How to Register Your Domain

When you launch a new website you must register a unique domain name with an authorized registrar. When the internet was first starting, all domain names and IP addresses were registered through one organization, Internic. Eventually Network Solutions took over the role as “keeper” of the internet domain names. Today, there are hundreds of websites where you can register your domain name but Network Solutions still maintains the main database of domain names. Some websites charge as little as $2.95 per year for your domain name while others charge as much as $35 per year for the exact same service. Some even offer one year free if you register your domain name with them and host your website on their servers. Why pay $35 when you can register your domain name for much less at another website?

So why does Network Solutions charge $35 a year if they are the keeper of the database and their resellers charge a fraction or even nothing? Who knows and who cares! Register your domain with one of the cheaper providers and you’ll be fine. A word caution - be care who you choose to host your website. Getting a free year of your domain name isn’t worth it if your webhost is unreliable and your website is down more than it’s up.

You pay for your domain name on a yearly basis. It’s a separate charge from your webhosting bill. When you register your domain name choose the autorenewal option if it’s available. This way your domain name will not expire if you forget to renew it. If your domain name expires, it’s free for anyone else to register so you need to stay on top of when it’s expiring. Also registering your domain name for a 3 to 5 year term will often save you money. For example, godaddy.com charges $8.95 a year for your domain name but only $7.25 a year if you register for a 5 year term.

When you register your domain you can create different contact names. The three contacts are Administrator, Technical and Billing. Most of the time the same person is all 3 contacts. If you web designer registers your domain name for you, make sure you are designated as the Administrative contact. This gives you control over the domain name and you must be notified if someone is trying to make changes to your record. If you aren’t one of the contacts then someone can transfer ownership of the domain name without your permission.

To see a record of your domain name, go to www.networksolutions.com and use their WHOIS utility which is located in the bottom left corner of their home page. Simply enter your domain name and click Search. You’ll see the complete record of your domain name, where it’s registered and where your website is hosted. For a complete video of how to use WHOIS, visit www.valiss.com/video/whois/whois.html.

When you register your domain name you’ll have to the option of making it a private registration. I highly recommend paying the additional fee to make your information private. If you leave your registration public anyone can look up your domain information which includes your home or business address and your email address. Many spammers scan public domain registration records to find valid email addresses to spam.

I always use a yahoo or hotmail email account when registering my domains. This way if spammers to find my email address, I can just get a new “throwaway” email address and I won’t receive spam at my primary email address.

Always make sure your domain record remains locked. Locking your domain name is a feature implemented a few years ago. When you want to transfer your domain name to a different registrar you must unlock it. Once it’s unlocked the new registrar can “pull” your domain name from your current registrar. Once the transfer is complete, the domain name will be locked to prevent anyone else from “pulling” your domain away from you.

About The Author
Ted Prodromou spent over 25 years in the computer industry working for IBM, Digital, and Cellular One. Today he’s the owner of Valiss IT, a consulting firm that provides personalized web design and small business marketing solutions. Visit http://www.valiss.com for lots of free “how to” articles about marketing your business online.
Copyright 2005 Valiss IT, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This article may be reprinted only if it remains unchanged.

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Sorting Out Different Domain Name Registration Cost and Services

There are a number of different domain name registration cost and services out there that you can consider when registering the name for your website or websites. Some services are included in registration costs while others are usually included only when additional fees are paid. In order to totally understand what you are getting from a domain name registrar, it is important that you understand the different domain name registration cost and services and what the function of each one really is. By doing that you will find that you can better decide which registration services is best for you and where you can get the best value for the services you receive.

The most common of the different domain name registration cost and services are included in the initial domain name. For most companies, simple domain name registration will cost you less than $10, but will also generally include a number of other services. With most domain registrations, your fee will get you some basic services.

First of all, you will usually get email forwarding addresses that go with the domain you register. These are email addresses that, when used, will direct mail to an existing email address you are already using. That way, you can begin using and advertising your domain name even before you have established an actual site.

Another of the many different domain name registration cost and services is some sort of web-based service account. This is so you can manage and keep track of domain names you have registered. Your contact information as well as domain time left is often included and the service account allows you access 24 hours a day if your contact information changes and you want to be able to sell the domain name.

