| There are
many uses for domain names, both active
and passive.
1. Domain
names can be used to establish a unique identity
in cyberspace
Companies often choose a domain name that
corresponds to their company name. For instance,
IBM's web site is at ibm.com and Microsoft
is at microsoft.com.
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People who register domain names
that are or contain common trademarks
belonging to other companies are
known as cybersquatters.
BEWARE: there are more and more
cases of large companies winning
back the rights to "their" domain
names - and in some cases cybersquatters
have faced very hefty fines (US
law currently provides for up to
$100,000 in damages if a cybersquatter
is found liable of deliberately
infringing a trademark)
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2. Generic
domain names are popular
A generic domain name is one that
would not immediately be associated with
a company, but instead is a name that defines
an entire category of business. Some examples
of generic names include books.com, music.com
and art.com. Companies have gone on to create
successful brands based on a generic domain
name, and these names tend to be very valuable
if the word is a common one.
3. Domain
names can be resold, leased and bartered
As well as being used to identify a website,
domain names can be resold to other companies
or people, leased or even bartered for other
names or for goods or services. A whole
industry has sprung up around the resale
of domain names, with domain
brokers acting as middlemen in
the sales process. The profits from a successful
sale can be enormous compared to the original
value of the name, since some domains have
sold for over $1 million - and cost under
$100 to register!
However, there
are many more sellers than buyers, and the
market for domain names is still relatively
immature, making it difficult to locate
a potential purchaser for a given domain
names. There are also too few quality names,
so that they often get buried in a mass
of worthless listings on domain brokerage
sites. If you want to dabble with making
money from domain names, go ahead and speculate...
but don't expect a quick return unless you
have picked some exceptionally good names!
THE MAJORITY
OF DOMAIN NAMES ARE JUNK AND HAVE NO COMMERCIAL
VALUE!
4. Domain
names can be used to give yourself a unique,
permanent email address
Many companies will set you up with email
forwarding, where messages sent to @yourdomain.com
will be redirected to your existing mailbox
as provided by your ISP. This lets you choose
a truly unique email address and keep the
same email address regardless of which ISP
you use to access the Internet.
5. Domain
names can be used to improve a site's ranking
in certain search engines
Although the rules by which search engines
"rank" sites when returning search results
change often, some search engines have recently
been favouring sites with their own domain
names over sites that do not have a domain
name of their own. Some search engines even
give increased relevancy to domain names
that contain "keywords" that people search
for. For example, a search engine might
rate a site with the domain name "freestuffguide.com"
more highly than a site with the domain
name "freebieguide.com" for the search "free
stuff" since the former domain name contains
the search terms being searched for.
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