WebAdmin 101-A5 - Domain Registries

5. Domain Registries

Whether you know it or not, getting your web site on an official domain registry can make all the difference.  It assists with search engine placement, site-ranking services, and with monetising your site through affiliate programs.  An officially registered domain is much more likely to be accepted for evaluation and services, especially in the affiliate advertising world.  The longer you pre-pay your domain registration for, the more it will help you with search engines and being able to cherry pick the best advertising programs, as well as the likelihood of being approached to write (and be paid for writing) reviews of companies and their products and services.  Of course, it will never replace having a long established, registered, domain name already, but it will go part way to mitigating the negative effects of not having that.

What is a domain registry?
A domain registry is an official registrar that lists the owner and operator of a web site. If you own a domain name, having an official contact and address for the serving of any legal documents goes a long way to creating a trust ranking in businesses of all types.  It therefore makes sense to put your web site on an official domain registry.  In many countries now, there is a legal requirement to have your business entity details, contact names and physical geographical address available for anyone who may enter into any form of contract to purchase anything from you.  Normally this is done on a “contact us” page, but in some circumstances, it makes sense to have a pointer to an off-site location for the information (e.g. working from home) if your local laws permit this.  When this happens, having your details registered with an official domain registry is one option. 

Nowadays, there are also specialist companies who act like a nominee company secretary for you at the domain registry, such that anyone performing a domain registrant search, will discover only the office details of this 3rd party facilitator.  For more about this topic, please (wait for and) see WebAdmin 101-A10 “WhoIs and WhoIs Protection”.

So how do you put your domain name on a Domain Registry?   Here are a few simple tips to get your web site on the right path by being on an official domain registry.

How To Put Your Domain Name On An Official Domain Registry
A domain name registry is an official registrar of domain names and their legal owners, as well as other pieces of official information. There are many domain registries and a simple Internet search will swamp you with options. For example, there is the domain registry for the USA, which is one of the main domain registries. However, you should take your time and do some serious domain-name registry searching, before you decide which registrar to go with.  Domain registries are an important part of your website’s status.

Generally speaking, you register your domain name through an internet service that is either stand alone, part of a web hosting company or service, an Internet Service Provider, or a website creation service.   All of them will offer an online form to complete your details after performing an availability search for the domain name you want.  Today, they will all also offer an immediate payment option or two on the same page as the registration form, and many will offer an offline method as a backup option.  As soon as you click accept, they will do all the legal work behind the scenes for you, but it may take 48 hours or so before the domain name is searchable.

There are merits in choosing a different service to the company that hosts your website, not least of which is mobility when needed.  If your webhost is also your registrar, then when you want to change hosting service, you have to get the old hosts to release your domain name for transfer, and have your new hosts take it over, re-register it, and point their name servers at it.  If you use a separate registry, they only have to change a couple of entries in their name servers, which is quicker and less likely to interupt your web being served to visitors.

How To Choose The Right Domain Names Registry
There are lots of domain name registry organisations, so how are you supposed to choose the right one for you.  Each one calls itself the best and most official, but which one is telling the truth?  One recommended method is to read user reviews.  Another is to see what other web masters and domain owners are doing and saying, and check which domain name registries they are using to register their own domain names.

Another important thing to do before you choose a domain registrar is to compare their features in a side-by-side format. When you check domain name registries features, ask -

• Which offers domain registry help and support? 
• Which offers the best kind of legal support? 
• Which offers the best price?
• How often does the registry require that you update information?
• Do you have to periodically update your status?
• How often do you have to renew registration? 
• Do they provide WhoIs protection?
• What billing and payment methods do they use?

All of those are important considerations before you register your chosen domain name.

Should You Entrust Your Web Site To Cheap Domain Registries?
Maybe you have run into a cheap domain name registry, or even a free domain name registry, but you are not sure whether or not you should add your domain to this registry. There is nothing inherently wrong with a cheap domain registry, just make sure that it can provide you with the right kind of domain registry support. 

In our webhosts list, you will notice a company named “CheapHosting” - they are also a domain registry and name-trading service, and we highly recommend them in that capacity.  You will also notice some of the webhosts in our list offer free domain names, again, if they’re in our lists, they’ve been recommended by someone whose opinion we value.