There are though other domain name registration cost and services that are add-ons. For instance, most companies will charge you a fee to get a catch-all email service. This means that when people send an email to your domain, no matter what the prefix, it will get caught. That way you never miss messages because of a customer miskeying or misunderstanding an email address.

Another of the domain name registration cost and services that may be added on in many cases is domain parking page. For a few bucks, some companies will put up a “park” page where your domain is. That way when someone goes there before you have set up an actual page, they will know that a page is going there and who it is from. Your contact information my be displayed so that potential buyers or customers can get in touch with you through your domain, even if you don’t have a site yet.

There are a number of different domain name registration cost and services available out there. Some are free with your domain name registration, and there are a number of other features that may be added for additional costs. If you build a relationship with a company, sometimes you can get features for free, so that is something you should consider. When shopping for your domain name registrar, you should always shop around to see which features you can get for free versus what you will pay for so that you end up with the service that best fits you.

Stu Pearson has an interest in Technology related topics. To access more information on domain name registration or on cheap domain name registration, please click on the links.

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Do you have plans to purchase a new boat and desire 15000 dollar

It makes no difference if you live in Bartlett Tennessee or in Madison Wisconsin a honorable online check up will economize you often a lot of inconvenience. At this moment you can suss out rates of interest quickly online and figure if there are possible sneaky traps you should be aware of. Analyze to see if the moneylender who is tending to give you a money loan is honorable. That’s the reason why now you really need to check into and encounter if you can have a bank loan at a just percent loan rate. You should be burnished today to check out if you have a special offer or if you don’t with the merchant bank that offers you a credit loan. Many of the moneylenders wil show you a rate that looks estimable but feels badly or so after some time.

Translated it says: Woon je in Bronckhorst of Reusel-De Mierden en hebt u BKR. Lenen met zonder BKR is nog nooit zo eenvoudig geweest. Koop een nieuwe auto met geldleningen met bkr, 353640 euro is altijd mogelijk om te financieren. Van Westervoort tot Bergen op Zoom, geld lenen met zonder BKR registratie kan hier altijd.

A bank in Midland Texas or so can have a total completely different actual rate of interest for a 15000 dollar bank loan then a moneylender in Eden Prairie Minnesota and that makes a huge clear difference in your weekly pay backs. 17.2 percent interest rate may appear so clean but will that be changeless after you’re going to reinforce your loan.

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What Is on Most Peoples Christmas Wish List?

If you are aimlessly buying Christmas presents for people with hopes that just one of those things will please them, then you need to read this article. Discover ways to purchase what they desire, or ideally, provide them with a gift card and then enjoy the remainder of the day in each other’s company.

Christmas gets more extravagant every year. Despite everyone saying that next year will be different, it seems like Christmas is spent cleaning up piles of wrapping paper and trying to fit stuff into cars. Sure it was fun to get gifts when we were kids; but now that we’re adults do we need to continue the crazy mall shopping every year?

No one can ever know what everyone else knows. The theory is that if you buy the person a lot of gifts, chances are they will like at least one of them. It it best to do research before you put the time and effort into going all out for someone. Check with people who know what they want and need. Asking very specific questions throughout the year will aid you in finding the perfect gift. Hopefully this will deter you from spending your money on worthless trinkets and gadgets. Gift cards are always an option, when every other idea seems likely to fail. These can be personalized by including a few ornaments or hand-baked cookies or even a personalized card telling them that you wished that they have the last say about their gift. The point is that spending all day surrounded by presents is no match for the gift of family and friends being together.

Though many people agree that gift cards are impersonal, isn’t it more impersonal to buy someone a gift they don’t need or want? Gift ideas are hard to come up with but gift cards are a great back up when questioning and snooping about fail. More than often people really don’t know what they desire, or at least won’t admit to it. There are lots of ways to give pleasure to this group. Here is a great site for some gifts for everyone.

