ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom warned the public that the group can expect excitement, opportunity, uncertainty and threats in the days to come. ICANN is one of the key players in the function and accessibility of today’s global internet. They have been charged with the task of coordinating and segregating domain names throughout the world and managing the complex, demanding task of enabling IP addresses to recognize each other across cyberspace.

The coordination of individual IP addresses to specific domain names used to be a task of the US government. Since the government has allowed these operations to go private, a few kinks still have to be ironed out.  While ICANN is unable to alter any content on the internet, their intimate control of the global web and much of its inner-workings has sparked some controversy. Beckstrom is aware of the ethical dilemmas and is optimistic about implementing major changes to circumvent them.

ICANN has been criticized for being a group that controls the Domain Name System while many of its key players and leadership positions are occupied by execs from the Domain Name industry. This creates a clear conflict of interest. ICANN is a not-for-profit group who is not supposed to represent or promote the financial interests of any parties. Chief criticisms have stemmed from the idea that power players on the ICANN team can exploit the group’s manipulation of the internet to serve their own corporate needs.

Other criticisms have come from the intimate access these supposedly neutral parties’ possess. This kind of power can invade privacy and lead to motives that are fraudulent . Risk for this type of abuse is wide open to corporate executives who act in a biased, self-serving way. Personal information and data can be used to illegally bolster profits. Any person or group who wishes to register their business as a top level domain name can become an accredited registrar by making an agreement with ICANN. Critics see this is as a clash of interested when the heads of top level domain names are themselves high ranking members at ICANN.

Beckstrom held a speech in Costa Rico where he declared that it is time to “tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board.” Beckstrom is adamant that the necessary changes needed to make ICANN a neutral public service can be achieved. If Beckstrom fulfills his stated intentions, he will “ensure that absolute dedication to the public good supersedes all other priorities.”

Domain · Domain Name Registration · ICANN · Risk · Security

Many web publishers will often try to buy domain names that target a particular keyword that they believe will prove profitable when they go to monetize the site in question. There are a number of ways to monetize a site, such as forms of paid ads, like AdSense, or other methods, such as affiliate sales, CPA offers, and the like, and for most of these models, having a highly optimized domain name is critical to the on-page search engine optimization (SEO) efforts that these models require. When the publisher decides to buy domain names, there are some things to consider. Right now the search engines still give extra weight to domain names that contain keywords for which the publisher might be trying to rank. Currently one of the strongest types of URLs that publishers consider when buying domain names for this method of SEO is known as an “Exact Match Domain”. That basically means that the domain is made up only of the keywords that make up the keyword phrase for which the publisher is optimizing. In other words, if someone was trying to optimize for “big blue widgets”, the domain name that that publisher would try for is “bigbluewidgets.com”. The problem with this method, however, is that if the keyword is popular, several people might be trying to optimize for it, and they all might be trying to get an “exact match domain” for it as well. One possible solution is to use different “generic top-level domains” other than a .com, such as a .net, .org, .info, and so on, which would yield “bigbluewidgets.net” or “bigbluewidgets.org” for instance, but even that approach is limited, and if the keyword is really popular, all the available top-level domains will get used up quickly. Also, additionally, while .com, .net, and .org are considered the best top-level domains for serious business and branding work, domains such as .info and so on are sometimes considered rather spammy, thus narrowing options even further. There are other ways of working around this limitation. For instance, a publisher might decide to add a value-added term to the end of the domain name as a suffix, such as “bigbluewidgetsGUIDE.com” or “bigbluewidgetsINFO.com” or whathaveyou (capitalized for clarity), but that might not always be practical, and there is still some debate as to whether the extra word and the end dilutes the strength and impact of the exact match domain. Well, there are two other effective solutions that a publisher can try, that can prove effective. The first is well known, that of putting hyphens between the words, so that “bigbluewidgets.com” becomes “big-blue-widgets.com”. While there is also some debate as to whether the hyphens dilute the EMD effectiveness, the method is generally considered to be viable. The other method is rather clever and innovative, and has tested to show good results. In essence, the publisher uses the EMD for the main keyword, but then will buy domain names with an extra, random letter added to the end of the name, so “bigbluewidgets.com” becomes “bigbluewidgetsV.com” or “bigbluewidgetsX.com” (capitalization for clarity). Here’s how this works. Google and the other search engines have very strong auto-correct qualities when it comes to working out keyword spellings and discerning string searches. In other words, among other things, Google is essentially one huge spellchecker (for lack of a better term). As such, it will assume that the errant letter at the end of the domain name (V and X in our examples) is a misspelling, and will correct for it in it’s search algorithm, treating it like what it perceives as the intended “bigbluewidgets”. You can test this for yourself. Enter a search string into Google with a purposefully misspelled word, and Google will either auto-correct for it, or provide a choice of search results with either the correct spelling or the misspelling. Likewise, it does the same thing internally when analyzing the keywords in a given domain name. Whether a publisher chooses to go this route, or try something less experimental is ultimately up to the person who will buy domain names for their sites, but definitely consider giving this a try. It has worked for a number of SEO experts in the past, and it might just prove to be the missing key to making your SEO efforts work.

