Free Web Hosting or Paid? Here's How to Decide

by: Anthony Hamill

Have you wondered if free web hosting is any good? More importantly, is it a viable option for someone who wants to set up an online business presence without a significant cash commitment?. It may be but only if you take the time to understand what it will and will not provide.

Free web hosting usually comes with significantly limited capacity and services. And while free web hosts may not charge you anything for hosting your web site, they still have to generate revenue to stay in business.

The Price of “Free”

The way most of them do this (there are exceptions as you’ll see below) is by inserting paid ads on your web site. And since you won’t be able to control what kind of ads are posted on your site, there’s a good chance you’ll have ads from competitors (if you’re trying to run a business) or ads that may not be on a topic you want to be associated with. Unfortunately, that's often the price you’ll pay for "free" web hosting.

To limit the amount of resources you can use, free web hosting plans come with very limited disk space and bandwidth and may even impose restrictions on the types of content you can upload to your site. For example, you may not be allowed to sell anything on your web site.

What do you really want to do?

If you intend to start a business on the cheap then this obviously isn’t going to be satisfactory. Some free web hosting plans prevent you from uploading videos or music files because they take up a lot of storage space and use a great deal of bandwidth when your visitors try to access them.

The Big Risk

Finally, and of greatest concern, is that you may wake up one day and find that your web site has simply vanished without warning. Companies that provide free web hosting pop up practically every day, but they also disappear with alarming regularity.

So if you plan on putting any real effort into developing a web site for personal or business use, you'll be better served by selecting an established, reliable web host.

Professional Image

There are a number of companies that provide free web hosting under your own unique domain name (not a subdomain under them). All you have to do register your domain through them and pay the annual renewal fee of around $15-25. This way you’ll be able to have free hosting under your own domain and the credibility that comes with it.

The Bottom Line

You should look for a free hosting provider that provides a simple upgrade path. This way you can can enjoy free web hosting now and have your own unique domain name (plus the credibility it brings) for nothing more than the cost of a domain registration fee. You should later be able to upgrade with no disruption when and if you decide you’re ready to move up to a paid plan.

About The Author

Anthony Hamill is the founder of http://www.Web-Host-Watch.Com which is devoted to helping new webmasters learn the basics of web hosting. It provides tutorials, tips on avoiding common mistakes, a glossary of web hosting terms, and a list of Top Web Hosts.

How And Why Of Giving Away Free Domain Names

by: Stephen Pope

Perhaps you already know that it is possible to get a free domain name. However, have you ever wondered how a country can afford to give away its domain names for free? Why would a country just give away its domain names instead of charging for them?

1. Free Domain Names from Dot TK

It is possible to get a free top-level domain name from Dot TK (www.dot.tk).

According to their website, "Dot TK is a joint venture of the Government of Tokelau, it's communication company Teletok and Taloha, Inc., a privately held company. The Government of Tokelau has appointed Taloha, Inc. as the exclusive registration entity."

Of course, for free .tk domains, ownership remains with Dot TK. This means that you can't sell it. As well, there are other restrictions and disadvantages of free .tk domains, including:

-You can register only a maximum of three free domain names;
-You need 25 visitors within a ninety day period;
-You need to have existing web content somewhere so that your dot tk name can be forwarded to it; and
-Dot TK uses frames to show your website. This being the case, you may have issues with navigation (bookmarking or finding specific pages) and search engine friendliness.

For serious business use, you might want to pay the nominal cost for a domain name.

2. Why Do They Offer Free Domain Names?

Still, it is free. Why would they do this when they could make money from the sale of domain names?

According to their website: "Why does Dot TK give away free domain names? We believe that the Internet was supposed to be 'Free'. Meaning no charges, payments or expected return favors."

3. How Can They Afford to Give Away Free Domain Names?

This logically leads us to our next question: How can they afford to give away free domain names?

Dot TK makes money from paid domain names, including some special and trademarked names.

To help support Dot TK, you can optionally have an ad displayed on your website. Thus, they do receive some advertising revenue from this. However, the big money would be in the sponsorship by large corporations.

4. Other Free Top-Level Domain Names

By the way, this is not the only ccTLD (country code Top-Level Domain) that gives away some domain names for free.

As just one example, cg is the ccTLD for the Republic of Congo. Each of its citizens and lawful residents are allowed one free .cg domain name.

5. Free Subdomain Names

Additionally, subdomain names are also available for free. For example, eu.org states on their website that their goal "is to provide free subdomain registration to users or non-profit organizations who cannot afford the outrageous fees demanded by some NICs, especially in Europe."

