Registrant Email Address Considerations
Unfortunately, just finding an email address for the registrant doesnt guarantee contact. Particularly if someone has owned a domain for a long time, they may not use the email address anymore that they provided for registration. Lots of things can change: leaving school, getting hacked, and changing addresses, or simply upgrading the email hosting you use.
Also, many email clients have stringent spam filtering, and emails from addresses that theyve never received email from before may not be allowed through automatically. There are lots of articles out there outlining other spam filter triggers. Heres a good example. These are good things to be aware of for how you craft your email to the owner of the domain you want.
Some people also use WHOIS privacy services, either provided by their registrar or by a third-party service. Sometimes its obvious when one of these services is in place. For example, for customers using our new WHOIS privacy service, information for WhoisTrustee will be shown instead of a person or organizations contact information.
There will be email addresses shown for the contacts when a WHOIS privacy service is in place, but theres a chance that the registrant cannot receive email sent to them.
Couldnt I Just Get A Username On A Big Web Platform
Having your own domain name, even if its not perfect, is a far better option than building your online presence on top of another services URL, e.g. yourshop.shopify.com or facebook.com/yourcompany. This practice of building your brand, service, or web presence on another organizations platform is an example of sharecropping, and can be problematic for a number of reasons.
With this sharecropping setup, the platform youre hosted on:
- controls how your presence can look or function .
- can change services or raise rates, leaving you little recourse, since not accepting/paying could mean losing your site.
- can control how much exposure you get. Thereve been lots of articles about issues with brands on Facebook getting ever-lessening exposure of their content to their fans if they dont pay for advertising.
- can limit your access to analytics, making it hard to know how large your audience is, what theyre doing on your site, or where theyre engaging when theyre there.
- can simply take your site offline without much notice, explanation or recourse if you are deemed to have violated terms of service or other issues. It can take a lot of time and frustration to get these issues sorted out, and all the while your site is unavailable to anyone.
You can always switch domains later, but its a good idea to start with a web address you control while you build up your search engine visibility.
Domain Name Dramadont Let It Get To You
It starts when were youngnot getting what we want is incredibly frustrating.
If you cant get the domain name you want, dont throw a tantrum. There are plenty of options that will let you move forward.
You can stay close to your original vision, making a small change to come up with a suitably different, but available domain name.
You can go back to square one and pivot to a domain name thats so different from your competitors that your business will stand out in the crowd.
Or, you can dig your heels in and try to buy the domain from the owner, wait for it to expire, or sue .
As mentioned in the beginning, accepting the situation and coming up with a new domain name is usually the best approach, but depending on how the wanted domain name is being used, it might be worth trying to acquire it.
We hope this article has given you some insight into the steps you can take if the domain name of your dreams is out of reach!
Recommended Reading: Squarespace To Godaddy
Use Your Domain For A Custom Email Address
Youre a professional, so why are you still using that personal Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN email address you created 10 or even 20 years ago?
If the email youre using to communicate with customers isnt branding your business, then its time you kick that free email to the curb and set up a custom email using the domain you just purchased.
If you register a domain, you can set up a personalized email address such as . Thats so much better than , right?
You can put that custom email address on your business cards, the side of your car, everywhere you promote your business.
With Professional Business Email from GoDaddy, not only will you get 24/7 customer support, but youll also get as many email aliases as youd like .
Youll look more professional, credible, and with so many email address options, you can guarantee that emails are going to the right people.
Related: How to use a custom domain name for email
Domain Name Theft Is On The Rise
In the past several weeks, I have witnessed several domain names that I can confirm were, in fact, stolen from their owners. These valuable domain names were stolen, and as of writing this post, none of them have been recovered and returned to their owners:
- Perl.com stolen around Jan 27 2021
- Neurologist.com stolen around Jan 27 2021
- Chip.com stolen around Jan 27, 2021
- Patterns.com stolen around December 8, 2020
- Piracy.com stolen around December 8, 2020
All of these domain names were stolen by a domain name thief. They typically gained access to the domain name registrar account involved and then transferred the domain names to another domain name registrar. In some cases, they will change the ownership record so that it shows that the domain name is under privacy, and the contact details are hidden. Then, once they transfer the domain name to another domain name registrar, they will un-hide the domain name ownership details and put the old owner details in place of the private details. That way it looks like they original owner still owns the domain name, but the domain name is in the thiefs account. In all of the cases listed above, the domain name thief has tried to sell the domain names for about 10 percent of what they are actually worth. Theyll list them on websites such as Afternic.com and Sedo.com.