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Team Volleyball Jerseys that Match Will Help Your Volleyball Team to Play Better


Team Volleyball Jerseys that match will help your volleyball team to play better. In volleyball, teamwork and communication are extremely important but confidence and momentum are perhaps the most important things needed to have a winning team at volleyball.

Volleyball Uniforms are important not just for their functionality and protection they provide the players but are also important for how they make the players feel. Properly fitting Volleyball Shorts, Volleyball Uniforms, and Team Volleyball Jerseys will help your team go out on the court with the confidence to win.

Almost everyone remembers their first team uniform and when you play volleyball it is no exception. Think of all the pride the members of the United States Olympic Team Volleyball team have when they put on the Team Volleyball Jerseys and team USA Volleyball Shorts. While your team may not be headed to the Olympics, you still can gain a huge amount of momentum from quality matching Volleyball Uniforms.

Whether you are in eighth grade on the “A” team or playing in a recreational league through your YMCA in your 40s, you need to have good trusty Volleyball Shorts, Team Volleyball Jerseys, knee pads, and whatever other items you may need to complete your Volleyball Uniforms.

When your team is matching, you feel like a team. Looking across the net, if the other team sees a team with matching Volleyball Uniforms they are much more likely to feel intimidated and think your team is organized and disciplined. This advantage could be just what your team needs to score that close victory!

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Link Exchange Scam

I have written in an article about the importance to be linked by other web site in order to increase your link popularity. It is related to PageRank. The more back link you get, the higher your PageRank will be, and the higher ranking you will get in the search engine when somebody searches your keywords. You may easily found many of webmasters really eager to exchange links with each other especially when the other page’s PageRank is higher then them. Just type “link exchange” in Google you will found thousands of them. But you must be very careful in choosing web site to exchange link. Some of them just make your PageRank going down into the drain by wasting your PageRank. Firstly, what is PageRank? PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. When one page links to another page, actually it is telling the search engine the importance of other page. When more links a page got from another page, it shows how important the page must be.

While surfing around looking for web sites to exchange link I found some of webmasters doing bad thing to their link partner. One example is to add the directory where those links are located in disallow line in “robots.txt”.

What exactly the webmaster want to do? Actually, the webmaster restrict any search engine’s robot from crawling into the directory, in this case ‘linkbuilder’ directory. If you have exchange link with this web site, the spider will not see your link on the page, so it contribute nothing to you PageRank. Obviously, your web page has a link to this web site (because you exchange link with him) and the spider see it. Your web page give a point to the web site, but the website give nothing to yours. As a result the PR of the web site will increase, but your web site’s PageRank will go down.

Another way of link exchange’s scam is to make your link hidden from search engines’ spiders. The link can be hidden by putting it inside javascript, redirect it to a php or asp process page, instead of plain ‘a href’ HTML code. Using CSS (cascading style sheets) also can trick your eye, which make link appear to be correct, but in fact it is redirected to another way around before it go to your web site.

Meta Tag also can be use by selfish web masters to hide link. Actually it is not hide link, but instruct the search engines’ spiders to ignore any link on the page. So the spiders will not consider the link as a point of importance of other page. The meta tag use for this action is “nofollow”.

As a way of precaution to increase your link popularity (and PageRank) by link exchange is you have to make sure:

1. The directory which the link is located is not restricted to any spider (robot). On the web browser’s address bar type http://www.websitetocheck.com/robots.txt. Check the restricted directory.

2. Always check the source code, make sure the link is directly pointing to your web site by ‘a href=’http://www.yourwebsite.com’

3. Check those links in weekly or monthly basis, if the link which is pointing to your web site is missing, delete their link on your web site.

4. Check the meta tag of the page and try to find ‘ meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow” ‘

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Backpacking Journals - Preserve Your Backpacking Experiences

Backpacking is a great way to escape the rat race and be one with nature. Alas, your backpacking experiences can fade with time. The best way to prevent this is to keep a backpacking journal for your adventures.

Backpacking Journals

Take a minute to give some consideration to your most recent backpacking experience. What sticks out in your mind? Now think about the first time you ever went backpacking. Undoubtedly, you remember few things about the geography, people you went with, particular backpacking routes and spectacular views. The experiences you’ve forgotten are lost to time. If you had kept a backpacking journal, this won’t be the case.