As well, nr is the ccTLD name for the Republic of Nauru. You can receive a free subdomain name from co.nr. Thus, your domain name could be something like yourcompany.co.nr.

Why do countries give away free domain names? They want their citizens and others to be able to enjoy the benefits of domain name use without cost being an issue. It can also be a promotional method designed to get the word out about their ccTLD.

How can these countries afford to give away free domain names? Advertising revenue and the sale of paid domains are two ways of funding free domain names.

About The Author

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years. To learn more about domain names and other profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/domain-names.html.

Turn Domain Names Into Cash

by: Brian Pubrat

Internet domain names are a hot commodity. Everyday thousands of people are cashing in on the domain name business. I'm not kidding when I say that there are people who are raking in millions of dollars each and every year just be registering domain names.

I'm sure many of us read the headlines a few years back when the domain name, business.com, sold for a whopping $7.5 million! Like time, the domain name business has evolved and matured. The days of snapping up web addresses and waiting a few months for an incredible "retirement" offer are over. Today the domain name game is played via the pay per click parking and affililate marketing models.

For many years the tools and techniques used by successful 'domainers' utlizing these parking and affiliate services have gone unnoticed - flying beneath the radar. That is until now.

Now, there is a blueprint of the most highly recognized tools and laidout plans that domainers have been using for years. In fact, a number of prominent news and business publications like the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine and CNN have all reported on the tremendous growth in the domain name business. In short, the mainstream media have finally caught on to this multi-million dollar industry that is gaining popular attention.

See for yourself at www.domaincashvault.com, and learn everything there is to know about the domain name business.

About The Author

Brian Pubrat is the author of Domain Cash Vault - How to unlock the money-making secrets to the domain name business. For more information, please go to: www.domaincashvault.com.

How to Earn Dollars on your Free Website

by: Romeo Palmares

Before I became a dot com I used to invest my time on free websites and studied everything needed to make it work and as much as possible make it earn at the cost of only my time and effort.

After several months of promoting my free website I was surprised to see the flow of free traffic rushing in, but there is always a downside to free website - bandwidth. My free webhosting gave me about 2 gigabytes of bandwidth every month which cannot compensate to the flow of my traffic.

My free website shuts off for atleast 30 minutes everytime it reaches its bandwidth limit which was divided every hour. Well anyway I was thinking at that time what to do with my traffic and how can I convert this traffic into cash. I researched everyday until I caught google's cash making machine - the adsense.

At the expense of my time and effort I had made some cash in return. Needless to say that free websites not only gave me a lot of fun but it payed off really well. Up to this day I already have my own dot com the http://www.info20.com but I still maintain my free website the http://www.exotic-cars.official.ws.

If you want to read more about this article visit http://www.info20.com now and read the full article.

About The Author

Romeo Palmares is a network administrator in one of the government agencies in the country and he is also a webmaster of http://www.info20.com and http://www.exotic-cars.official.ws.

Information on Domain Names: Multiple domain hosting, Domain parking, Sub domains, WhoIs Record, Domain Renewal

by: Priyanka Agarwal

It’s been two years since John started his online business. He is very much satisfied with his current web host whose services he acquired one year ago. Today John is relaxing in his chair and thinking about the initial days when he spent many hours on the Internet collecting information related to web hosting. Like him there are many John’s out there who are in search of information everyday, visiting this and that website hoping to find the most illuminating advice. The problem is that common topics of interest can be found on most of the websites whereas other relevant issues are not dealt with everywhere. This article is going to touch on one of those areas: various concerns related with domain names.

What is multiple domain hosting?

Many times you will see that a web host offers multiple domain hosting. In simpler words it means that on buying an account you will have the ability to get multiple websites. For instance, if the plan provides you with five domain names, you can use one domain for your website and you will still have four domain names leftover to use. The advantage of this scenario is that you can resell these four domain names to your clients.

What is Domain Parking?

If you are planning to build up a website and have decided on a name for it you then must purchase that domain name from a domain registrar: i.e. your domain name gets placed on a name server so that you can use it later on. This is known as domain parking. Even if your website content is not ready, it’s better to park your desired domain name. Otherwise, it might be possible that in future somebody else acquires that particular domain name.

What are sub domains?

Sub domains are ‘third level’ domains in the sense that they are used solely to organize your website content. They are simply folders under your root directory, but to access them a special URL is used.

For instance, http://www.m6.net is a regular URL without a sub domain.
http://features.m6.net is an URL with the sub domain name: "features".
Here the:
.net: is the first level domain,
m6: is the second level domain,
features: is the third level domain

For how long does a domain name belong to you?