Tomorrow, we will look at domain registrars, the people who interact between you and the domain registries –
If you have any questions about today’s unit, please add them to the comments below.

Ed

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A little slow off the mark, Brian Burke, Director of Feedback Policy at eBay, has announced that for transactions which ended from 19th Feb, the new repeat feedback policy has gone into effect, and some cosmetic changes have been made to user feedback pages.

And in a blinding announcement snuck into the above one, he stated, “What’s more – coming in May, we will provide credit for ALL repeat transactions that occurred between 1996 and February 2008.”

He then followed that up with the sting in the tail of, ”(We’ll be introducing the other Feedback changes announced in January in that timeframe, as well.)” which of course, refers to the leaving of positive- feedback- only for buyers.

I welcome the backdating of the feedback credit, but caution that it won’t make any difference to DSRs or the rolling 30-day eligibility for discounts, or visibility punishments based upon them - it is only a cosmetic change, and could earn a higher number of recorded negatives as well as positives.   Remember the buyers will also get the repeated feedback benefits and drawbacks too.

Even more reason to take action on the defamatory comment legal filing that I blogged about on 24th Feb. and clean up your history (if it needs it).

Ed

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eBay US have launched v1.0 of their browserless desktop tool which lets you  search, bid on, and watch items right from the eBay Desktop application, all while getting alerts about their status and RSS feeds of newly listed products in categories watched by you.

One of the features the developers like most is the Favorite Search feed, which lets you download items from your favorite searches and browse through them, even when you’re not online!  Version 1.0 is available at http://desktop.ebay.com.

I’ve not played with it, and to be honest, I’m not likely to unless I see glowing, bug-free, laudatory reports across all the eBay discussion boards.  eBay still haven’t got the bugs out of the online eBay systems, nor from tools like Turbo Lister, therefore I’m not going to allow a newly post-Beta version of a desktop invader into my systems.  Skype causes enough background and resource grief as it is.

I am hoping, however, that the tool is bug-free, stable, and as worthwhile as the pre-release announcements touted it to be.  If the overwhelming opinion is that it’s bug-free and worthwhile, then I’ll give it a shot.

Ed

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eBay UK have announced today that they’ll be delaying the introduction of the Safe Payments Policy scheduled for introduction in February, and introducing it in March instead.  (Glances at calendar and rolls eyes  )

The announcement further cautions that, “The changes we announced around requiring sellers to offer PayPal in certain cases will now go live in late March 2008 instead of February 2008, as previously stated. Sellers who will be affected by these changes should register with PayPal and update their listings to include PayPal as a payment option as soon as possible.”

I’m guessing this is yet another instance of the sellers telling eBay to take a running jump and have words with themselves about the impossibility of the dreamworld deadlines they set.

Ed

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After two years of steadily increasing eBay fees, steadily decreasing eBay traffic, and steadily decreasing eBay customer service, eBay Powerseller “The House of Oojah” has left eBay Australia to concentrate on website sales.

Traffic on eBay.com.au (eBay Australia) has declined since reaching a peak in early 2006. Traffic on eBay Australia is now down to levels of traffic that existed in 2003 (source www.Alexa.com).  Despite these decreasing traffic levels, eBay fees have continued to grow, with a further fee increase in January 2008.  This has forced many eBay PowerSellers to investigate setting up their own websites, and many that have done so are reporting higher sales from them than from eBay.

eBay AU and TradeMe NZ” />

Continual changes to the eBay Australia website has caused problems to eBay Powersellers as well as eBay buyers. Ebay search changes especially has made it difficult for Buyers to find items. Ebay Store items have been put in search, removed from search, returned to search, and then removed again.  Despite this, the traffic drop off on Oz has not been as bad as on UK and USA. 

Independant New Zealand auction site TradeMe.co.nz has seen a similar shift in traffic, but it should be remembered that they changed site policy in 2005 to exclude all non-NZ residents.

By moving to their own website, The House of Oojah say they can now offer postage discounts, and better search for buyers, making it easier for buyers to find what they are looking for.  They have been frequently criticised for continuing to spam former members, now excluded, with details of promotions etc. during the 2-years+ since they changed membership criteria.

