group them and compare their relative popularity.

Find Authority Web Sites

Authority sites are important for two reasons: they can tell you a lot about the market, and they can be a source of future links.

Once you've determined the authority sites for the industry you're targeting, look for trends, debates, and major issues upon which you may be able to piggyback. Then take those "big" keywords (the most popular terms) and perform a few searches -- not on Google's regular web search engine, but on Google News and Google Blog Search. This process will yield some very useful information.

For our comedy club example, you can use this information to:

 Become informed about the news in the comedy industry.
 Identify journalists from major news outlets that write about comedy.
 Identify specialist publications on comedy.
 Identify bloggers who really know the subject.

What we're trying to do here is map out the online marketplace around the focus of our research -- in this case, comedy.

As you work through this, keep a spreadsheet open that allows you to keep notes as you read. Include columns such as keywords, hot issues, authority sites, names, and content details.

Your next step is to sign up for the newsletters or RSS feeds published by the best of these sites. I'd also recommend setting up Google alerts for those big keywords.

After a week or so of immersing yourself in this world and devouring as much information related to your keywords as possible, pull all of your findings together and draw out the most pertinent information.

If you're performing this research for a client, now is a good time to meet with them and present your research in detail. Y our goals for this meeting are to give the client confidence that you really understand the industry you've been researching, and to gauge the client's reaction and thoughts about your approach. That feedback will guide you in the next step of your research -- starting to publish.

Start Publishing Web Content and Obtaining Keyword-rich Links

I always try and publish as early in the project's lifecycle as possible, in order to start building some history in Google's index and within the industry, and I recommend that you do the same. Of course, you should submit your site to all of the standard directories -- both general and industry specific -- but don't expect any great results initially.

To really give your site a kick-start, you should begin to explore one or two issues in depth. Focussing on these issues will provide a platform for you to start building your web presence. Consider our comedy club client again (actually a real client ofmine). While we chatted about this project, he mentioned in passing that he had just published a great video clip of one of his comedians dealing with a heckler in a funny and effective way. I immediately paid attention -- that's the sort of thing that can be built into a worthwhile piece of content.

I immediately did some searches on "heckle," "heckling," "dealing with heckling" and found over 1,500 videos on YouTube, over 240 current stories on Google News, and over 100,000 results in Google Blog Search. These results convinced me that heckling was a hot issue in the world of comedy.

So how can we put this to use? The answer is to spend a lot of time developing creative ideas for content around that topic – in this case, heckling.

Try this exercise yourself. As yourself questions like:

 How can I create something that is newsworthy ?
 How can I create an idea that will spread virally ?
 How can I build relationships with some of the bloggers and journalists in the industry ?
 How can I leverage user-generated content?

The formula I use to guide my thinking in this exercise is a simple one:

Keyword +Hot Issue = Content Idea

For the comedy club, you might come up with a content idea like "Comedy Club's Classic Heckler Put-Downs," where the keyword is "comedy club" and the hot issue is "putting down hecklers." You should invest a massive amount of time developing this simple idea into something creative and spectacular. Time spent developing great content that will bring in links will be time well spent; the tedious job of soliciting links is unlikely to be as effective, and the links usually turn out to be low quality anyway.

Once you've nailed your content, issue press releases about it on PRWeb.com, and contact bloggers and journalists that you identified during your initial research. This takes time but is certainly worth it.

Look for Early Evidence of Search Engine Success

Your early success may be minimal, but don't lose heart -- you'll now have some initial inbound links, some real visitors, and some search engine traffic.

Two important tasks now need to be addressed:

1. Look at the inbound links that your content has attracted. How can you build relationships with the people who have given you a link?
2. Look at the keywords that have brought you traffic. Take each keyword in turn and explore its long tail for more keywords that you can optimise on.

Here are some long tail keywords for the phrase comedy club.

Finally, remember that finding keywords and building links and traffic is not easy. Many people do give up. But to be successful, you really must push yourself the extra mile. In my next article, I'll look at the challenges faced when conducting research for sites that already exist. Until then, good luck with your keyword research!]]>
 You have absolutely no history on which to base your keyword decisions.
 Your website has no history in Google's index.
 Your website has no inbound links.

If you were to ask around (for example, for advice on how to overcome these problems, the standard response you are likely to receive is that, until you have those incoming links in place, you're likely to fall victim to the "Google sandbox."

Reputedly, this sandbox is a staging area that lives somewhere on Google's servers, although there is some debate as to whether it actually exists. The theory is that new sites are sent to the sandbox until they age a little, at which time they are whether it actually exists. The theory is that new sites are sent to the sandbox until they age a little, at which time they are promoted to Google's regular index. If this much is true, clearly the sandbox represents a real obstacle for new web sites.

However, whether the sandbox exists or not isn't really the point -- what matters is that the effect of the Google sandbox exists.

In other words, the way the Google algorithm works leads to the hurdles that many people blame on the sandbox.

One standard approach to launching a new website is to publish the website, get some low-quality links, leave it for a year, and then come back to the site after it has an established history.

In the real world, though, it's not practical to just leave a website for a y ear -- you've got to do something. And I'm convinced that by performing good keyword research, creating good content, and soliciting high-quality inbound links, it's possible to develop new sites that quickly prove successful.