Generally when you register a domain name it is registered for a minimum of one year. However, you can register it for more years, as there is no hard and fast rule as such.

What is Domain Renewal?

After one year you need to renew your domain name so that your website doesn’t get lost. Generally when your domain is about to expire your domain registrar will send you a reminder mail regarding the domain renewal.

What happens when your domain name expires?

When your domain name expires you can renew it within one month. If you don’t renew it in this period it goes into a redemption phase. It stays in this redemption phase for 15 to 30 days before it is then available for purchase again at a normal price. Getting a domain name out of redemption phase is like buying fifty domains as it can cost around $200!

How to find out the owner of a domain name?

To find out the owner of a domain name, use the WhoIs search tool on the Internet .For E.g. Go to http://centralops.net/co/ and type the domain name under Domain Dossier. It will show you the name of the registrant/domain’s owner/web host.

What is WhoIs record?

WhoIS record is a domain name search engine/Internet program where users can enter an Internet entity (e.g. a domain, a network, some hosts) and it will give detailed information on the domain registrar, the owner of the domain, and respective DNS records.

About The Author

Priyanka Agarwal
Hosting evangelist
http://www.m6.net

Web Site Hosting : From Domain Registration to Getting it Online

By John Lenaghan

Once you've chosen your domain name and got it registered, what's your next step?

Your web host will give you the details you need to get your site up and running. This will include passwords to log into your website account, the paths to the directories where you need to upload your information, and most importantly the addresses of your domain name servers.

DNS servers are the link between your domain name (mydomain.com) and your IP address (a numbered address like 123.456.78.9. Every web server on the internet has a unique IP address.

If your website is hosted on a dedicated server, your IP address is unique to your website. Your website will respond whether someone types the domain name or the IP address into their browser.

Most websites are hosted on shared servers, however. What this means is that a single server hosts many websites, and each one shares the same IP address. If you enter the IP address of a shared server in your browser, it won't display your website.

DNS is the "translation" layer between domain names and IP addresses that allows multiple sites on one server.

Configuring Your Website On DNS

When you register your domain name, it will be pointing to the DNS servers for your chosen registrar. Until you have a account set up with a hosting service, your domain will usually point to an error page or an "under construction" page.

Keep in mind that there's no time limit between registering your domain and choosing a web host. Some people register domains and never actually get a website hosted on them.

If you've bought your domain with plans to use it, you'll need to sign up for an account with a web host and upload your website's files to their server.

The first step in making your website active is to change the DNS servers on file with your domain registrar to the ones that are given to you by your web host.

The DNS server information will look similar to this:

Primary Name Server: NS1.SOMEDOMAIN.COM (123.456.78.9) Secondary Name Server: NS2.SOMEDOMAIN.COM (123.456.7.89)

You'll get this information from your hosting company when you sign up for a hosting account. If you can't find this information, you'll need to contact your web host to get it. Otherwise your website won't be accessible from the internet.

Once you have this information from your host, you'll need to change the settings on file with your registrar to the new addresses. If your domain name was included with the purchase of your hosting, the web host will normally update this information for you automatically.

Once the DNS servers are registered it can take up to 48 hours for your site to be accessible across the internet. This is because of the way the DNS system works.

The domain names and IP addresses are stored in a database that is distributed through thousands of computers around the world. Each computer keeps a small part of the database cached and if they get a request for an unknown domain, they have to forward that request to another computer until the information is found.

This database gets updated on a constant basis on each of these computers, but it can take some time for your new website's information to spread throughout the world.

John Lenaghan writes about how to choose business web hosting, ecommerce hosting and other website hosting topics on the Hosting Report website. Find out more at http://www.hostingreport.org.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Lenaghan

Free Web Hosting or Paid? Here's How to Decide

by: Anthony Hamill

Have you wondered if free web hosting is any good? More importantly, is it a viable option for someone who wants to set up an online business presence without a significant cash commitment?. It may be but only if you take the time to understand what it will and will not provide.

Free web hosting usually comes with significantly limited capacity and services. And while free web hosts may not charge you anything for hosting your web site, they still have to generate revenue to stay in business.

The Price of “Free”

The way most of them do this (there are exceptions as you’ll see below) is by inserting paid ads on your web site. And since you won’t be able to control what kind of ads are posted on your site, there’s a good chance you’ll have ads from competitors (if you’re trying to run a business) or ads that may not be on a topic you want to be associated with. Unfortunately, that's often the price you’ll pay for "free" web hosting.