Oojah’s abandonment of the eBay platform comes after 5 years trading there, with around 40% of all their feedback achieved, being received in the last 12 months.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Ed

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WebAdmin 101-A4 - Sub-Domains

4. Sub Domains

What is a sub-domain, and what can it do for your web site? A sub-domain is exactly what it sounds like: a sub directory or sub domain of your original domain.

Sub domains usually look something like this - store.bookshop.com.

Note how the original domain is probably www.bookshop.com. The “store” that is placed in front of the original domain name re-addresses that domain into a sub domain.   The name of the sub-domain becomes the three-part name, store.bookshop.com not just “store“.

If you remember back to lesson 101-A2, I introduced you to the concept that the “www” is actually the server name and not part of the domain name.  The same philosophy applies to sub-domains. 

Thus in our example, “store.” could be a server name, even though it is being used as a sub-domain name,  or, it might simply be a storage area on a hard drive that holds a sub-website with unique appearance and properties, compared to the parent site. 

That hard drive might be in a different computer to the parent site, and establishing it as a sub-domain allows easier connection between the two, and a more logical addressing system.  Remember the “house number ~ street name ~ street type” analogy I used in WebAdmin 101-A2?  well, with subdomains, you could think of it as “house number ~ apartment number ~ street name ~ street type“.  The server “www” is the house number, the sub domain “store” is the apartment number, and so on as before.

Consider this illustration, modified from one in the Exchange Server 2000 Help files written by Microsoft (they have discontinued support for Exchange Server 2000 and Windows 2000, so I hope they have no problem with sharing “redundant” images?).

The note I’ve added to the diagram shows a possible, but unusual addressing for cascading sub-domains.

It would be more normal to move the “www” to the front of the URL, however, in theory, there is nothing to stop it from being in its normal place immediately before the main domain name, and after server names that don’t follow the usual naming conventions of “ftp“, “www“, etc.  It is however, very likely that using server-type’s names for sub-domains would cause problems with public Domain Name Servers (WebAdmin 102D - DNS, will explain this more fully - for now, just consider naming sub-domains with the server-type names, as being a major no-no).  Thus, those sub-domains of the “www” node should be treated as site / directory folders - e.g. www.microsoft.com/public and www.microsoft.com/corporate.

Why Do You Need A Sub Domain / Subdomains?
Sub-domains are usually used simply to organize a web site in a clear and efficient manner – usually to assist the designers, but if done well, it can also help the users too.  Sub-domains can be thought of in the same way as having multiple hard drives in a computer, or the different drawers in a filing cabinet - either example is used to separate information into logical storage areas. 

• Web browsers can read sub-domains easily, and web surfers and customers have become used to the format of sub-domains, even if they didn’t recognise they were using them.  
• Sub-domain names make it easy to organize any web site into sections that are easy to identify and label. 
• Web sub-domains also make it easy for clients and web surfers to get to the web page that they need, without having to go through the main page. 

In other words, your website’s topmost sub-domains make it very easy for web surfers and clients to find just the information they need, right when they want it.  As an example, if you wanted to come (here) to the BuildaSkill Biz Blog, without going through the portal system on the home page of www.buildaskill.com, you could navigate directly to the blog by typing www.buildaskill.com/blog, or, you could go to the discussion boards and forums by typing www.buildaskill.com/board.

Try this experiment - open a new browser window, then copy and paste (don’t click on the links) each of these two addresses -

• www.buildaskill.com/blog
• www.blog.buildaskill.com

What happened?  With the first one, you’ll have gone straight to the home page of the BuildaSkill global Biz Blog, but, with the second one, you’ll have been redirected to a search-engine “page not found” result - yes?  That’s because the blog is run from a sub-folder in the BuildaSkill website, instead of a sub-domain. 

Why?  In all honesty, it’s me being lazy and sloppy.  I forgot to set the subdomains when I first installed the blog software, and have just never got around to it since then.  (Where’s that “innocent whistling” smiley when you need it?).  

But, you can see from this, that when a sub-section of a website is in a sub-folder (as opposed to a sub-domain), you have to use conventional extended URL format for it’s address.  That’s important to remember - you cannot shortcut on sub-domaining, you have to create the sub-domain and point your name servers to it.  You don’t need to do that for a sub-folder, which makes sectioning of websites a lot easier for beginners, even if it makes URLs a little longer sometimes. 