With this in mind, here's how I approach the launch of a new website:
1. Determine the primary keywords (and the hot issues).
2. Find authority sites.
3. Start publishing web content and attracting keyword-rich links.
4. Look for early evidence of search engine success -- no matter how small.

Determine the Primary Keywords (and the Hot Issues)

The success or failure of your website will depend on the quality of the research that you do. Start by looking for as many related or lateral keywords as you can find. For instance, if you were performing research for a comedy club, you could use Word tracker's lateral search to suggest related keywords such as "comedians," "comedy shows," "nightlife," "night clubs," "standup," "stand up comedy ," and so on.

This process will require you to be persistent and think outside the box a little. For example, after finding related words for comedy clubs, you should then apply the same process to keywords like "nightlife," "stand up," and so on. You'll need to spend some time and think laterally and creatively in order to build a collection of seed keywords.

Once you've compiled a comprehensive list, group them and compare their relative popularity.

Find Authority Web Sites

Authority sites are important for two reasons: they can tell you a lot about the market, and they can be a source of future links.

Once you've determined the authority sites for the industry you're targeting, look for trends, debates, and major issues upon which you may be able to piggyback. Then take those "big" keywords (the most popular terms) and perform a few searches -- not on Google's regular web search engine, but on Google News and Google Blog Search. This process will yield some very useful information.

For our comedy club example, you can use this information to:

 Become informed about the news in the comedy industry.
 Identify journalists from major news outlets that write about comedy.
 Identify specialist publications on comedy.
 Identify bloggers who really know the subject.

What we're trying to do here is map out the online marketplace around the focus of our research -- in this case, comedy.

As you work through this, keep a spreadsheet open that allows you to keep notes as you read. Include columns such as keywords, hot issues, authority sites, names, and content details.

Your next step is to sign up for the newsletters or RSS feeds published by the best of these sites. I'd also recommend setting up Google alerts for those big keywords.

After a week or so of immersing yourself in this world and devouring as much information related to your keywords as possible, pull all of your findings together and draw out the most pertinent information.

If you're performing this research for a client, now is a good time to meet with them and present your research in detail. Y our goals for this meeting are to give the client confidence that you really understand the industry you've been researching, and to gauge the client's reaction and thoughts about your approach. That feedback will guide you in the next step of your research -- starting to publish.

Start Publishing Web Content and Obtaining Keyword-rich Links

I always try and publish as early in the project's lifecycle as possible, in order to start building some history in Google's index and within the industry, and I recommend that you do the same. Of course, you should submit your site to all of the standard directories -- both general and industry specific -- but don't expect any great results initially.

To really give your site a kick-start, you should begin to explore one or two issues in depth. Focussing on these issues will provide a platform for you to start building your web presence. Consider our comedy club client again (actually a real client ofmine). While we chatted about this project, he mentioned in passing that he had just published a great video clip of one of his comedians dealing with a heckler in a funny and effective way. I immediately paid attention -- that's the sort of thing that can be built into a worthwhile piece of content.

I immediately did some searches on "heckle," "heckling," "dealing with heckling" and found over 1,500 videos on YouTube, over 240 current stories on Google News, and over 100,000 results in Google Blog Search. These results convinced me that heckling was a hot issue in the world of comedy.

So how can we put this to use? The answer is to spend a lot of time developing creative ideas for content around that topic – in this case, heckling.

Try this exercise yourself. As yourself questions like:

 How can I create something that is newsworthy ?
 How can I create an idea that will spread virally ?
 How can I build relationships with some of the bloggers and journalists in the industry ?
 How can I leverage user-generated content?

The formula I use to guide my thinking in this exercise is a simple one:

Keyword +Hot Issue = Content Idea

For the comedy club, you might come up with a content idea like "Comedy Club's Classic Heckler Put-Downs," where the keyword is "comedy club" and the hot issue is "putting down hecklers." You should invest a massive amount of time developing this simple idea into something creative and spectacular. Time spent developing great content that will bring in links will be time well spent; the tedious job of soliciting links is unlikely to be as effective, and the links usually turn out to be low quality anyway.

Once you've nailed your content, issue press releases about it on PRWeb.com, and contact bloggers and journalists that you identified during your initial research. This takes time but is certainly worth it.

Look for Early Evidence of Search Engine Success

Your early success may be minimal, but don't lose heart -- you'll now have some initial inbound links, some real visitors, and some search engine traffic.

Two important tasks now need to be addressed:

1. Look at the inbound links that your content has attracted. How can you build relationships with the people who have given you a link?
2. Look at the keywords that have brought you traffic. Take each keyword in turn and explore its long tail for more keywords that you can optimise on.

Here are some long tail keywords for the phrase comedy club.

Finally, remember that finding keywords and building links and traffic is not easy. Many people do give up. But to be successful, you really must push yourself the extra mile. In my next article, I'll look at the challenges faced when conducting research for sites that already exist. Until then, good luck with your keyword research!]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=106 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:22:22 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=106 Negotiating to Buy or Sell a Domain

When I was building yourlocalpages.biz, I wanted to build it on a brandable domain. I made a list of several domains that I thought were great choices. If you limit yourself to one choice, or if you fall in love with a specific name, you lose your advantage over the sellers. If you have several options to choose from, it's much easier to walk away from the negotiations if you don't like the price.