To limit the amount of resources you can use, free web hosting plans come with very limited disk space and bandwidth and may even impose restrictions on the types of content you can upload to your site. For example, you may not be allowed to sell anything on your web site.

What do you really want to do?

If you intend to start a business on the cheap then this obviously isn’t going to be satisfactory. Some free web hosting plans prevent you from uploading videos or music files because they take up a lot of storage space and use a great deal of bandwidth when your visitors try to access them.

The Big Risk

Finally, and of greatest concern, is that you may wake up one day and find that your web site has simply vanished without warning. Companies that provide free web hosting pop up practically every day, but they also disappear with alarming regularity.

So if you plan on putting any real effort into developing a web site for personal or business use, you'll be better served by selecting an established, reliable web host.

Professional Image

There are a number of companies that provide free web hosting under your own unique domain name (not a subdomain under them). All you have to do register your domain through them and pay the annual renewal fee of around $15-25. This way you’ll be able to have free hosting under your own domain and the credibility that comes with it.

The Bottom Line

You should look for a free hosting provider that provides a simple upgrade path. This way you can can enjoy free web hosting now and have your own unique domain name (plus the credibility it brings) for nothing more than the cost of a domain registration fee. You should later be able to upgrade with no disruption when and if you decide you’re ready to move up to a paid plan.

About The Author

Anthony Hamill is the founder of http://www.Web-Host-Watch.Com which is devoted to helping new webmasters learn the basics of web hosting. It provides tutorials, tips on avoiding common mistakes, a glossary of web hosting terms, and a list of Top Web Hosts.

How to Pick Your Domain Name

How to Pick Your Domain Name
by: Scott Bianchi

You have been thinking of starting your own website. You have done some preliminary research and you are ready to go, all you need to do now is pick your domain name. Pretty simple, right? Well, it is not as simple as most people think, including myself. I thought it would be the easiest part of starting my website but you really need to put some thought into it.

You need a website name that is memorable. You can do all the work on the website you want but if people don’t remember your name it will be hard to get them to come back. You also need a name that is somewhat relevant to the content of your site. Here is where you begin to run into some roadblocks however. With the amount of websites being created (it is estimated there will be 500 million sites created by the end of the decade) the availability of the real popular names is limited. Now you need to consider multiple word names and this is where it becomes even more tricky.

To make things a bit easier to understand I will use my own domain name as an example, because I learned the hard way. With any website you need to concern yourself with SEO (search engine optimization). This is basically a formula of what the search engines use to look up websites when someone punches in a keyword. The sites that play this game right will find themselves on the first couple of pages for their given keyword. When I first chose my domain name I went with www.bestinternetbargains.com. Not a bad name, so I thought. Pretty straightforward on what I would be focusing my site on, right? When I picked the name I knew nothing of SEO. I thought you created a site and BAM, it appeared on Google in the number one spot.

A major part of SEO is links to other sites. The actual wording you use in the link that appears on other sites is called the “anchor text”. This is one of the major things searches engines use in ranking the pages. In most cases you get to determine what your anchor text will be. But, if you write articles like this one, and you put your website in the signature and people post your articles that counts as a link with anchor text. So, in my case I have had many people publish my articles, which is great, but the anchor text appeared as bestinternetbargains. Not many people are doing searches in Google or any of the search engines for that word. This was hurting my SEO. I was the only site found for that search word so that was great, but I was the only one doing that search. Recently I changed my name to www.best-internet-bargains.com. Same name but the dashes make all the difference. It separates all the words. Now if someone publishes one of my articles my anchor text would be those three different words. With the combination of articles being published and any links I exchange with other sites I can now make my anchor text internet bargains and increase my chances of appearing high in the rankings for those search words.

As you can see, something as simple as some dashes in the name can make a huge difference. If you are lucky enough to find a one word domain to be available that is related to your site content then you do not need to worry about the dashes obviously. As I mentioned before, this is unlikely to happen. If you have read my other articles about starting your own website you will see that I have mentioned SEOelite (http://hop.clickbank.net/sbianchi/bryxen1). This is the tool I used to help me with the anchor text breakdown. It does many important things in addition to breaking down your anchor text such as, allowing you to examine your competition’s website so you know what you need to beat to take the top ranking for your keyword search. For example, let’s say I am the number one site for the keywords internet bargains. If my anchor text uses these words 90% of the time then you will know you need to be at 91# to take the top spot for those keywords. It will allow you to breakdown the sites your competition is linked to, which is important in the SEO formula as well. This tool was the best $167 I have spent on my website. I highly recommend it if you want your site to be ranked highly.