In fact, because a sub-domain is setup in a folder inside your website structure, once you’ve created the sub-domain, if you forget to set the name servers, you and your users cans till navigate to the sub-domain by using normal sub-folder addressing in the URL.

The normal and preferred way to input URLs, (rather than the absolute hierarchal style of www.blog.buildaskill.com and www.board.buildaskill.com) is by using the first style (with the /blog and /board suffixes).  It means you don’t need to know if your target is in a sub-domain, or in an ordinary sub-folder, the suffix name-style will work with, and take you to, either a sub-domain or a sub-folder.

Whether you choose sub-domain ranking, or another kind of organizing principle such as sub-folders, you will probably want to use some kind of sub-domains on your web site if it will have several clear and distinct sections that will contain disparate data or need distinctive visualisation, page layouts, and colours. 

Now here’s the important bit relating to that - sub-folders can inherit colours and page layouts from the top (root) of the website.  Sub-domains cannot (without some “clever” programming).  Each sub-domain will normally have its own unique colour schemes, page-layouts, font styles etc.

Therefore, if you’re going to give different sections of your website their own and unique “identities”, you should be using, either sub-domains, or, different software for each section, each in its own folder.  However if you want a quick and easy way to “cascade” styles down through the whole web, then using sub-folders will ultimately save development time and cost.

What if I want to make a folder into a sub-domain, or a sub-domain into a TLD?

Yes, you can do it, if you do it in the sequence in the question - i.e. promote a folder into becoming a sub-domain, then promote the sub-domain into a TLD.  Making a sub-domain into a TLD is a little trickier than promoting a folder (and the topic of a later article) but essentially means creating a URL redirector. 

Let’s say I’ve promoted the BuildaSkill Biz Blog sub-folder to be a sub-domain called “BlogaSkill“.  If I wanted to make it a TLD, I’d need to register the TLD “blogaskill.com” or “blogaskill.co.uk“, or whatever.

Then, from my webhosting control panel, I’d have to create a redirector to point requests for www.blogaskill.com to point at the blogaskill sub-domain.  Then I’d need to create DNS records on the name servers so that the rest of the world could find the new domain.  More about this later in the series. ….. 

Hmmm - remember the warning I gave a couple of days ago about domain name choosing?  blogaskill = Blog-a-Skill or Blog-As-Kill ?

Finding Website Hosting for Sub-Domains
Not all web host service providers offer sub-domains, although nowadays, most do so.  More commonly, quite a few don’t allow you to set sub-domains yourself, but will do it for you on request.  Almost all of the companies listed in our webhosts list allow you to control your own sub-domaining.  If you are interested in sub-domains and using sub-domain names, you will want to find a web hosting site that allows you to create sub-domains, and which provides strong help and support facilities (if you’re a novice). 

Creating sub-domain web folders is easy if you have a web hosting service that provides the right tools, and allows you (personally) to make sub-domains.  Once created, your web traffic can use them to navigate directly to the desired web pages on your website.

In a few weeks time, in WebAdmin 102, you’ll learn about the different web management tools that webhosts supply as part of their package (or don’t, which is usually the case with UK webhosts), and in the BuildaSkill forums, you can learn, and share queries, about the free, open-source software programs you can install when building websites.  The web management tools normally allow you to create folders within the website you are building, and to designate them as sub-domains. 

Some softwares for local (on your own home PC) web-building, will, when you upload the site to your webhost, create the sub-domain structure for you.  Microsoft FrontPage does this, but only for Windows-based web-hosting, which is becoming increasingly difficult to find, and more expensive when you do so. 

Free Sub-Domain Hosting: Is It A Good Idea?

Perhaps you are interested in a web hosting sub-domain service, that says it can offer you a free sub-domain.  Free sub-domains are certainly a good idea, but be prepared for limited customer service, technical assistance, and other features. If you have a busy web site that receives a high share of traffic, you may want to choose a pay site that can handle the web traffic levels that your web site will get with extra sub domains.  Nowadays, the minimal cost of even “sloppy” TLD hosting still provides better value for money that most of the free sub-domain hosting services, especially if you plan to offer any form of eCommerce functionality.