Buy a Domain Name · buy domain name · Choose a domain name · Domain Name

When choosing a name for domain name registration, you’ll have many of choices to make. What keywords would you like to include in the name? Will you buy domain name rights to several similar domains and direct all of them to your primary domain? Do you prefer cheap domain names registration, or will you spring for a more expensive domain that will benefit your business in the long run?

If your “dream domain” is already registered, you’ll be faced with the question of whether to register an alternate version of it that includes special characters. Including special characters in domain name registration is something that some people recommend against, but others advocate. Here are the basics of what you need to know about this strategy:

• The only characters allowed in domain name registration are letters, numbers, and the “-“ character. Nothing else (such as  _ ‘ ? : or an empty space) is allowed.
• Advantages of including “-“ between words is that it lets you register variations of successful domains, including popular keywords that are already taken.
• Advantages are that customers may forget the characters and end up visiting a competitor’s site instead of yours when they attempt to return.

buy domain name · cheap domain names · Domain Names Registration · Domain Search

Choosing a domain name is one of the trickiest parts to starting your online web presence. So many different factors go into make a domain name truly helpful, beneficial, and appropriate for your business—it can be hard to know where to start.

If you’ve been doing some research, you’ve no doubt come across some very helpful pointers in helping you narrow down the field of potential domain names into a few that are truly good choices for your business. Here’s a review of the basics:

1. Choose a domain name that fits with your business. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many business owners get distracted by a catchy domain, clever pun, or cool-sounding word in a domain that’s available. Just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it fits with your business; if the domain is vague or unclear, or if it suggests that you have a different kind of business than you actually do, it’s worth your time to move on.
2. Choose a domain name that helps you get found. If you are appealing to a global audience, make sure your main keyword is in the domain address. If you’re appealing to a local audience, make sure your primary geographic term is in the domain address. This helps search engines deliver your site to potential customers who are looking for businesses just like yours.
3. Choose a domain name that’s not to long. This is simple. The shorter your domain, the more memorable your website will be, and the more trustworthy you will appear.

However, these tips aren’t the only ones that will help you buy a domain name that is truly appropriate to your business. There are two elements that people do not often think about that can cause problems down the line. If you’ve decided upon a name that seems ideal based on the criteria above, put it through the following tests before going through with the domain name registration:

1. Is it accidentally inappropriate? Individual words have spaces written in between them when used in a sentence, but domain names don’t have spaces. Write your ideal name out, in all lowercase letters, and see if you’ve inadvertently created any inappropriate words in the middle. Both potential visitors and search engines may avoid your site, so make sure it’s age-appropriate when spelled out as one word.
2. Is it timeless? If you intend for your website to be successful long-term, choose a domain name that is also long-term. Avoid using years or other time-specific words in your address, and avoid trends that will likely go out of style, opting for broader terms that describe all of what you do, not just one product that may be popular right now.

Buy a Domain Name · Choose a domain name · domain address · Domain Name · Domain Name Registration · online web presence · search engines