Building a website is probably the easiest part of having a site. You need to pick the right domain name, created the right content (which SEOelite will also teach you how to do), write effective meta tags, and find quality linking partners. Now that you have read this, and hopefully found it useful, get to picking that domain name. I hope to see your site on the internet soon.

About The Author

Scott Bianchi operates www.best-internet-bargains.com. He writes on a variety of topics. If you would like to be added to his distribution list for his new articles when they are published just send an email to articles@bestinternetbargains.com.

Different Types of Web Hosting Explained

by: Paul Hanson

There are many different types of web hosting available. Which type one chooses should hinge upon what one wants to accomplish with his or her web site. Some web hosting services are free, but place ads on web sites. Whereas other web hosting types can be more expensive, but provide a lot more assistance and bandwidth. The four main web hosting types are free web hosting, shared web hosting, and dedicated web hosting (both managed and unmanaged).

Free web hosting is the simplest kind of web hosting that one can get. This type of web hosting is usually supported by ads on hosted web sites. Features for this type of web hosting are limited, and therefore it is a better option for people who are just starting out on the Internet and are interested in having a small site with little traffic. The type of domain one receives in free web hosting is typically a subdomain (yoursite.webhost.com) or a directory (www.webhost.com/~yoursite). Most free web hosts do not have support for MySQL, multiple e-mail accounts, and PHP.

Shared web hosting is actually the most popular type of web hosting service. Shared web hosting allows more than one site to be hosted on the same server. Additionally, the hosts provide system administration. For users that do not want to have the burden of running a sever, shared web hosting is a great choice. The individual hosting plan may differ, but most hosts provide the user with elements such as PHP, ASP, MySQL, more bandwidth, and multiple e-mail addresses. More services are often available in shared web hosting than are available with simple free web hosting (including the ability to have your own domain name!).

The last two types of web hosting are managed dedicated web hosting, and unmanaged dedicated web hosting. Dedicated web hosting is a wise choice for someone who wants more storage and bandwidth, and also wants features that are not available with shared and free web hosting. In dedicated servers, users are not limited to a certain number of databases and e-mail addresses. Additionally, users usually receive a very high amount of bandwidth in comparison to other hosting types. The typical dedicated server plan provides the user with 500 to 1,000GB of monthly bandwidth.

In unmanaged dedicated web hosting, the user is the server administrator. This allows the user the greatest amount of control and flexibility. Of course, many people do not know how to handle the task of being a server administrator and do not want to learn. Therefore, this is not a viable option for some.

When looking for a web host, it is important to consider the purpose of the web site and what one’s capabilities are. Pricing for web hosts is dependant upon the support, reliability, features, and security one wants. Choosing a type of web hosting may seem like a daunting task, but simply doing research and making an educated decision should yield satisfaction and success on this critical matter.

About The Author

Paul Hanson recommends Net Explorers ( http://www.hosting-netexplorers.co.uk/ ) for quality UK hosting services.

How to Pick the Perfect Domain Name

by: Adrian Mullan

What makes the perfect domain name?

Well, it has to be:

1. Relatively short
2. Simple to remember
3. Easy to spell

I was speaking to a customer recently who had a business called 'Otway Valley Trading Company'.

The domain name he wanted was:
www.otwayvalleytradingcompany.com

Can you spot some of the problems with this domain name?

Here's a few:

1. It's too long:

Having to type a long domain name into your browser is annoying and also increases the chances of your customers making a spelling mistake.

2. Too many keywords:

Having 4 keywords (Otway Valley Trading Company) makes it hard for customers to remember the name of the site.

Try to stick to one or two keywords in your domain name.

3. Easy to misspell:

The word 'otway' can be easily confused for 'ottway'.

4. Makes the email address too long:

An email address for this domain name would look like this:

sales@otwayvalleytradingcompany.com

.. that's a mouthful for anyone to remember.

Picking a Good Domain Name:

1) The shorter the better

Having a short and snappy domain name makes it easier for your customer to remember your website address, and easier to type into their Internet browser.

2) Go for something catchy

Keep in mind that your domain name doesn't have to be boring. In fact, if you can come up with something catchy - it's a great way to distinguish your business from the competition - just ask the people at Yahoo!.

3) Avoid using hyphens

We've found that hyphens in domain names tend to confuse people.

Sometimes you'll see websites that have a hyphen separating keywords (e.g. ace-accounting.com). This is almost always because the preferred name (aceaccounting.com) has already been registered by someone else.