When I was getting started, I began with a sizeable list of domains, made some initial enquires, and eventually whittled down my list to two choices: yourlocalpages.biz and jumboads.biz.

Domain brokerage services are another way to approach a transaction. On a number of occasions, we have acted as an agent for domain buyers and sellers who either lacked the time to conduct the negotiations or wished to remain anonymous. Depending upon who you are, or who you represent, the price of a domain that you want to purchase may easily slide up the scale behind the scenes, so it often makes sense to be represented by an independent party. Alternatively, you could create a portfolio website where you list domains for sale -- there's probably even a market for online estate agents which list domains for sale on behalf of others, like BigTicketDomains.com.

How to Avoid Being a Cybersquatter

Cybersquatting is one of the most controversial topics among domainers -- you can't have a conversation with a domainer for very long without cybersquatting being mentioned.

However, there is in fact much disagreement about exactly what cybersquatting entails. Most people would agree that if you register a domain with the word "Microsoft" in it, that would make you a cybersquatter. On the other hand, if you wanted to build a web site about a rainforest in South America, and included "Amazon" as part of the domain name, few people would
suggest that you were cybersquatting.

The grey area lies around cases where someone registers a domain with "Amazon" in it, but doesn't develop it -- instead, they attempt to play off Amazon.com's brand. Is it cybersquatting if you were to register AmazonBooks.com and then try to sell books about the rainforest?

Beyond Dot Com

Based on the examples we have used so far in this blog, you've probably noticed my heavy predilection toward buying .com domains. Do I also recommend buying domains with a different TLD? Certainly we include a good number of and .org domains in our own portfolio. There are a number of reasons why you'd go with the .net or .org domain. If your goal is to build a site that will rank for a specific keyword, and you anticipate only attracting search engine traffic to that site, a .net or .org should work fine if the .com is not available or would come at too high a price. Traditionally, .net domains are evocative of networks, and the .org domains of non-profit organisations. If your goal is to give the impression that your site is associated with a network or a non-profit organisation, choose a .net or .org respectively. I.net the impression that your site is associated with a network or a non-profit organisation, choose a .net or .org respectively. I don't usually recommend the .info domains, as spammers have abused them so heavily due to the low registration costs.

However, a very nice keyword domain might work out fine for you and can usually be had at a small fraction of its .com equivalent.

Another category of TLD that's worth your consideration is country code domains. There are some compelling arguments for using a domain with a .ca, .de, .pl, and so on. Obviously, if your target market is a specific country, the country code TLDis a natural choice. It signals not only to your target market, but to the search engines, that this content is meant for the people living in that specific country.

You may have seen some alternative uses for these country -specific domains -- names such as del.icio.us and caboo.se are cute uses of the country code domains that spell a word. I typically wouldn't recommend them, because they can cause a lot of confusion, and in a case like caboo.se, I wonder how much traffic their success drives to caboose.com. On the other hand, it's difficult to measure how much of these sites' success could be attributed to the 'cute factor' of their domain. If you could somehow control the .com version of the domain, it could be a win-win situation. Otherwise, step into country code domains with extreme caution.

Conclusion

The interesting thing about the domain market today is that it's both a buyer's market and a seller's market. For the huge majority of domains being registered by would-be players in domaining, it's definitely a buyer's market. One of the reasons that "dropped domain" lists are so long is that so many of these domains were registered on a whim, but should never really have been registered to begin with (a sin of which I, among many others, are also guilty). It's the rare domain that truly commands a high price -- almost all of these rare domains have already been registered, but you'll find that many of the domain marketplaces on the Web are littered with tens of thousands of almost-great names. It takes a lot of digging, but the gems are out there.]]> Negotiating to Buy or Sell a Domain

When I was building yourlocalpages.biz, I wanted to build it on a brandable domain. I made a list of several domains that I thought were great choices. If you limit yourself to one choice, or if you fall in love with a specific name, you lose your advantage over the sellers. If you have several options to choose from, it's much easier to walk away from the negotiations if you don't like the price.

When I was getting started, I began with a sizeable list of domains, made some initial enquires, and eventually whittled down my list to two choices: yourlocalpages.biz and jumboads.biz.

Domain brokerage services are another way to approach a transaction. On a number of occasions, we have acted as an agent for domain buyers and sellers who either lacked the time to conduct the negotiations or wished to remain anonymous. Depending upon who you are, or who you represent, the price of a domain that you want to purchase may easily slide up the scale behind the scenes, so it often makes sense to be represented by an independent party. Alternatively, you could create a portfolio website where you list domains for sale -- there's probably even a market for online estate agents which list domains for sale on behalf of others, like BigTicketDomains.com.

How to Avoid Being a Cybersquatter

Cybersquatting is one of the most controversial topics among domainers -- you can't have a conversation with a domainer for very long without cybersquatting being mentioned.

However, there is in fact much disagreement about exactly what cybersquatting entails. Most people would agree that if you register a domain with the word "Microsoft" in it, that would make you a cybersquatter. On the other hand, if you wanted to build a web site about a rainforest in South America, and included "Amazon" as part of the domain name, few people would
suggest that you were cybersquatting.