Recommended Reading: Transfer A Domain To Squarespace
Godaddy Domain Name Search
GoDaddy is the worlds largest domain name provider that has more than 70 million domains under its management. It offers almost all types of extensions.
GoDaddy has an advanced domain name search tool that will help you to find the availability of a domain name. It will also show you some suggestions and alternatives based on your search.
Just go to GoDaddy Domain Name Search and enter your domain name. And click on Search button.
In this case, it shows that the domain name is taken as Ive entered my own domain name. It also shows the available domains for other extensions.
Now lets try with a different name. Ive added a prefix to the domain name and found it available.
Thats a pretty handy tool for checking domain name availability.
Add A Verb To Your Domain Name
This is a popular method of getting around a domain name thats already taken.
There are two big benefits to this technique.
First, you can still use your brand name in the URL itself. Second, you dont have to consider different TLDs.
Verbs like get and try are popular choices as additions to domain names.
For example, Pocket uses getpocket.com:
These also tend to look a lot nicer than some alternative TLDs, and theyre usually easier to remember.
Also Check: Io Domain Registrar
Using Your Domain Name As A Competitive Advantage
A domain name isnt just a web address in someones browser. Its how to position your brand and present yourself to the digital world, whether youre blogging or selling products online.
Your domain name doesnt need to be overly clever for it to be perfect. Instead, choose one that is simple, memorable, and has a nice ring to it. Youll look more professional and gain instant credibility with your shoppers, which will likely lead to more awareness and sales for your business.
But The New Tlds Have Actually Entered The Fallback Hierarchies So Don’t Miss Out
Below those upper rungs on the ladder, however, everything is up for grabs.
As we descend farther and farther down the hierarchy, domain styles become more vulnerable and rankings more volatile. In the nether regions, we triple the word count, introduce hyphens, deform the name with misspellings, and rely on more obscure suffixes. All sorts of domain names are jockeying for position. .XYZ and .LINK and .CLICK and .PW and .ENTERPRISES and .GURU and .BUZZ and hundreds like them cant displace .COM per se. Theyre like crabs in a pot, dragging any upward climber back down again. That said, these new TLDs are, in fact, gaining ground relative to awkward, cumbersome styles on the left of the dot.
Last week, for example, I reported the rebranding of City.
- Church, which I was happy to call a tremendous improvement over its old address.
- .SPACE may evict a 4-word domain name.
- .PLACE may displace a misspelling.
- And if .BUSINESS or
- .LINK can persuade us to forget older suffixes like .BIZ or .INFO, then theyll claim a small but significant victory.
Recommended Reading: Transferring Domain To Squarespace
What Can I Do If My Domain Is Taken
See if the taken domain is for sale
Sometimes, the domain name may have been purchased by a legitimate business owner, but they never ended up doing anything with it. If thats the case, you can use the Domain.com WHOIS lookup to explore if you can contact the owner of the domain and purchase it at a fair price. You may have to pay a premium, but its worth a try to grab the perfect domain.
Try an abbreviated version of the domain
You can still get the point across and convey your brand by using an abbreviation of your business name in the domain. For instance, instead of www.AcmeCompany.com, you may opt for www.AcmeCo.com.
The easiest way to try out abbreviations is to open up your word processor and create a list of potential abbreviations. Then, copy and paste that list into Domain.coms Bulk Registration tool to see what is available.