If the domain you want is already being used by someone else, then you're better off coming up with an alternative name then using hyphens.

4) Avoid using numbers

If possible, try avoiding the use of numbers in your domain name, as this can also lead to confusion (e.g. was that 3phones.com or threephones.com ?).

But if you have to use a number, make sure you register both the written and numerical versions of your domain name (3phones.com and threephones.com).

5) Grab a thesaurus

If you're struggling for inspiration or finding it difficult to come up with a name that hasn't already been taken - grab a thesaurus (or visit Thesaurus.com)

Say you run an adventure tour company and you want to register excitingadventures.com - but somebody has already registered the domain name.

Lookup the word 'exciting' at Thesaurus.com and you can quickly find an alternative like 'breathtaking, sensational or fascinating'.

And don't be afraid to use a little imagination - companies like Google and Yahoo! have benefited a lot by having a unique web address.

About The Author

Adrian Mullan is the author of 'The Internet Demystified' and founder of WebDummy.com - a popular Internet marketing resource for small business owners.

Top 10 Powerful free Domain Name Tools

by: Edwin John

There are numerous free tools online that help you research and find good keyword domain names to register for your online business. Or simply to buy and resell domain names for profits. I am certain you already use a few of these from time to time.

Here then is my Top Ten list of the best free domain tools in no particular order.

1. http://www.whois-search.com

Gives you a list of the best domain names pending delete. Also shows you which drop catchers are successfully catching which names daily.

2 http://www.whois.sc

Helps you find active, inactive, and available domain names. A personal favorite of mine.

3. http://www.domainname-search.com

Page rank predictor tools and other essential domainer tools.

4. http://www.Startname.com

A huge directory of domain-related tools, services, resources and guides. Bookmark this.

5. http://www.cheaphostingdirectory.com/expireddomainswithtraffic.html

Gives a list of expiring names with traffic, popularity links and Alexa rankings.

6. http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml

You can make a whois search on any domain on the web. Also gives a list of similiar names that are still available to be registered.

7. http://www.register-domainnames.com/expired_domain_names.html

Enter a keyword to find relevant valuable domain names and which ones are taken, when they expire and also which ones are available.

8. http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Gives you the number of searches made for a given keyword based on Overture and WordTracker.

9. http://www.webmasterbrain.com/domain-name-misspelling-typo-generator--tool2.htm

Domain name misspelling and typo generator.

10. http://www.domainsurfer.com

A domain search engine that shows you all the registered domains with your keywords.

Hope you like the list and find it useful. All these tools are worth bookmarking.

What about YOUR domain name? Is it VALUABLE or crap?

If you'd like me to evaluate your domain name for free, just send me a note. I will take a look and I will give you my honest appraisal. Nothing to pay. Absolutely no obligation.

Visit http://www.OpenForSale.com

FREE RIDE FOR DOMAIN NAME

Every day thousands of domains 'expire' and are put back into the pool of available domains that anyone can register. They can be very valuable if you are looking for a quality domain for your online business, or if you want to re-sell them for profit. But wait! There is another huge advantage to a domain that was previously owned -- instant traffic!

As I said above, expired domains have all been owned by someone in the past. Many of these previous owners built Websites for these domains, advertised them, registered them with search engines, and even exchanged links with other sites. All translating into traffic to that domain name.

Now, why would someone who took the time to do all that work let the domain expire? It could be one of several reasons:

• the author simply lost interest
• an online venture ran out of funding
• poor management of the domain
• they couldn't afford the fees

Whatever the reason, it happens. And you can reclaim some of the wasted traffic and use it to your advantage. You can either point it to your existing site, or use it to jumpstart and add value to a new site.

How do you know if an expired domain has traffic?

While there is no way to gauge the actual amount of traffic going to an expired domain, you can find out its link popularity in the major search engines. This will tell you the number of Web pages listed in a particular search engine that link to that domain. The more links, the higher link popularity and the more traffic that domain is getting (in some search engines, the higher ranking, too). A free online tool to help you find the link popularity of an individual domain at five top search engines can be found at Webofsuccess.com.

Another way I recently discovered is to use a powerful software program called Popular Domains. Among other features, it allows you to import a list of expired domains and automatically check the link popularity of each one. To learn more, check out the software.

As you can see, this can be an affordable way to gain instant traffic to your site. Be nice, though, and do not abuse this technique - make sure the site you are sending traffic to relates to the domain. For example, don't register the expired domain 'ehairplugs.com' just because it has a high link popularity, and then forward the domain to your site about Internet marketing. Other than that you may use your new domain with 'built-in' traffic however you wish!

