Let’s say you have a great idea for a website, and now you need to buy a domain name. Just how do you go about doing that? Let’s take a look at what you need to know when you want to buy a domain name.

Where to buy domain names:

Domain names are sold by companies called domain registrars. These are companies that are licensed by ICANN, the governing body that regulates each top-level domain (TLD). You may have seen advertising for domain registrar companies such as

I hope you’re reading this from somewhere cool because it has been crazy hot for the last few days. I try to stay in the air conditioning as much as possible, and when I spend time outdoors on the weekend, it can be brutal when the temps go above 95. Anyway, on to some Sunday updates and tips.

• I was a bidder in a NameJet auction for a brandable domain name that sold for over $3,000, and it had five bidders with $1,000+ bids.  I performed a search on the    USPTO  website to make sure it was usable should I win the auction, and I saw one live trademark for the exact term that covered how the domain name would logically be used. If you buy brandable names, you should always check the USPTO first.

• There are hundreds of dog walking services that advertise on DogWalker.com. Each listing has a link to its own website, and for the first time, there is an advertiser that uses a .CO domain name. Interestingly, the .CO is their brand and not a descriptive term. It’s interesting because they could have used a .net or .org (or something else) but chose the .CO instead. The matching .com is owned by a veterinarian in a different area.

• With the above update in mind, it would be interesting if some of the new gTLD registries partnered with directories and organizations to offer discounts to companies using the TLD. For instance, it would be neat if .Dog worked out a deal with DogWalker.com so that dog walking services that had a .Dog domain name could get a $10 discount on listings and the .Dog Registry would pay me a bounty for every discount given.

• It was great to read about the two RDNH decisions reported by Mike this week. It’s too bad a RDNH finding isn’t anything more than a slap on the wrist since the domain owner needs to pay an attorney thousands of dollars to defend a name that shouldn’t have had a UDRP filed against it in the first place.

• I think the next best thing is the name and shame approach from Andrew in his “Fire your UDRP lawyer” posts. Perhaps some egg on the face will create some buzz to prevent this. I think Rick mastered that approach with his SaveMe.com UDRP reports.

• I am beginning to have an affinity for lease deals. It can be a solid way of generating revenue with your domain names, and instead of getting one lump sum, you’ll get consistent revenue throughout the year. Further, instead of making the leasee pay for the name all up front (which can be difficult for an expensive name) a lease can be a nice alternative. Do any companies in the domain space offer lease administration services?

I will be changing hosting providers within the next 12 hours. I apologize in advance if any comments you make are missing between now and the hosting change. I don’t anticipate that there will be any issues, but I want to give you a head’s up in advance.

Thanks for understanding!

There has been a considerable amount of mainstream media coverage on the new gTLDs, and it’s interesting to see how these media outlets discuss the new domain names and the impact they will have on the Internet. I want to share links to some of the mainstream articles that I’ve found from the last week that might be of interest to you.

By the way, do you care about gTLDs? Vote now!

• “After .xxx, here come .sex and .porn sites” CNN
• Battlefield Internet: A Saga of the Year 2012 – Financial Times
• .What? June 13 is Domain Reveal Day – Portland Business Journal
• How the Internet will get new domain name suffixes – Boston.com
• ICANN to reveal gTLD applicants – BtoB Magazine
• This Week in Tech: Tech world braces for wave of new domain names – The Hill
• Master of Their Domains – AdWeek
• ICANN Says Will Unveil New Web Addresses June 13‎ – Investor’s Business Daily
• Donuts Raises $100M-Plus To Deliver ‘Dot-Anything-You-Want’ Domain Names – Wall Street Journal
• .Cash: Domain Name Wholesaler Donuts Raises $100 Million – Forbes
• The Latest Domain-Name Gold Rush – Business Week
• Are Web domains .lol and .sucks coming soon? – Financial Post

I believe that many people who buy domain names as investments have a short term outlook on things that impact the business. Many people want to make money quickly from their domain purchases, and they think about how things in the short term will impact them rather than having a longer horizon.

In my opinion, gTLDs will take quite some time to implement, and it will be even longer before they impact the domain sales aftermarket. Because of this, some people might not really care about gTLDs or be interested in reading about them right now. With all the news about gTLDs and the  upcoming “big reveal,” I am wondering if the domain investors who read my blog care about gTLDs, and further, if they want to read about them.

This is a simple question, but I am curious if you care about gTLDs.

Pay per click parking provider TrafficZ has announced a big change to its default landing page template. According to the company, after an undisclosed testing period, the “TrafficZ Royal” landing page showed “significant increases in click through rates (CTR) and RPM.” This should be good news to clients as the company notes that “all data points to increasing clients’ payouts on the TrafficZ system.”

To help ensure that clients payments are improved, TrafficZ has selected this new template as the system default across the board. If clients do not wish to use the new template, they can manually choose another template. I would imagine clients should review performance, to ensure that performance is actually better with this new template.

It’s good to see companies continuing to test their core products and not being afraid to make major changes when necessary. The full press release the company sent to clients is below.