Use a new top-level domain
Without compromising the integrity of your domain name, you can simply change the domain ending . Of course, the most used top-level domain is .com, but you have a variety of top-level domains at your fingertips, including .net, .biz, .co, .business and more. Using a top-level domain that applies to your business will help to further convey your brand and the products or services you offer.
Use a tagline or slogan instead
Consult a web design expert
Option : Take Legal Action
This might not be a popular choice but in case of trademark infringement, it is advisable to contact your lawyer. First, it will be necessary to determine whether:
- The domain name is a part of a trademark or even a well-known brand that has not been trademarked .
- Was the domain name registered with good intentions, without the goal of making a profit or otherwise off of a brand/person connected to that domain? The latter form of domain acquisition is considered illegal, but solving this issue through legal channels can be very expensive.
In this case, consult your lawyer and follow the instructions in the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy, used by all gTLDs and some ccTLDs such as ourselves. Although you might own the trademark, some registrants can still put up a legal fight since their goal was to make money in the first place.
The good news is that you probably have good chances of getting your desired domain name if you own the trademark.
Recommended Reading: Buy And Sell Domains For Profit
Understand Why Naming Is A Game Of Billiards
Permit me a metaphor. Naming is a game of billiards. Our first idea collides with fact after fact, rebounding on a different course following each encounter. The usual trajectory is one of ricochet: Perfect! No? Now what? Not that either. Next, please! Maybe. What else? Well see. And? Hmm … Weve all imagined some perfect name and looked up the ideal matching domain name only to bounce off obstacles. Prior registration. High asking prices. Unresponsive owners. Trademark conflicts. Thick online competition. Name ambiguity. Distant TLD release dates. Prohibitive renewal fees. Existing websites. Robinson Crusoe, living on a desert island, may name his startup whatever he pleases and suffer no consequences. Not so the rest of us. Our billiards table is a shared competitive landscape. Seldom do we get that clean shot that puts the 8 ball straight into the corner pocket. Usually we look around, assembling a mental list of possible targets, ranking the most awkward candidates below whatever seems more likely to succeed. We take aim, shoot, miss, and move on. Perhaps we sink an early target later. Perhaps someone else claims it sooner.
Option : Dig In But Be Ready To Pay Or Wait
The third option well cover is not last because its a last resort. There are cases where its appropriate to go out of your way to get the exact domain name you desire. Whether you should go down this route partly depends on how the domain you want is currently being used, as we discussed above.
If the domain name youre after navigates users to a businesss website, you can skip this section because its very unlikely that youll get the domain. However, if visitors to the domain see a placeholder page or ads, the domain name is definitely worth pursuing. With some money and patience, that domain name could be yours!
Read Also: How To Sell Domain Names For Profit
What To Do If Your Domain Is Taken
Youve landed on just the perfect domain name. Its short. Its memorable. Its easy to pronounce. It perfectly embodies everything youre all about.
So you type it in to your registrars search bar and Already taken.
What now? Start over?
Well, not so fast. There may still be some options open to you
Resolving A Domain Dispute With A Uniform Domain
Another common legal action to resolve domain disputes is by filing a UDRP complaint. UDRP stands for Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. It is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers for resolving disputes over internet domain name registrations. A copy of the UDRP can be found at ICANNs resources page.
The UDRP dispute process is a private arbitration proceeding. It is similar to a lawsuit, but instead of a judge or jury, there is a panel of one or three arbitrators. Other differences include the streamlining of the litigation process, such as less formal rules and procedures concerning discovery and the admissibility of evidence.
A UDRP dispute process starts when notice of the UDRP dispute is sent to the respondent . Almost all domain registrars require domain name registrants to agree to use the UDRP dispute process in their terms of service. But this is only binding on the registrant, not the victim of cybersquatting. In some cases, this can be an advantage for you, especially if the registrant is overseas or beyond the reach of a local courts jurisdiction.
After the parties are notified and a complaint is filed, the respondent can file a response brief. Then the complainant can file a reply brief responding to the registrants arguments. After that, a panel hears the arguments from each side.
In a UDRP dispute, as the plaintiff, you will always need to show:
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