The grey area lies around cases where someone registers a domain with "Amazon" in it, but doesn't develop it -- instead, they attempt to play off Amazon.com's brand. Is it cybersquatting if you were to register AmazonBooks.com and then try to sell books about the rainforest?

Beyond Dot Com

Based on the examples we have used so far in this blog, you've probably noticed my heavy predilection toward buying .com domains. Do I also recommend buying domains with a different TLD? Certainly we include a good number of and .org domains in our own portfolio. There are a number of reasons why you'd go with the .net or .org domain. If your goal is to build a site that will rank for a specific keyword, and you anticipate only attracting search engine traffic to that site, a .net or .org should work fine if the .com is not available or would come at too high a price. Traditionally, .net domains are evocative of networks, and the .org domains of non-profit organisations. If your goal is to give the impression that your site is associated with a network or a non-profit organisation, choose a .net or .org respectively. I.net the impression that your site is associated with a network or a non-profit organisation, choose a .net or .org respectively. I don't usually recommend the .info domains, as spammers have abused them so heavily due to the low registration costs.

However, a very nice keyword domain might work out fine for you and can usually be had at a small fraction of its .com equivalent.

Another category of TLD that's worth your consideration is country code domains. There are some compelling arguments for using a domain with a .ca, .de, .pl, and so on. Obviously, if your target market is a specific country, the country code TLDis a natural choice. It signals not only to your target market, but to the search engines, that this content is meant for the people living in that specific country.

You may have seen some alternative uses for these country -specific domains -- names such as del.icio.us and caboo.se are cute uses of the country code domains that spell a word. I typically wouldn't recommend them, because they can cause a lot of confusion, and in a case like caboo.se, I wonder how much traffic their success drives to caboose.com. On the other hand, it's difficult to measure how much of these sites' success could be attributed to the 'cute factor' of their domain. If you could somehow control the .com version of the domain, it could be a win-win situation. Otherwise, step into country code domains with extreme caution.

Conclusion

The interesting thing about the domain market today is that it's both a buyer's market and a seller's market. For the huge majority of domains being registered by would-be players in domaining, it's definitely a buyer's market. One of the reasons that "dropped domain" lists are so long is that so many of these domains were registered on a whim, but should never really have been registered to begin with (a sin of which I, among many others, are also guilty). It's the rare domain that truly commands a high price -- almost all of these rare domains have already been registered, but you'll find that many of the domain marketplaces on the Web are littered with tens of thousands of almost-great names. It takes a lot of digging, but the gems are out there.]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=95 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:59:30 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=95
Good planning and a systematic approach will allow you to get the best results from your keyword research. Don't dive straight into a project! Take the time to think it through and understand exactly what you're trying to achieve before you start work.

People who think about keyword research before jumping in are much more likely to spot and exploit major opportunities.

Organising your Keyword Research

Why do we need to conduct keyword research? Can't you just publish useful content? Won't people find it anyway? If you simply guess at what people are looking for, you take the very real risk that you'll be wrong. Why take that risk when keyword research can give you such tremendous insight into what people are really looking for?

You’re Keyword Research

To perform keyword research properly you must put yourself into your customer's shoes. If you do your research properly, not only will you be able to optimise your existing website content, but you'll also be able to tap into an endless stream of ideas for new content that you know people will be interested in. You may even uncover valuable niche markets for your existing products as well as some clever ideas for new products.

The aim of keyword research is to help you make more money from the content you've got at the moment, and lay the foundations for creating even greater profits in the future. So what's the basic approach you should take for a keyword research project? Here's how I approach the challenge of keyword research.

Step 1: Start with a Good List of Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are the words you use to start a keyword research project. In themselves, they 're not very useful, but the directions they take you in can produce a rich source of money -making keywords.

Suppose I'm researching keywords for an information site on family business. 'Succession' might be a promising seed keyword, because it leads me to 'succession disputes,' 'conflict resolution,' 'mediation,' and so on.

The greater the number of promising seed keywords you have at the start of a project, the more comprehensive your final results will be. Jotting down notes will get you started, but it won't give you any thing near a full list of possibilities -- you'll need to do something to stimulate your creativity.

When I start a new project, my favorite method is to get my self out of the office and deliberately give my self some thinking time.

I'll go to the nearest newsstand or magazine store and buy three or four magazines in the area that I'm researching. Then I'll sit down in a coffee shop and read through the magazines looking for good articles. I want to understand the subject area and the important issues or ideas that are currently being discussed. I'll pick the best of the articles I've found and go through them in detail. I'll keep a notebook by my side and jot down the main ideas and concepts that are covered in the articles, and list what I think might be important keywords.

Ideas and concepts that are covered in the articles, and list what I think might be important keywords.

From this exercise I'll generate a list of at least 20 seed keywords. Now's the time to go online and do some real keyword research.

Step 2: Find Related Keywords

We can offer our clients at Virtual Web Designs these services, and one of my favorite is the fact that we provide two main types of keywords: 'related keywords' and 'long tail keywords.' research.

 Related keywords are words that are often used in a particular subject area. For example, related keywords for 'back pain' would include 'sciatica' and 'spinal problems'; related keywords for 'home business' would include 'weekend entrepreneur' or 'working from home'.