Getting Your Domain Name

by: Ainuddin Mohamad

Since thousands of domain names are registered everyday it is a really very difficult to get a domain name of single phrase in English language and other major languages. Given below are some tips to guide you to decide a domain name of single phrase.

Avoid Messing around with the New Domains

Most of the good domain names are already registered and owned by someone. Don't settle for number-ridden or a hyphenated domain name unless it is really unavoidable. Don’t despair because with some lucks you would be able to get some good domain names by backordering domain names about to expire in anticipation that the domain would be deleted and made available again.

So what are the resources which you need to know and understand to find expiring time of domains?

1. Expireddomains.com: A good source for domain names already deleted, about to be deleted with info about rank popularity and many other useful advices and tips.

2. Deleteddomains.com: This website has a search feature which helps you to see on-hold domain names and expiring domain names by keywords. This is most important and a core resource for finding those domains that you want to own and which will be expiring soon.

3. Pool.com: It is another great website for viewing the domains which are soon-to-expire. This website also offers backordering service and a keyword search.

4. Snapnames.com: This website is providing an original backordering service. As soon as you find a domain name that attracts you go to snapnames.com and from here you can ‘backorder’ this domain name for $69 only. This confirms that the price for backordering is $69 per domain name and this is registration fees of first year if the domain name is acquired by you.

Other Tricks and Tips

Since many people are using same tools to acquire best expiring domains you should be fast enough to acquire an expiring domain name. Additionally, SnapNames.com will only allow one backorder prospect for one domain name. Therefore, you should act quickly when a domain name is available for ‘backordering’.

Patience is important since your ideal name may not come for months. But you should not worry because each day there will be a fresh set of domain names expiring and you could get your choice any day.

Happy hunting!

Choosing The Best Keywords To Drive Traffic To Your Website

by: Craig Broadbent

Getting a website to appear in the first page of search engine results is a common goal for most webmasters, yet few possess the skills to actually achieve it. There are many steps to take in order to be found for terms related to your site, and taking your time to research the best possible phrases for your site is an important step on the ladder.

Many webmasters make the mistake of assuming that a ranking for one generic term related to their site will turn their website into a profitable success. Although that one generic term may provide a good stream of traffic and brand awareness, this doesn’t mean the traffic will convert into sales or leads, and the costs of targeting that term will tower over your return on investment. It is best for the webmaster to target multiple terms that not only drive traffic, but also lead to that all important conversion.

First of all you need to consider who your target audience is and the purpose of your site. Do you sell products online? Do you offer services? Is it more content focused? There are all sorts of potential visitors which will have varying ways of finding your site, so understanding your audience, and the reasons they will visit, will help focus your efforts.

With this in mind, you can now consider those generic terms that you think people will use to try and find your site. It shouldn’t just be one term - a trap that many webmasters fall into is assuming that one term will provide enough traffic to sustain business and are surprised that business doesn’t increase if they do achieve that ranking. Consider all of the possible phrases and themes of your site, even using a thesaurus to find related terms or checking competitor websites for ideas. It can be surprising just what terms your potential visitors will be using!

Once you have put together a list of short generic terms, you can start using tools to gauge how popular and competitive those terms are, and also refine those generic terms to be more targeted to your site’s purpose. The first step is to find out the popularity of terms, which can be done using various keyword suggestion tools.

Keyword suggestion tools tell you which terms were typed into searches, and how many searches were conducted on those terms. Typing a phrase in and will return a selection of alternative phrases that contain your generic term, alternative suggestions with a similar theme and also an estimate of how much traffic the phrase provides per month. These tools can be flawed as they query different search engines and the traffic estimations can be inaccurate, but they are still good for getting a ball park estimation of the amount of searches conducted, and for suggesting multiple terms you may never have thought of targeting.

The Overture Keyword Tool, located at inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/, is free to use and gives you a list of suggested terms as well as the amount of searches conducted on the Yahoo! Search Marketing network during the last month (Yahoo! Bought Overture and rebranded it Yahoo! Search Marketing).

A similar tool is located at www.wordtracker.com. Wordtracker queries the meta search engine Dogpile so may not be representative of what is being searched on the web as a whole, but is still good for suggesting alternative phrases and related phrases. Wordtracker has a subscription service, with which you can order between one day and one year’s access.

Trellian’s KeywordDiscovery at www.keyworddiscovery.com is a relative newcomer to the keyword suggestion market. KeywordDiscovery can query multiple search engines across the world and provides similar results to Overture and Wordtracker.com as well as other services, but with subscriptions starting at $32.50 per month this premium option is geared more towards search marketing professionals.