There are famous instances of people keeping journals throughout time. Of course, Anne Frank’s Diary is the best example. In her diary, Anne kept a running commentary of the two years her family spent hiding from the Nazis. While your backpacking experiences better be more lighthearted, keeping a journal will let you remember them as the years pass.

A good backpacking journal combines a number of characteristics. First, it should be compact so you don’t have to take up unnecessary space for other things. Second, it should have a case to protect it from rain, spills and so on. Third, the journal should contain blank areas to write your notes. Fourth, the journal should contain cue spaces to remind you to keep notes on specific things. Cues should include:

1. Who you went backpacking with,

2. Where you backpacked and if you enjoyed it,

3. Who you met and contact information for them,

4. The geographic and weather conditions,

5. Routes you tried and how far you made it, and

6. Any unique things that occurred while backpacking.

At the end of the trip, you should be able to get the following from your journal:

1. Contact information for other backpackers and people you met,

2. Enough detail to provide you or a friend with a guide if you backpack the location a second time.

3. Memories to reflect upon years later, and

4. Something to pass on to your friends, children and grandchildren.

To get the most out of your backpacking journal, you should write in it during backpacking breaks or immediately after. Every trip is special, even if you just go out for a weekend.

Backpacking is a great way to commune with nature. Make sure to preserve the experience.

Rick Chapo is with http://www.nomadjournals.com - makers of writing journals for outdoor activities and traveling. Visit http://www.nomadjournaltrips.com to read articles and stories on travel and outdoor activities.

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Contextual Link Exchanging

Link Exchanging has long been a standard practice for webmasters and SEO specialists. Many webmasters have chosen to automatically exchange links with hundreds if not thousands of sites at once. This practice will often pair up polar opposite sites. Not only is this method not very effective it is also boarder line spam.

There are a few decent category based link exchanges but to the best of my knowledge there are no contextual link exchanges. This means if you have a mystery book site you might end up getting paired with sports magazine site. Even though these site would technically be in the same category they are not very closely related. In the end this is not a very good exchange.

For years one of the best methods has been the slowest. You simply go to a major search engine, plug in terms related to your site and start fishing. You have a huge pool of sites you would like to get a link on but there is no guarantee any of them are even considering exchange requests. So you either call or email webmasters with your request. Eventually you find a few sites willing to swap links.

I would like to help give the manual process a little push. I propose that webmasters who are seeking an exchange add a simple work to their content, “Clepzo” (contextual link exchange program). This way when other webmasters search for a link exchange all they need to do is type in their target keywords in a major search engine and accompany that with the word “Clepzo”. This will return highly related pages which are owned by webmasters who seek an exchange.

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Your Universal Realty Market — Futhered by Property Index Online

Notwithstanding the fact that PropertyIndex.com is a recent house, (they were founded only in March of 2007), they have very swiftly gained in reputation. On closer scrutiny, they are a incredibly undemanding house entirely dedicated to counseling every visitor attempting to rent, buy, sell or let property across the globe. They assure they will offer you assistance to find squarely what’s desired very quickly and, naturally, without pain.

Property is wherever you want at the moment, one of the fanciest areas being properties on the market in France. It should be no big deal to list the tremendous land available in France, the motivation for investigating property here is a combination of the houses and apartments you can purchase and the chance of being able to live amid this bubbly and brisk people. It is one of the truly fashionable countries at the moment, and considering the gorgeous landscape and agreeable sunshine surrounding you here, how can you be wrong… Property in France is steeped in history, art and culture, this geographical region has a long tradition as a home to quite a few indigenous cultures.

Review one of the world’s greatest selections of properties in France here!

Only thirty years back there was merely a trickle of English in search of land in France. Ask any one person who has moved to France and they’ll be sure to substantiate this. Quite a few people would see it as a brief fad and others see it as a approximating to a fixation… People intent on relocating over here may range from newly weds who are looking for a new life perspective to pensioners who want to relax. There could well be troubles when acquiring land in a foreign market — expectably there will be a hundred steps to come to terms with when strategising, calling in or actually purchasing. Even if a single minute action is missed it can provoke overwhelming troubles not to forget, critically, a financial hammering.