 Long tail keywords for 'back pain' would be 'back pain treatment,' 'lower back pain,' and 'exercise for back pain'; long tail keywords for 'home business' would include 'home business opportunities,' 'how to set up a home business,' or 'home business support.'. I'll take those seed keywords that I collected from my magazines and look for 'related keywords' for each in turn. You may be tempted to delve into detail, but you should resist this temptation for now. Find as many related concepts as possible -- you're not looking for the first right answer, but for many right answers.

If I'm researching a website on buying property overseas, I'll not only be interested in keywords such as 'homes abroad,' 'property abroad,' and 'international property ' but also 'international mortgages,' ' global real estate,' 'property rights,' 'buying off plan,' 'health insurance abroad,' and 'expatriates.' Always look for niche opportunities. Keyword research is one of the most effective way s to identify niche markets that others have failed to recognise. This process should give you hundreds of related keywords. You can now test their popularity -- how often each word is searched for on average every day. These numbers, together with your own assessment of how important the keywords are for your business, allow you to prioritize your keyword lists.

Step 3: Map Out Your Web Content Structure

You can use the keywords to map out the content of your site. Group them into themes -- for example, 'legal pitfalls' might be grouped with 'property rights' as part of a major section on the laws of buying and owning property overseas.

How you perform this grouping task is entirely up to you. You should aim to have groups that reflect your products and services and are targeted to specific target markets. Start with 6 to 10 themes, then build on this later. services and are targeted to specific target markets. Start with 6 to 10 themes, then build on this later.

Step 4: Find Long Tail Keywords

Now's the time to get into detail. The keywords you've grouped into themes are the starting point for digging into the long tail. Take each of the keywords you've researched in turn and analyze how they 're used in longer search terms. For example, 'property abroad' is used in these longer search terms:

 property for sale abroad
 property abroad
 investment property abroad
 buying property abroad
 mortgages to buy property abroad
 mortgages second property abroad
 residential property investments abroad
 eco investment property abroad
 resale property abroad

Next, look at the daily search counts to get an idea of the relevant importance of each term. Using this technique, you can very quickly build up a matrix of hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords.

Step 5: Create Your Detailed Content Plan

Now start looking for specific content ideas. I'll often go back to my original notes and follow this formula to create content ideas:

Hot issue + Popular keyword = Content Title

If, for example, you know that working with local estate agents and officials is a hot issue, you could combine this with the keyword 'homes abroad' to create the content title: 'Legal pitfalls in buying a home abroad'

Don't be afraid of highly competitive terms. Include them in your web site copy, even if you have no immediate chance of ranking well for them -- you're laying the foundations for the future. Good keyword research helps map out a detailed content plan. This means that you won't waste time on irrelevant content, but will focus on highly relevant content ideas that will bring the traffic you're after.

Keyword Research Complete?

Now that you've established your focus, you're ready to start creating your content. But your keyword research needs to be an ongoing process. Once you've published your pages, your need to monitor your performance, make adjustments accordingly, and then systematically expand the keywords that you rank well for. We'll look at how to do that in future articles in this series.

To be continued …..]]>
Good planning and a systematic approach will allow you to get the best results from your keyword research. Don't dive straight into a project! Take the time to think it through and understand exactly what you're trying to achieve before you start work.

People who think about keyword research before jumping in are much more likely to spot and exploit major opportunities.

Organising your Keyword Research

Why do we need to conduct keyword research? Can't you just publish useful content? Won't people find it anyway? If you simply guess at what people are looking for, you take the very real risk that you'll be wrong. Why take that risk when keyword research can give you such tremendous insight into what people are really looking for?

You’re Keyword Research

To perform keyword research properly you must put yourself into your customer's shoes. If you do your research properly, not only will you be able to optimise your existing website content, but you'll also be able to tap into an endless stream of ideas for new content that you know people will be interested in. You may even uncover valuable niche markets for your existing products as well as some clever ideas for new products.

The aim of keyword research is to help you make more money from the content you've got at the moment, and lay the foundations for creating even greater profits in the future. So what's the basic approach you should take for a keyword research project? Here's how I approach the challenge of keyword research.

Step 1: Start with a Good List of Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are the words you use to start a keyword research project. In themselves, they 're not very useful, but the directions they take you in can produce a rich source of money -making keywords.

Suppose I'm researching keywords for an information site on family business. 'Succession' might be a promising seed keyword, because it leads me to 'succession disputes,' 'conflict resolution,' 'mediation,' and so on.

The greater the number of promising seed keywords you have at the start of a project, the more comprehensive your final results will be. Jotting down notes will get you started, but it won't give you any thing near a full list of possibilities -- you'll need to do something to stimulate your creativity.

When I start a new project, my favorite method is to get my self out of the office and deliberately give my self some thinking time.

I'll go to the nearest newsstand or magazine store and buy three or four magazines in the area that I'm researching. Then I'll sit down in a coffee shop and read through the magazines looking for good articles. I want to understand the subject area and the important issues or ideas that are currently being discussed. I'll pick the best of the articles I've found and go through them in detail. I'll keep a notebook by my side and jot down the main ideas and concepts that are covered in the articles, and list what I think might be important keywords.

Ideas and concepts that are covered in the articles, and list what I think might be important keywords.