The next step in picking the best terms is checking how competitive they are. Ideally you want to find terms that have high volume traffic but few websites competing to rank for that term, and you can use various tricks to judge this. Any page that is optimised for a term will at least have that term in the title tag and in anchor text of links pointing to the site, so by going to Google and using the queries intitle:“phrase here” and inanchor:“phrase here”, you can figure out how many other pages have optimised for your chosen phrase. The lower the number for these searches, the less competitive the term is. For more information about what these Google advanced search operators do, go to www.google.com/help/operators.html.

Using these tools should have now provided you with a list of terms that are much more targeted than your original generic phrases. These can include breaking your term down by geographical location, or a specific product. You will be able to optimise your site for multiple phrases – remember that search engines index web pages and not just websites. That means all of the pages in your site can be found in search engines, which in turn means all of those pages can be optimised for different terms!

You may also want to consider the “long tail” of search phrases. These are obscure multi word phrases that are only searched a couple of times, but are so specific they can end up being the most targeted terms and carry with them higher conversion rates. The best way to target the long tail is to have a content rich site – the more content you have the more likely you are to be picked up for obscure terms that can be found in your copy.

So you should now finally have a list of the best possible targeted phrases for your website! As you can see, the process of choosing your keywords isn’t something that should be taken lightly, and there is a lot of work to do if you want to maximise the ability of your site to attract natural search traffic. With your final list you will now be ready to optimise your pages to be found for those terms, but that is for another time...

Underestimating the Value of Free or Low Cost Web Hosting Services and Tools

by: Anthony Hamill

A variety of free or low cost web hosting services and tools is provided by most web hosting companies. However, in their search for the best web hosting package, many webmasters do a good job of comparing the basic offerings but fail to examine the wide range of additional free or very cheap services and tools offered by their prospective web host.

Overlooked and undervalued

Most web hosts don’t tout these freebies as prominently in their sales copy as they do the basics such as storage space, bandwidth, and tech support. This is simply because they know that most potential customers are only comparison-shopping on the basics.

However, low cost web hosting services and/or free web tools can mean the difference between a robust, customer-friendly web site that supports your expanding business and one that is stuck in low gear just as the traffic begins to increase.

What will you need later?

There is a wide array of these free or nearly-free web hosting services to choose from but first you must know, or at least be reasonably able to predict, the ones you are likely to need when your business grows.

Depending on the nature of your online business you may need some or all of the following:

- Custom web site design
- Search engine optimization services
- Inward and outbound link tracking
- Visitor counts
- Free e-mail
- e-mail forwarding
- Spam filters
- Free web templates
- Free HTML software
- Free website builders
- Auto-responders
- RSS feeds
- Live chat
- Shopping carts

These are just some of the many free or low cost web hosting services and tools you should evaluate before committing to any hosting package.

The bottom line

Stretch your dollars by choosing the low cost web hosting plan that provides as many of these value-packed extras as possible so you don’t wind up having to pay full price for them later when your business finally needs them.

Think It's Hard to Find The Best Web Hosting Companies?

by: Anthony Hamill

It's really not. In fact the best web hosting companies can be identified rather easily if you make time to absorb some basic information.

Building a Web Site

You can build a very basic web site with a simple word processing program such as Microsoft Word. Then after you've built your web site, you'll need to find a way to publish it if you intend for it to be accessible on the World Wide Web. For this you'll turn to a web hosting company.

A web host will provide you with the disk space, services,and tools you'll need to publish your site on the Internet. While occasional technical problems are inevitable, competent web hosting companies will ensure your site is up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so that anyone, anywhere in the world, can find your web site at any time of the day.

Many Hosting Choices

There are literally tens of thousands of web hosting companies to choose from so finding one of the very best web hosting companies can be challenging.

Prices range from free to hundreds of dollars a year for personal web hosting and small business web hosting all the way up to hundreds of dollars per month for ecommerce web hosting for large online businesses.

The best web hosting companies offer a wide variety of web hosting services all of which can be confusing if you're new to web site hosting.

What You Need to Know

There are a number of basics you need to learn if you want to create a good website that is cost-effective, easy to manage, and provides a meaningful experience for your visitors. Some of these basics include:

- How to decide whether free or paid web hosting is right for you
- What is a web server and why does it matter to you?
- How to select and register a great domain name
- How to determine if you need shared or dedicated hosting
- How to connect your domain to your web hosting provider
- How to publish your web site
- How to make use of free web templates and other authoring tools