Avoid These Common Mistakes When You Buy a Domain

Five Common Domain Registration Mistakes – Which One Do You Want to Avoid?

When it comes to branding on the internet, the single most important thing is your domain name. From type-in traffic to perceived authority in the search engines, your domain name could spell the success or death of your project.

However, do not make these mistakes when registering your domain name.

Click here to download the full report on how to avoid domain registration mistakes.

Mistake #1: Not Registering a Domain Yourself

You know how a business owner hires someone to create a website for their company and then after a few years, the person (or company) who created the website disappears for whatever reason (out of business; moved out of the area; got a real job; etc.)?

Then unknowingly, the web domain registration expires and is automatically, electronically gobbled up by opportunistic domain squatters. These domain squatters then register the expired domain in hopes that the original owner will be highly motivated to purchase the domain name at a much higher asking price. Usually, squatters might ask for $200 to $2000. Unfortunately, it could even be much more.

What do you do if have not registered the domain yet? Just go to one of the best domain registration services below and register the domain yourself.

• Namecheap – one of the cheapest with free domain privacy for first year.
• Godaddy – the most popular and trusted domain registrar.

Did someone else register your domain name for you? A webdesigner or web host perhaps has done it for you. That’s fine, but you’ll want to check a few things. Find out what you should do next.

Mistake #2: Registering a Trademarked Domain Name

Don’t think that riding on other people success can get yourself rich quick. There is no free lunch under the sun, and everybody is working hard to be successful and they are paying attention on people that is violating their rights.

You might get away for awhile but when you are caught in a trademark violation, you are not only loosing your online business instantly, caught in huge damage claim. So, be very careful when selecting a domain name to avoid being caught in all these when you are on the way to the success.

Mistake #3: Paying Too Much for a Domain

You only should pay extra for a premium domain name, i.e the domain has been registered by somebody else so they can sell at higher price. A domain name is a domain name. You pay to reserve the name on yearly basis. By paying $35/year instead of $12/year does not give you:

• a top placement in Google's search result. You still need to work on your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• a website. You still need a website built!
• a hosting space. A reliable hosting like Hostgator is recommended and should cost only around $10/month. The Hostgator coupon codes 2012 could save you more for your first invoice.
• visitors to your website. You still need to do some marketing and promotion to get visitors.

Mistake #4: Using a Free Domain Name for Business

There are two major ways to get free top level domain name:

1. Using The Not-So-Popular Top Level Domains - There are a few places where you can get free top level domains (TLDs). They are free but they are not the popular and well-established TLDs such as .COM. .ORG or .NET. These dot.tk, .co.nr or .co.cc domains are only used by spammers and phishing scammers. There are many reasons not to use a free domain name.

   These domain names:

   • makes it hard for your customers to remember your address (not the regular .COM, .NET, .ORG etc)
   • indicates you are NOT a serious Internet player
   • does not help to brand your image
   • reduces the level of trust and integrity to your site
   • many search engines refuse to list pages from free domains
2. Using Free Domain with a Hosting Plan - First of all, there is nothing wrong with getting a free domain from a hosting service. Many web hosting companies now package a free domain together with their website hosting service.

   If you really need a web hosting with free domain name, make sure you get the service from a reputable company like InMotion Hosting or Fatcow. The Inmotion hosting reviews we have seen say that this company is good for business websites. The Fatcow reviews on the other hand, recommend Fatcow for their cheap hosting price.

But now, imagine that your web host has serious problems with their servers. Your website is more down than up, and you want to move to a new web host. You can find a new web host within a few hours, then all that is left is moving your website.

Moving your website to a new web host is a 2-step process.

1. Upload your website to your new web host's server.
2. Change your DNS (domain name servers) to point to your new web host's domain name servers.

Step 1 can be done without involving your old web host, as long as you have a copy of your website on your computer. Step 2 may involve your web host, if you registered your domain name with them.

Let's first explain why DNS is so important

DNS means domain name servers. Domain name servers make it possible to access your website via a domain name. (for example yourdomain.com).

If you host your website with HostingABC (made-up name), you will typically use the addresses ns1.hostingabc.com and ns2.hostingabc.com as your DNS.

When somebody follows a link to your domain, their request will go to your domain name servers, who will forward the request to the server your website is physically located on. Then the server will serve your website to the visitor.

Your domain name servers are the access point to your domain and website. So controlling which domain name servers you are using means controlling access to your domain and website.

Bad things can happen

If you have registered your domain with an your web host, one of the following scenarios will happen.

• You have to contact your old web host to make them change your web servers. Depending on their speed, it takes from a few hours to many days to make them do that. To avoid this in the future, you will also want to transfer your domain to a new registrar.
• You have to transfer your domain from your old web host to a new domain registrar. This process must be approved by the previous registrar (your old web host), and will likely take several days, maybe even weeks.
• Your web host registered your domain in their name. The domain is legally theirs. That is really bad. You can try to buy the domain from them, or redirect the traffic from your old domain to a new domain. An emergency domain change like this will result in lost visitors and lost money.

All three scenarios are causing unnecessary downtime, from a few hours extra to several weeks in addition to lost business.

Which domain hosting to use?

So which domain hosting company is good? We recommend Hostgator. Hostgator is rated A+ by BBB, has 45 days money back guarantee, gives you cPanel and 4500+ website templates.

Use Hostgator coupons 2012 below to save more:

• WEBSITELAUNCH - to try HG for a penny
• WEBTEMPLATE - to get a whopping 25% off your first bill.

What else should you know about domain registration? There are too many tips and tricks about domain registration that we want to share, but we would not be able to fit them all here. Download the reports and guides; and to subscribe to the newsletter below.