From this exercise I'll generate a list of at least 20 seed keywords. Now's the time to go online and do some real keyword research.

Step 2: Find Related Keywords

We can offer our clients at Virtual Web Designs these services, and one of my favorite is the fact that we provide two main types of keywords: 'related keywords' and 'long tail keywords.' research.

 Related keywords are words that are often used in a particular subject area. For example, related keywords for 'back pain' would include 'sciatica' and 'spinal problems'; related keywords for 'home business' would include 'weekend entrepreneur' or 'working from home'.

 Long tail keywords for 'back pain' would be 'back pain treatment,' 'lower back pain,' and 'exercise for back pain'; long tail keywords for 'home business' would include 'home business opportunities,' 'how to set up a home business,' or 'home business support.'. I'll take those seed keywords that I collected from my magazines and look for 'related keywords' for each in turn. You may be tempted to delve into detail, but you should resist this temptation for now. Find as many related concepts as possible -- you're not looking for the first right answer, but for many right answers.

If I'm researching a website on buying property overseas, I'll not only be interested in keywords such as 'homes abroad,' 'property abroad,' and 'international property ' but also 'international mortgages,' ' global real estate,' 'property rights,' 'buying off plan,' 'health insurance abroad,' and 'expatriates.' Always look for niche opportunities. Keyword research is one of the most effective way s to identify niche markets that others have failed to recognise. This process should give you hundreds of related keywords. You can now test their popularity -- how often each word is searched for on average every day. These numbers, together with your own assessment of how important the keywords are for your business, allow you to prioritize your keyword lists.

Step 3: Map Out Your Web Content Structure

You can use the keywords to map out the content of your site. Group them into themes -- for example, 'legal pitfalls' might be grouped with 'property rights' as part of a major section on the laws of buying and owning property overseas.

How you perform this grouping task is entirely up to you. You should aim to have groups that reflect your products and services and are targeted to specific target markets. Start with 6 to 10 themes, then build on this later. services and are targeted to specific target markets. Start with 6 to 10 themes, then build on this later.

Step 4: Find Long Tail Keywords

Now's the time to get into detail. The keywords you've grouped into themes are the starting point for digging into the long tail. Take each of the keywords you've researched in turn and analyze how they 're used in longer search terms. For example, 'property abroad' is used in these longer search terms:

 property for sale abroad
 property abroad
 investment property abroad
 buying property abroad
 mortgages to buy property abroad
 mortgages second property abroad
 residential property investments abroad
 eco investment property abroad
 resale property abroad

Next, look at the daily search counts to get an idea of the relevant importance of each term. Using this technique, you can very quickly build up a matrix of hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords.

Step 5: Create Your Detailed Content Plan

Now start looking for specific content ideas. I'll often go back to my original notes and follow this formula to create content ideas:

Hot issue + Popular keyword = Content Title

If, for example, you know that working with local estate agents and officials is a hot issue, you could combine this with the keyword 'homes abroad' to create the content title: 'Legal pitfalls in buying a home abroad'

Don't be afraid of highly competitive terms. Include them in your web site copy, even if you have no immediate chance of ranking well for them -- you're laying the foundations for the future. Good keyword research helps map out a detailed content plan. This means that you won't waste time on irrelevant content, but will focus on highly relevant content ideas that will bring the traffic you're after.

Keyword Research Complete?

Now that you've established your focus, you're ready to start creating your content. But your keyword research needs to be an ongoing process. Once you've published your pages, your need to monitor your performance, make adjustments accordingly, and then systematically expand the keywords that you rank well for. We'll look at how to do that in future articles in this series.

To be continued …..]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=94 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:56:49 +0000 webnetics]]> https://www.webneticsuk.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=94
What is Domaining?

The classic definition of domaining is to buy domains for the sake of buying domains. A domainer is someone who purchases domains as an investment without planning to develop them. I know clients who register domains, develop them, and end up with a portfolio of sites, but I wouldn't really consider this to be domaining in the true sense of the word. Of course, many domainers also register domains in order to develop them, so there is significant crossover here, but in this blog we'll look specifically at domaining without developing. To make domaining work for you, you need to start out with a strategy that details how you're going to make a profit on a domain without developing that domain.

Making Domains Your Business

There are two primary strategies for domainers:

1. Buy a domain because you think you can sell it for a higher price than you'll pay for it.
2. Buy a domain for the traffic it attracts, which, you hope, will produce a steady stream of revenues.

Most clients that I know use both strategies, but buying domains on a speculative basis, with the intention of reselling them for profit, is certainly the most common approach.

How to Value a Domain

As with property, there's often a lot of hype around domain purchases. When you're planning a purchase, it's very important to remain calm and rational, and not allow yourself to become too invested in the idea of acquiring a specific name.

You'll hear comments from domainers along the lines of, "this is a 'category killer' domain, "but I personally don't buy into this hype. Even though having a premium domain is a great start for a new web site, I don't believe there's such a thing as a 'category killer 'domain. If there were, Software.com would have knocked out Microsoft.com long ago. Amazon would be a rainforest in South America and we'd buy our books at Books.com. Auctions.com would have surpassed ebay .com years ago.. And did I mention Google? It should be easy enough to knock them off, right? After all, their domain is just a typo of a word that nobody knew anyway.

