Domains can be registered in many different ways. As I just mentioned, individuals that own domains already can sell their domains to end-users. There are auction sites, such as, ebay.com, auctions.godaddy.com, sedo.com, and many others that offer an interface to buy and sell domains. Forums, blogs and domain conferences are also viable options to purchase domains however they generally do not offer the same security as an auction site. For example, when purchasing a domain via sedo.com, the buyer will pay sedo.com for the domain after negotiations between the buyer and seller are settled on a price. Sedo then acts as an escrow service and holds the funds until the seller moves the domain to the buyer’s control. This is very secure and the buyer does not need to worry about paying and not receiving the domain. Purchasing domains from forum members is less secure. The buyer will generally pay the seller via Paypal. Then the buyer will work with the seller to gain control of the domain. Although Paypal has its own security features to protect buyers, it is not the same as an escrow service.

Another way to purchase domains is to buy them as new registrations through a domain registrar. The largest domain registrar is GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy.com was formed in 1997 and has over 40 million domains under management (Registrarstats.com). GoDaddy.com is larger than its next 6 competitors which includes Enom.com. Enom.com is the 2nd largest registrar with a little over 10 million domains under management. Some of the other larger registrars are NetworkSolutions.com, Tucows.com and Register.com. All of the above companies allow people to register new domain names and the main differences are price, customer support and management interfaces. ShowtimeDomains.com allows you to register domains as well.

Domains are registered in one year increments. When they expire, if the owner does not renew them, they drop to expired auctions. Expired domains can be listed through a number of different auction sites. Many registrars operate auction sites for their own expiring names. When a user wants a domain that is already taken, these expired auctions are a great way to find those domains. A downfall to registering expired domains is that the auction company generally requires that you keep the domain with them for a period of time. If a domain is not purchased at an expired auction it will be completely dropped and made available as a new registration. The technique used to register these dropping domains as quickly as possible is called drop catching. I’ll talk more about this technique later in this paper. For those people that do not have the time or resources needed to be efficient at drop catching, they can backorder domains. Backordering domains is essentially paying a registrar to monitor the domain for you. When the domain is available for registration the registrar will attempt to get the domain. If successful, the domain will be registered for the backorder holder.

Registering domains can have many benefits. One of the biggest benefits is personalization (Evolutioninc.info). Owning a domain allows you to have a personalized email address. In the business world this is crucial. Sending emails from a yahoo.com or aol.com email address doesn’t have the same effect as sending it from sales@showtimedomains.com for example. A website can also be created for the domain name to allow the owner to showcase their products, express their thoughts, or simply for fun.

Businesses can benefit from owning their own domain as well. An online presence is more important than ever in today’s business world. Customers can purchase products online without ever having to leave their house. Shopping online has become huge business and if a company does not have a website they are cutting their revenues down considerably. Many consumers search online for a product they want to buy prior to going out to retail stores. Without a domain and website a company may never get their product in front of the consumer’s eyes.

That’s it for this week. Next week, I will start getting into the different ways to monetize domain names. That means to make money with your domains to my newer readers. I hope everyone has a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend.

PART I

Google.com, ESPN.com and Facebook.com are all types of domains and the internet is growing exponentially with more than 100,000 domains registered each day. There are 94 million .COM domain names registered to day (Registrarstats.com). There are hundreds of variations called TLDs or Top-Level Domains and that is just .COM! It is becoming imperative for individuals and businesses alike to register their own name, if nothing else, for trademark purposes. With the explosion of the internet, a new form of business was created and it was called domaining. Domaining is the buying and selling of domain names and it has become a very profitable business through various ways of flipping, parking, developing and advertising.

Domaining is a relatively new business. The first domain name ever registered was symbolics.com. It was registered on March 15, 1985, by Symbolics Computer Corp. They later sold the domain in 2009 to XF.com Investments for an undisclosed amount of money according to an article written by Ron Jackson of DNJournal.com. Most people would think that IBM or AT&T would have been the first to register their domains. At that time the internet was nowhere near the size that it has become. Since that date, over 200 million domains have been registered. Now it is extremely rare to find a large company that does not own their “name”.com.

Most domaining professionals began speculating with domains just prior or just after the “dot-com bust” of 2000. In the late 90’s, many investors banked on the hopes of internet business and the .COM TLD. When the internet sector of Wall Street crashed in 2000, many companies did not find it necessary to keep their websites or domain names. They simply let them expire or “drop.” That is when a new type of investor came into the market and began registering these dropping domains. The top domain industry pros have only been in the business an average of five to eight years. Many have done very well for themselves by registering domains and then turning around and selling them to interested buyers.

Domaining is not a well-known industry to the general public. People know of the internet and websites and they know that they need to go to a .COM to see a site they want. What people do not understand is the backend business of the internet. They do not know how much that .COM they visit may be worth. This makes domaining such a profitable business because most users of the internet will purchase domains at a premium price from domainers if they cannot find the name they want from a domain registrar.

Next week I will talk more about where you can register domains and the benefits of registering domains. I welcome any comments below. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @Showtimedomains.

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