As you will expect with this favored destination, land may be pricey in this place and that is plainly owing to the steep demand. Nonetheless the patron is presently picky in a part of the world so rich in merry environment and scenery. It patently has the whole ball of wax any of us could relish etc.

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Ethical Link Exchange, You be the judge….

Webmasters understand that quality and relevant inbound links can increase site visibility; your search engine rating; and with any luck increase your traffic and revenue.

While working to locate relevant links for our site, we discovered a disturbing practice apparently being used to increase link popularity and search engine ranking. The following are the sorted details of our journey and discovery.

1) Most webmasters understand the hunt for quality relevant sites is, like most things of value in life, a time consuming and difficult task. Being limited on time, we first tried to hire a leading SEO expert to locate relevant links. When the SEO expert did not return emails, we tried a few link exchange sites. While a few good quality links were unearthed, the link exchange sites simply did not offer a large quantity of good relevant sites. After all, our competitors had hundreds of thousands of inbound links and we had less than 900. While tempting, we skipped over the advertisements for traffic as our desire was for prospective customers not traffic.

2) We finally decided on the DIY approach. First step, check current reciprocal links page to insure all was well. A few sites no longer linked to us, so our webmaster links page required a few updates.

3) Next we chose to use Link Popularity Check to locate links that our competitors have, that we perhaps missed. The first thing we noticed was hundreds of inbound links a competitor had, all coming from a few specific sites. Upon visiting the sites, we noticed that one was a “directory” and several others were normal sites that contained very little content. In short, the directory and other sites were nothing a competent webmaster could not create in a day or two.

4) We found it odd the inbound sites all have the same visual look, color scheme, and navigation. Our competitor’s site was also listed in the “Related Resources” area on each and every page. The light bulb suddenly switched on! The inbound sites appeared to have been created for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity and therefore the competitor’s search engine ranking!

5) Ping the four sites to locate the IP addresses. Four different addresses, not in consecutive order. Perhaps we were mistaken.

6) A few mouse clicks to see who owned the domain names of the four sites. All the sites are owned by the same company, are housed at the same ISP, and have the same email address listed for the administrative and technical contact names.

7) A few mouse clicks at Alexa.com to review traffic patterns show the sites have very little traffic, yet all have a PageRank score of 6 or higher. Site traffic is increasing for each.

Nope, it does not appear we were mistaken. It appears a competitor actually created web sites for the sole purchase of increasing his/her link popularity and search engine ranking for their primary business site. To recreate such a process:

* Register a domain name that is tied to your primary sites keyword list. For example, if your primary site sells widgets and has a domain name of Widgets.com, something like “Widget- Directory.com” would be ideal;

* Setup a new hosting account with your ISP, using a different IP address, for Widget-Directory.com;

* Create a few pages that use the keyword list from Widgets.com, then setup a link system that invites webmasters to exchange links. Remember, no need to get carried away with content as the purpose of Widget-Directory is really keyword tie-in and link exchanges;

* Now, code every page of Widget-Directory with a link back to Widget.com;

* Sit back and watch. As webmasters enter their sites and subcategories into Widget-Directory, the results will increase the link quantity and apparently your search engine ranking of Widget-Directory AND Widgets.com.

We were curious to see if this was an isolated incident or a rampant practice. While not rampant, it did not take us long to find others companies utilizing this technique. Is this ethical? I am sure some would argue this is a savvy internet marketing practice, while others will view the practice as repulsive. Ethical or not, this technique is simple, cost effective, and apparently will increase your search engine ranking. One thing is clear, I will never look at directory sites or link exchange pages the same.

Hopefully, the search engine will adjust their algorithms and nullify this practice. In the interim, for those that take a negative PR and/or link exchange hit, remember that honesty builds longevity and lasting relationships. Remember the SEO expert we previously tried to hire? We went back and checked his site, and yes he utilizes the same technique. Odd thing however, his sites no longer enjoys top ratings on the major search engines. Perhaps, the search engines are starting to figure this one out.

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