Having said that, it's important to understand that there is a basis for the hype. I think big business is missing a huge opportunity because of its lack of understanding about the quantitative and qualitative values of web traffic that high profile domains naturally receive. Companies that don't take web domains seriously now are going to be behind the curve -- and they 're going to pay for that mistake.

Of course, understanding the value in a domain can be a matter of perspective. One person might view recent sales prices of domains and be astonished by the high prices, while another wishes he had more cash on hand to take advantage of the bargain pricing. To illustrate the point, imagine you had the vision to get hotels.com years ago, or even now, when there are still undervalued domains. "Millions of people type hotels.com directly into their browser each month. This could equal millions of new customers for a fixed, one-time expenditure.

Pricing domains based upon revenue is fairly simple. You'll find that many sources will quote a valuation of "10 x annual revenue" as a good starting point for traffic domains (that is, domain names that attract type-in traffic which produces measurable income -- typically using a domain parking service). Don't even bother trying to argue with a domainer that the multiple should be more inline with the market for web sites (generally 1 to 3 times the annual revenue). The key difference is that parking a domain takes absolutely zero effort. You don't even need to make a trip to the bank to cash the check, as most domain parking services pay by direct deposit these days. This is the reason why it can be difficult to convince a domainer to sell a revenue-generating traffic domain in the first place.

Other types of domains can be more difficult to value. The best advice is to see if you can categories the type of domain you're after and search out comparable sales. You'll notice, after observing the market for a while, that domains of a given type often sell for similar prices. For example, currently there's a trend towards four-letter domains. Naturally, four-letter domains that form common words buck the trend, but otherwise you'll notice four character domains selling at around the same price regardless of the marketplace at which they 're posted for sale.

You can use this kind of knowledge to your own advantage in pricing. You'll always find domainers who will hold out for prices much above what the market justifies, but armed with knowledge of the market you'll be able to avoid those domains and go for the ones that are priced below market.

How Do You Identify a Great Domain?

Before you begin surveying the market for available domains, you need to identify in your own mind the reason why you're buying a domain. There are many legitimate reasons for buying a domain -- more than I could list here. Some of the more common reasons are:

• because the name fits the business
• because you know it's already receiving significant traffic

When you buy a domain because the name fits a business, your goal is usually to establish it as a brand. Traffic domains are self-explanatory for the most part -- you want them because you immediately get the boost of attracting relevant traffic to your web site without having done any thing other than build the site and buy the domain.

Buying Brandable Domains

Since buying brandable domains is a more opaque business, we'll start there. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that it's the buy er who holds the upper hand when you're buying brandable domains. When you truly understand what a brandable domain is, and why you should buy it, you'll realize why .

A brandable domain is a domain that's unlikely to receive much type-in traffic, usually because it doesn't consist of a dictionary word -- for example, vwdesigns.co.uk. It could also be a keyword domain, but one that doesn't receive a significant amount of type-in traffic (one that gets significant type-in traffic is a traffic domain). Remember the vwdesigns.co.uk brand? A keyword domain that would work in the same field is volkswagen.co.uk . Take away the established branding and user loyalty to these domains, and I doubt there'd be much (if any ) natural type-in traffic that pre-existed the web sites.

The task of finding a great brandable domain is intertwined with creating the company name. It can involve a much more intense creative process than finding keyword domains, which is more a matter of crunching data. If you're looking at
brandable domains, you'll want to find something that sticks in the memory and is easy to pronounce -- usually , the shorter it is, the better. I usually look for a single word that contains fewer than twelve characters. However, a two -word domain might also be perfectly suitable. Some companies make up new words, like Wufoo. Two-word domains that are descriptive often work very well -- for example, WordTracker and RapidShare work well to evoke a sense of purpose.

Buying Traffic Domains

Traffic domains are another animal altogether. It's much easier to place a value on a traffic domain, and they 're usually more expensive than brandable domains. As I mentioned earlier, the industry standard for a traffic domain sale is ten times the yearly revenue. The most common problem with traffic domains is convincing the seller to part with them. It's also important to make sure that the traffic isn't fake (fake traffic is usually created by bots, or may be the result of a click farm. You also want to make sure you're not buying a domain that infringes on an existing trademark, but for the purposes of this blog, I'm speaking about generic domains. For domains that are product-oriented, or can be utilised in lucrative service industries such as mortgages, health, and so on, you may consider paying a higher multiple of revenues.

To be continued ….]]>
What is Domaining?

The classic definition of domaining is to buy domains for the sake of buying domains. A domainer is someone who purchases domains as an investment without planning to develop them. I know clients who register domains, develop them, and end up with a portfolio of sites, but I wouldn't really consider this to be domaining in the true sense of the word. Of course, many domainers also register domains in order to develop them, so there is significant crossover here, but in this blog we'll look specifically at domaining without developing. To make domaining work for you, you need to start out with a strategy that details how you're going to make a profit on a domain without developing that domain.

Making Domains Your Business

There are two primary strategies for domainers:

1. Buy a domain because you think you can sell it for a higher price than you'll pay for it.
2. Buy a domain for the traffic it attracts, which, you hope, will produce a steady stream of revenues.