Finding good sub-domain hosting, that is also free, can be tricky, but free sub-domain hosting is easy to locate if you’re not fussy about support services, and don’t mind the TLD owner splashing adverts and branding all over your pages (adverts you don’t get paid for, but which the webhost might be making a tidy income from).

Tomorrow, I will begin to look at how to register domain names –
If you have any questions about today’s article, please add them to the comments below.

Ed

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February is a short month, we all know that.  However despite being a few days short of a regular serving, various eBay sites around the globe have never let that stop them from throwing a cheap listing day (CLD) around about St Valentine’s Day.

Unusually this year, only the US (13th March) and Canada (also the 13th) did so (in fact, Canada did it twice (5th-6th March)) - the CLD-addicted UK did not, and there’s been some online gossip it was in retaliation for the severe grief the pommie pinks got in the discussion boards concerning January’s policy and focus shifts.  They got no worse that did the North Americans, and the US doesn’t have Tame Bay’s to gush enthusiastically and favourably about every proclamation eBay makes.

In Europe, the French (1st - 3rd March), Italians (7th), and the Belgians (10th - 11th) had CLDs early in the month, but the UK’s last offering was 24th January, another month in which many countries held double or triple CLD’s and the new UK boss must have put his foot down on UK sellers, needing to get them used to paying full whack on what is already eBay’s most expensive-to-use site (apart from Germany,  but that might swing with the new fees).

However it seems the dry patch is over. 

eBay.co.uk have just announced a Half Price listing weekend for 1st & 2nd March.  Before you fire up the intravenous coffee for an all-night listing marathon, be aware that it’s for Motors only. 

On the other side of the planet, the Aussies have been rewarded with a Half Price listing fest from 29 Feb through to 3rd March inclusive - that’s a 4-day binge of cheapies.  PayPal being offered is compulsory to get the discount, and “Qualifying Sellers” for the purpose of this promotion are sellers who are validly registered members of any eBay site with an Australian registered address - yah, boo, hiss.  The shackle-shakers never let the rest of us in on their fun .

One condition of the Aussie promotion has me a little concerned - a clause I’ve never seen on any promotion-day announcement before - “Persons whose eBay accounts have been temporarily or indefinitely suspended or made inactive by the Promoter during the Promotion, are not eligible to enter this Promotion. “ 

Now call me paranoid and whack me with a wallaby, but that newest stipulation sort of sends the message that eBay Oz will be picking and choosing who gets to have an active account during promotional listing periods.  And as I’ve blogged many times, what gets trialled in Oz, filters out to the rest of us eventually. 

You’ve still got 2 days left of the eBid Half Price Lifetime membership offer, and then every day will be not only a CLD, but a FREE listing day - for life!

Ed

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 WebAdmin 101A - Top Level Domains

3. Top Level Domains

What is a Top-Level Domain (TLD) and how does it affect your web site? Even if you have only dabbled in the role of web master, chances are you have run into some kind of reference about top-level domains. But what is a TLD anyway?

A top-level domain name refers to the very last part of a common Internet domain name. For example, in the domain name www.domain.com, the TLD would be classified as the “.com” part of the address.  It is usual to speak the TLD inclusive of the preceding period calling it “dot“, thus the example “.com” would be said as “dot com“.  Sometimes it is written the same way as it is spoken, especially if referring to one site within a company’s group of sites - for example, eBay.com is often referred to as “eBay US” or in the context of speaking about eBay, it might be named as “the dot com site” or simply “dot com” if the reference is clear and unmistakable.

Who Decides On Internet Top Level Domains?
TLDs are so familiar to us that most of us, even those who work as web masters, do not stop to think twice about them.  But, who decides on Top Level Domains?  Who made the TLD list?  Who is responsible for the TLD name creation? 

Most TLDs are created and assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).  This Internet Corporation currently classifies every top level TLD into three main categories.

The Three Categories Of The Top Level Domain 

• These include country code top-level domains (ccTLD). These are top-level domains that are used by a specific country or territory. An example of these top-level domains includes “.uk” for the United Kingdom and “.jp” for Japan.

