Domains and Business - Part 3 - The mechanics of domain naming

In part 1 of this series  we learned the basics of what a domain name is and how the registration is done
In part 2 we discussed what domain name(s) to pick

In this, part 3, we'll discuss more about why or why not to have multiple domains, and how to get some of the benefits of multiple domains while saving a lot of money that otherwise might be spent on domain registration.

In fact, we're going to get into not only domain names, but the whole URL that points to your various pages online. We're going to do this because it is critical to marketing your company and products.

Not so long ago I started using content management (CMS) systems for many of the web sites I create. The Digital Rag is built using one such open source engine in fact. I've been using other creation software through the years - from simple text editors (the web was MUCH simpler then) to some of today's most sophisticated tools. In all cases prior to my use of CMS, I've had to think about the names of directories and files as I create them, and the thoughts these days always turn to the actions of the search engines and their love of key words in the URL.

The search engines have grown in influence to the point where choosing a domain name must consider its impact on search. In my first article in this series I suggest you choose a domain name before you choose a company name - and in fact may make the company name the domain name in some cases.

Now I'm suggesting that you consider multiple domain names for a couple of reasons:

• To forestall others from diluting your brand by grabbing same second-level domain name in other TLDs
• To forestall others from profiting from misspellings of your domain name(s)
• To add more key words to the potential entries in search engines that will lead to your web site

In the long run the price you pay to add and maintain extra domains should be worth it unless you have a very simple business that is mostly location based rather than driven by web search - but even here this is changing as the search engines delve deeper and deeper into location-oriented search results. They know approximately (and getting more accurate) where the searcher is based on their IP address and they know where you and your company are, based on information they have from your web "Contact Us" page. No longer will you not benefit, even if all you have is a neighbourhood grocery store - it is likely that it will come up when I, your local retail customer, go searching for sales on lettuce or other commodity.

So you should register your primary domain name in as many TLDs as makes sense (in my case COM/NET but not CA as I'm not country oriented for this blog). Note that there really are Acceptable Usage Policies on what TLDs you can register in for some of them. Many countries will not let you register in them unless you live or have a business presence in them. ORG is reserved for various types of (non-business) organizations such as charities and standards bodies but also used for things like open-source projects and other similar things. MIL is US military and GOV is US government. If you get one of them you may get a visit from people in dark suits.

TV (Tuvalu) is one that has become popular with the country's blessing for the obvious use of TV stations and other video sites. I'm still envious of the people who got WWW.TV and managed to convince this tiny country to allow wide-spread registration as a boon to their national product.

Most of the registrars you might deal with either won't allow you to register in conflicting TLDs or will tell you what the policies are.

But how many domains should I register and for how long?

In creation of any new business there is a requirement for up-front capital for things like inventory, leasehold improvements, travel, etc. Domain names are no different. You will require capital and you should get the best deal for it. One thing you can do is register for more than just the first year. This ammortizes the cost of the domains over several years, and let's face it - you had better be expecting to be around for more than just a single year.

The average life of a startup company is 3 years, so I'm going to suggest that you get at least 3 years for each domain. You can shop around and get domain registration for as little as $8-10/year for periods longer than 1 year. I suggest you budget for $15/year and use one of the really well recognized registrars for any number of reasons that I'll go into in part 4.

The upside of registering lots of domain names is that even if you don't get a succesful company out of your work, you might strike it lucky and get a domain that someone else is willing to purchase from you for a premium in the future. This in itself is a business that some people are in - and of course if you are looking for a particular domain that one of these people has, you're free to offer them whatever you feel it is worth; although in most cases of new businesses I'd say save your money.

The upside of having lots of descriptive domains for your products and business in the eyes of the search engines exists but can be overpowered by other things you do - and can be a negative if you don't implement your web server correctly as you'll see in the next part of this series.

All things being equal, if you have the opportunity (and capital) to purchase extra domains you probably should take it. Not doing so means you will have to work a bit harder for prominent placement in the search engines but you're going to have to work hard anyway.

So if I don't get lots of domain names with all the various descriptive key words in them, what do I do?

Here we deal with a really poorly understood aspect of owning your own second-level domain - the fact that you control what third-level, fourth level and beyond names are attached to it.

The typical web address is something like http://WWW.DIGITAL-RAG.COM

But in fact just using http://DIGITAL-RAG.COM in your browser bar will get you here - you don't need the WWW. in front!!!

Until recently I had been using http://digital-rag.pacdat.net for this site's predecessor but I found (well, I knew) that people would type the extra "WWW." in front of it as if it was necessary, so I redirected http://www.digital-rag.pacdat.net to the site too. What you see here is a "third level" domain - digital-rag - and a fourth level domain - WWW - prepended to my registered domain name PACDAT.NET - and it didn't cost me a penny!

Because you control the main domain, you can create as many sub-domains (third, fourth, etc.) as you wish, out to the limits of the length allowed for domain names which is 255 characters (the standard says "octets" but for most purposes this is equal to characters) so you can create sub-domains for each of your products or categories and add a 4th level "WWW" just in case - and it costs you NOTHING!

There are some (quite a few) technical problems with the use of sub-domains, most of them the same or similar to having multiple domains. Your webmaster and Domain Name System guru may be confused - but you can always call on me for help and advice since I've been doing this sort of thing since the dawn of the internet era. Again, I'll cover at least the high points of these techniques in part 4. The actual technical details don't matter as long as you understand that you may have to shop around for a webmaster/administrator who really knows how to make this work correctly. Not doing so can have disasterous results.