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Buy a Domain Name
Make sure you own it

By Howard Hayakawa



 
Buying a domain name.
 
Buying a domain is fairly simple but can be complicated by the domain registry companies who make money by selling add-on stuff. Your challenge is to avoid all that and just do the basics.
 
The hardest part of this is usually the selection of a name you like that isn’t taken.
 
RULE 1: Own the domain name yourself.  Even if someone says they'll take care of everything, you must assure that the domain registration is in your name.  That way if you need to change something later, you don't need to convince your supplier.  Even if your supplier is totally trustworthy, they may go out of business and move.  You'll be left trying to convince the registrar that you really are the owner. 
 
 
Where to buy?
  1. There are a lot of domain registry companies and resellers. You can use any but you shouldn’t have to pay more than $10 per year for a one year registration.
  2. We used www.godaddy.com until about July of 2005.  They had reasonable prices and a good reputation.  The only problem was complexity.   http://web.com/domain_names/index.html also works but has the same complexity issue.
  3. In July of 2005, we finally bit the bullet and provided an easy way for our customers to buy a domain name.  It's integrated into the site purchase process so you don't need to enter all your personal information multiple times.  It's still less than $10 per year and you are the owner of the domain name.  Best of all, you don't need to avoid or figure out 30 optional offers.
    1. If you get the domain name from us, you just fill out the desired name and we tell you if it's available.  If not, we'll display some options that are available.  Keep trying until you get one you like.
    2. TIPS on domain name.
      1. Don't make it too long.  The more a person needs to remember and type, the more likely they are to make a mistake.
      2. Make it easy to hear.  You will try to give your domain name to people on the phone so try to make is easy to hear.  Cute spelling can be a problem in this regard.
      3. Easy to remember.  Once they hear it, they might need to remember it.
      4. Make it easy to read.  This is related to keep it short.  You want people to see the domain name on a card or ad and easily see the name.  Multiple words mushed together are hard to read.  You can capitalize the first letter of  each word in a domain name in print because browsers don't care about caps.   lakefrontproperty.com  is harder to read than LakeFrontProperty.com
      5. People will tend not to search for your domain name so you don't need to freak out that the "perfect" name is already taken.
 
 
 If you really want to use a different registrar, you will need the following information.  Somewhere in the registration process, you need to provide DNS Server information.  Ours is
NS1.5NINES-AMERICAN.COM
NS2.5NINES-AMERICAN.COM
If you don't see where to enter it, don't worry.  Go ahead and purchase the name and call us.  We'll take care of the rest.   Call David @ 715-342-5870 or email david@imakesense.com
 
 
 

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