• The second category of the top-level domains is the generic top-level domains (gTLD).  These are top-level domains used by a kind of organization.  Examples of generic top-level domains include “.com” and “.mil” and “.gov” domain names.  A subset of these generic top level domains are described as unsponsored top level domains, such as “.biz”, “.info”, and “.pro”.
• Finally, the third main category of top-level domains is infrastructure top-level domains.  These are a restricted use set and include extensions such as “.net“, “.web“, “.tv“, and “.ac“.  Each attempt to register these types of TLD are subject to scrutiny and verification of the registrant’s eligibility to own one.  For example, to use “.net“, it’s not enough to be a web hosting or connectivity service, there are stricter criteria involved.

Finding Affordable Top Level Domains (TLD)
If you are looking into building and maintaining your own web site, you will probably want to look into top-level TLD registration.  TLD registration is readily available on the Internet, and is relatively easy to find.   Most of the web hosting services in our webhosts list offer domain name registration and name server hosting. 

Some webhosts charge an annual, or two-yearly, fee for this.  Some include it as part of the web-hosting fee.  Others advertise that they will provide one or more domain names free of charge - Hostgator (also in our list) have a package that offers 75 domain names free, and yours forever, in their top level package.  I have even seen, the odd one or two, hosting services offering unlimited domain names free for life … but they sometimes mean free for the life of the contract you keep paying for, and if you cancel and change hosts, they keep the domain names for reselling - it pays to read the small print.

Maybe you are wondering: where can I find free hosting for my top-level domain?  Generally speaking you can’t - it’s self-defeating for the webhost, and any webhost that offered it would not remain in business for very long.  Providing servers for web hosting is an expensive operation - both in terms of intitial capital costs, and in terms of long-term maintenance and upgrading of hardware and infrastructure, plus connectivity to the Internet. 

However, what you can do, is to look for a hosting service with TLD registration service, that has an affiliate programme and will offer to pay your affiliate earnings into your hosting account “fund”.   Again, some of the hosts in our webhosts list provide this type of arrangement, but please check carefully as some of them only provide traditional affiliate payments via cheque or PayPal etc. and not into your hosting account.  Decide if you want to make money, or maybe have your hosting paid for by referring customers, before you sign up with a host that offers affiliate programs, if those are a prime criteria for you.

Using affiliate programs, people clicking on links in your website and emails, then buying hosting from your provider, earn you money that pays for your hosting without you having to pick, pack, or ship anything, and without you having to do any accounting or payment handling.  That’s about as near as it gets to “free” hosting for TLD websites.  If you’re a successful affiliate marketer, you could even be earning substantial income from such activity, in addition to having your hosting paid for.

There are many Internet TLDs out there, from the most expensive top-level domain packages, that include hosting and web design, to cheap TLD registration-only services - which one is right for you?  Luckily, finding a cheap TLD is also relatively easy these days, but sometimes, you truly get what you pay for. 

There are many web sites that specialize in affordable and even free TLDs as explained above, but you need to look at the total package, not just the price.  There are some convincing arguments to say that you should register your domains with one company, and your hosting with a different company.  That way, if your webhost does something that “upsets” you, and you then want to move hosts, they cannot hold your domain name to ransom.  More about this later, in WebAdmin 101-B7 (Transferring Domains).

Off-Topic, but ….. What might your hosts do to upset you? 

Well, this year (2008) one of the big issues is going to be webhosts changing some of the core software on their servers.  Currently, many people are hosting TLD websites with webhosts running PHP 4.x.x but support from the open-PHP source group expires this year, and most hosts will migrate to PHP 5.x.x, which will “break” some websites due to code function and grammar differences between versions 4 and 5 of PHP.  A similar problem will surface this year with the popular MySQL database engines used by webhosts, and possibly with the UNIX / LINUX core operating system used for servers.  I’ll be looking at this more carefully in WebAdmin 102.

If you’re going to be developing web sites that are ecommerce, forum, blog, or similarly interactive-functions biased.  You need to check which of these your intended host is using, and what their upgrade path and timescale contains.  Then cross reference with the developers of the softwares you intend to use on your site.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at sub-domains and try to demystify them.
If you have any questions about today’s unit, please add them to the comments below.

Ed

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