1. Use Your Name or Your Company’s Name

The name listed as the Organizational Contact of a domain’s Whois record has all legal rights to and control over the domain. Because that control is exerted through the Administrative Contact, your name or your company’s name should be listed here as well. Too often, one or both of these entries contains the name of someone other than you. Free domain names are often prone to this problem. If the entries are incorrect, fix them immediately.

2. Use A Domain Related Email Address

Use an email address directly associated with your primary domain rather than using an out of domain address through an ISP or another third-party email hosting provider to be sure you get all of the related mail to your domain. Choose a primary domain in your portfolio and either register it for the maximum term of ten years or set it to renew automatically with your registrar. Then update all the email addresses throughout the rest of the portfolio with an address within this primary domain.

3. Get Rid of Whois Privacy, Privacy Masking, and Domain Masking

These privacy protectors don’t protect your privacy, and using them has added and unacceptable risks. Many internet scammers hide behind these services, and if you are using privacy masking, you may be losing sales. Disable all privacy masking services. Doing so will allow your customers to know who they are really buying from.

4. Use Only One Registrar

Consolidate all of your domains under one registrar to simplify administration. Choose a registrar that is responsive to your needs and professional.

5. Don’t Drop A Domain To Register Elsewhere

It is better to work on a way to recover your domain than to drop it. The redemption period is 70-80 days, and domainers are likely to snag the name before you ever get a chance to re-register it.

Some drop less used and low profit domain names to free up cash flow with the intent of re-registering them later. Occasionally, this works. However, once a domain name is dropped, it takes quite a gamble to be able to get an opportune time to re-register it.

6. Enable Domain Lock

All top-level domains like .com, .net, and .org are under a protocol known as EPP. Under EPP, these domains can be locked so that all transfer attempts will fail without proper authorization.

7. Enable Login Notifications

Login notifications tell you when someone is accessing your domains account and from what IP address. Have notices sent to a private email address, and monitor the login. Pay attention to logins that deviate from the norm.

8. Use Additional Security

Some registrars allow the domain owner to limit the logins to the account through various filters. Using this service can save your domains when your login credentials are compromised.

9. Watch For Phishing and Domain Slamming

Some registrars send out false renewal notices and, when you’ve given them the information they need, they transfer the management of your domain to a new registrar instead of renewing it. Phishing involves sending an email containing a link that requests you to login to your registrar account. Although the link looks real, hackers use it to steal your login credentials. Pay attention to your renewal notices. Never use a link in an email to login to your account. Instead, go to the website directly and login using SSL encryption.

Extra Measures
* Have your primary email address forward all mail to multiple email addresses.
* Put the domain registrar’s email address on your white list.
* Enable alternate methods of renewal notification if your registrar offers them.

Above post is a guest post from Gwen of hostingobserver.com

Coupon Code: FALL99

I just used the code to register  a .com domain. It is working at the time of this post. Hurry.

Coupon Code: Soccer99

It expires on 2nd july 2010 or 10k domains whichever comes first. Hurry.

Just used it to register a .org domain and it works like a charm.

Hope it helps to save a few bucks.

Edit: Looks like this code has exceeded the limit. I guess it isn’t working anymore.

I just thought i should remind everyone so that you can plan your renewals and registrations to save a few bucks. I also expect some if not all registrars to add their own price increase along with the verisign’s price increase on the wholesale value of .com and .net domains. So hurry up if you have a handful to renew or register.

- Premium Geo
- 4+ years old
- ws stands for western samoa and can be a branded as “website”, “web store”, “web shop” etc
- Low price

Bido Auction

I failed to do this last Dec. & Jan. A .org domain is up for renewal in the next 1 month. When i checked the renewal cost it is $35. Thats really pricey imho. It would have cost $7+ if i had moved it to another registrar. Never mind i am trying to move this now and lets see if the current registrar will allow me. If i am not wrong, if the domain is within 1 month of its expiry date registrars won’t allow the domain to move out. I simply want to try my luck.

Most registrars will send out the renewal notice only when the domains are within 1 month of its expiry date. Not sure if this is done so that the domains won’t be moved out and will be renewed at whatever ridiculous prices they charge. I feel cheated when this happens. But then this the reason why you have to plan your renewals in a timely manner.

1. Blog post from Jamie. Definitely the people who are affected for no reason of theirs are going to feel the pinch and frustration. But when Bido or anyone is going to block a whole country then the problem has to be serious and hence the tough decision.

2. Forum sale from RJ at Namepros. I was checking the “side note to developers” just above the domain listings. “I lost more than 50 sites in one day because of nonexistent backups.” – This caught my attention.

What i saw from these is that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. We will have to spread the risks. Some do domaining for hobby and some for earning. No matter how you do it i feel when you put your money & time into something its wise to spread the risks.

I will cut it short and for those interested, more information can be found on the blog post at Domaining Tips.

Good luck to the Seller.

Lazy Domaining has gone from PR2 to PR3.

Not that i give a lot of importance to PR but just that it feels good to start the year 2010 with PR3.

gdr1251an – 25% OFF on $60 or more
gdr1257c – $7.17 for .com
tvspecial – $7.20 for .tv renewal
gdr1249 – 30% OFF on .com