Most clients that I know use both strategies, but buying domains on a speculative basis, with the intention of reselling them for profit, is certainly the most common approach.

How to Value a Domain

As with property, there's often a lot of hype around domain purchases. When you're planning a purchase, it's very important to remain calm and rational, and not allow yourself to become too invested in the idea of acquiring a specific name.

You'll hear comments from domainers along the lines of, "this is a 'category killer' domain, "but I personally don't buy into this hype. Even though having a premium domain is a great start for a new web site, I don't believe there's such a thing as a 'category killer 'domain. If there were, Software.com would have knocked out Microsoft.com long ago. Amazon would be a rainforest in South America and we'd buy our books at Books.com. Auctions.com would have surpassed ebay .com years ago.. And did I mention Google? It should be easy enough to knock them off, right? After all, their domain is just a typo of a word that nobody knew anyway.

Having said that, it's important to understand that there is a basis for the hype. I think big business is missing a huge opportunity because of its lack of understanding about the quantitative and qualitative values of web traffic that high profile domains naturally receive. Companies that don't take web domains seriously now are going to be behind the curve -- and they 're going to pay for that mistake.

Of course, understanding the value in a domain can be a matter of perspective. One person might view recent sales prices of domains and be astonished by the high prices, while another wishes he had more cash on hand to take advantage of the bargain pricing. To illustrate the point, imagine you had the vision to get hotels.com years ago, or even now, when there are still undervalued domains. "Millions of people type hotels.com directly into their browser each month. This could equal millions of new customers for a fixed, one-time expenditure.

Pricing domains based upon revenue is fairly simple. You'll find that many sources will quote a valuation of "10 x annual revenue" as a good starting point for traffic domains (that is, domain names that attract type-in traffic which produces measurable income -- typically using a domain parking service). Don't even bother trying to argue with a domainer that the multiple should be more inline with the market for web sites (generally 1 to 3 times the annual revenue). The key difference is that parking a domain takes absolutely zero effort. You don't even need to make a trip to the bank to cash the check, as most domain parking services pay by direct deposit these days. This is the reason why it can be difficult to convince a domainer to sell a revenue-generating traffic domain in the first place.

Other types of domains can be more difficult to value. The best advice is to see if you can categories the type of domain you're after and search out comparable sales. You'll notice, after observing the market for a while, that domains of a given type often sell for similar prices. For example, currently there's a trend towards four-letter domains. Naturally, four-letter domains that form common words buck the trend, but otherwise you'll notice four character domains selling at around the same price regardless of the marketplace at which they 're posted for sale.

You can use this kind of knowledge to your own advantage in pricing. You'll always find domainers who will hold out for prices much above what the market justifies, but armed with knowledge of the market you'll be able to avoid those domains and go for the ones that are priced below market.

How Do You Identify a Great Domain?

Before you begin surveying the market for available domains, you need to identify in your own mind the reason why you're buying a domain. There are many legitimate reasons for buying a domain -- more than I could list here. Some of the more common reasons are:

• because the name fits the business
• because you know it's already receiving significant traffic

When you buy a domain because the name fits a business, your goal is usually to establish it as a brand. Traffic domains are self-explanatory for the most part -- you want them because you immediately get the boost of attracting relevant traffic to your web site without having done any thing other than build the site and buy the domain.

Buying Brandable Domains

Since buying brandable domains is a more opaque business, we'll start there. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that it's the buy er who holds the upper hand when you're buying brandable domains. When you truly understand what a brandable domain is, and why you should buy it, you'll realize why .

A brandable domain is a domain that's unlikely to receive much type-in traffic, usually because it doesn't consist of a dictionary word -- for example, vwdesigns.co.uk. It could also be a keyword domain, but one that doesn't receive a significant amount of type-in traffic (one that gets significant type-in traffic is a traffic domain). Remember the vwdesigns.co.uk brand? A keyword domain that would work in the same field is volkswagen.co.uk . Take away the established branding and user loyalty to these domains, and I doubt there'd be much (if any ) natural type-in traffic that pre-existed the web sites.

The task of finding a great brandable domain is intertwined with creating the company name. It can involve a much more intense creative process than finding keyword domains, which is more a matter of crunching data. If you're looking at
brandable domains, you'll want to find something that sticks in the memory and is easy to pronounce -- usually , the shorter it is, the better. I usually look for a single word that contains fewer than twelve characters. However, a two -word domain might also be perfectly suitable. Some companies make up new words, like Wufoo. Two-word domains that are descriptive often work very well -- for example, WordTracker and RapidShare work well to evoke a sense of purpose.

Buying Traffic Domains

Traffic domains are another animal altogether. It's much easier to place a value on a traffic domain, and they 're usually more expensive than brandable domains. As I mentioned earlier, the industry standard for a traffic domain sale is ten times the yearly revenue. The most common problem with traffic domains is convincing the seller to part with them. It's also important to make sure that the traffic isn't fake (fake traffic is usually created by bots, or may be the result of a click farm. You also want to make sure you're not buying a domain that infringes on an existing trademark, but for the purposes of this blog, I'm speaking about generic domains. For domains that are product-oriented, or can be utilised in lucrative service industries such as mortgages, health, and so on, you may consider paying a higher multiple of revenues.

To be continued ….]]>