Tag Archives: Domains

How many domain names do you have registered at this time? Do you just have one, or do you have a massive portfolio, some you’re actively using while others are stashed for a future project or for sale?

I’m somewhere in the middle. (They sure add up over time, don’t they!) I have a grand total of 13 at the moment. Most of them are in active use, or had been at some point. A few others I have plans for. Only one is just a domain I registered because I liked the sound of it, but didn’t have any real plans for it.

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Domainr is a useful domain-searching tool that helps you find available “domain hacks.” You’ve probably seen URLs like del.icio.us, last.fm, and identi.ca before. Domainr helps you find them.

I’ve always liked unusual domains like that (domains in general are fun to register). Domainr makes it ridiculously easy to find suitable ones. Just enter a word and you’ll have a list of possibilities in seconds.

Domainr is now near the top of my mental “cool domain tools” list. If you’re looking for a memorable domain, it’s worth trying out.

I was browsing Creattica the other day, and came across this funny, and possibly useful gadget. The Fantabulous Breadline Design Name My Design Company Machine is a Flash site that picks three random words from its large collection, and combines them into a name for your business, be it a design firm or some other sort of creative endeavor.

It’s certainly a silly idea, but it’s even more funny that it could actually work to pick a name, at least until all of the possibilities have been taken…

Domain name hijacking has become increasingly prevalent in the last few years. I’ve watched two fairly major domains be stolen out from under their owners’ noses, though they thankfully got them back. Be cautious, and take care that no one walks away with your domain. You may have a hard time getting it back, and could take a hit in the search engines and lose some potential visitors.

As I’ve said quite a few times: Your domain may be your most valuable asset. If you lose your domain, your website might as well not exist. No one can access it if they don’t know where to go.

Kevin from Blogging Tips has a great post up on this very topic. How Secure is Your Domain?

The popular tech blog Make Use Of, which normally resides at MakeUseOf.com, has lost their domain. At least for now.

On November 2, somewhere late in the day I assume, one of the bloggers at MakeUseOf.com discovered that the domain had been parked. When the editor-in-chief, Aibek Esengulov, of the blog became aware of the problem, it was apparent that the domain had been hijacked.

The cracker transfered MakeUseOf.com from GoDaddy to NameCheap by somehow getting into the site administrator’s GMail account and requesting a domain transfer from there. Currently Aibek is trying to get the domain back. It is worth a great deal, considering Make Use Of is a very established blog with over 20,000 subscribers and plenty of inbound links, not to mention the fact that without the domain no one can get to the blog really.

Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon. You can follow the news by visiting the Make Use Of Teporary Blog.

One of the most well-known domain registrars, and purveyors of budget hosting, is GoDaddy. They run ads all over the place, and have done a good job at placing themselves as the #1 company newbies think of when they decide they want a website.

The trouble is, they tend to have bad customer service, and they seem a little shady. It seems that they

• Monitor domain searches run through their website, and register them themselves if the domain is percieved to be of any value. They park it and sell it for a lot for than their normal rate.
• Fail to renew domains, allowing “domainers” to pick them up.
• Arbitrarily suspend accounts and hold your domain ransom.
• Make it hard for you to move your domain to another registrar.

Plus, I don’t like their cluttered and spammy-looking website, but that’s irrelevant.

The enraged (former) GoDaddy customers have formed a community at NoDaddy.com. They’ve compiled a list of horror stories and alternative registrars, and have set up a forum where you can post your own story, or ask for advice if GoDaddy is being…bad.

EDIT: I later saw this post on the NoDaddy forum:

It is widely known that GD pushes the dedicated servers. I mentioned why in another post. Customer pays what, $120/mo for a dedicated host. Customer does not know that it is a $300-$400 shuttle box. And shared hosting is always slow, they max out the users (of course! that just makes good business sense). I think they have from 1000 – 3000 customers per host, but im not exactly sure on the figure. (Link)

That alone is bad. We all know that shared hosting is oversold, but GoDaddy seems to be on the extreme end of overselling (though Dreamhost is real bad about it too). And dedicated servers… Ugh. The low-end Shuttle computers are recommended for “basic word processing, e-mail, web browsing.” A box like that shouldn’t be used as a web server.