What's in a domain name?
By Jon Fletcher - Managing Director
At the heart of the web is a system of domain names and a basic understanding of these names can be a real help when planning an overall online marketing strategy. The following article, though in some ways technically incorrect, is a simplified way to think of domain names and is more than enough for marketing purposes. For those who wish for a more rigorous explanation you can find an in depth guide here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name
Every web site on the internet can be identified using a unique set of four numbers (its "IP address") and while this is fine for the average computer, it doesn’t help those of us who prefer to remember names. As a result domain names are associated with these IP addresses to make them easier to use and remember.
What's in a domain name?
A typical domain name comes in three sections:
The sub domain bit: usually "www." at the front of the name. This can actually be anything and it is only a convention to use www to indicate that the name is attached to a web site. A correctly set up domain name does not need the sub domain part to display a web site, example.co.uk should work as well as www.example.co.uk.
your main domain (test.example.co.uk, secure.example.co.uk, deutsh.example.co.uk).
this is what you are buying control of (www.example.co.uk). Until it expires, you control what people see
when they visit the domain and all of its sub domains.
Ok, so that’s how it’s made up - but what about marketing? Which bits do what?
What's in a domain name?
In the UK, the top level domain is the simplest bit to get a handle on. If you are a company then you should be using .co.uk which simply states "company in the UK". Choosing a .com address is effectively saying that you are an American or international company. In reality many companies in the UK have adopted the .com address as their main one thus confusing matters. If you want to clearly indicate to a search engine or visitor exactly where you trade it is better to be country specific.
Alternatives include .net .info .uk.com .ltd .ltd.uk .org .org.uk the latter two being intended for organisations that don’t meet the criteria of typical businesses but in reality are used by anyone who wants to register them.
Brand protection
Is there any reason to buy more than one top level domain version of your chosen name? Brand protection!
If you don’t register a variant, it’s more than likely that someone else will. This only really applies to your company name by itself. In combination with other words there is an almost infinite variety and far too many to protect. It is however worth a few hours of your time every couple of months brainstorming with colleagues, looking for obvious combinations that you may want to protect: exampleshop.co.uk, exampleonline.co.uk exampleltd.co.uk sub-brand.co.uk product.co.uk
The flip side of brand protection is looking to see who has already bought a domain that includes your brand name or trademark. If you find any it may well be time to consult a specialist firm of solicitors, although in our experience a simple phone call or e-mail often does the trick. Arranging the transfer of ownership of such domains is fiddly and the paper work for .co.uk domains takes some organising but it’s worth it. It is not uncommon to be expected to pay a nominal sum to acquire a domain from a third party – even one you feel they have no right to.
Once you have a stable of domains you really need to keep track of them and make sure that none expire without you realising. Expired domains are snapped up by companies wanting to use traffic for advertising sites and, of course, "cyber squatters" hoping to extract large sums of money from you.
Your domain registrar should inform you by e-mail when your domain is about to expire, as should Nominet if it is a .uk domain. The problem comes if they don’t have the right e-mail or regular address, or the relevant person has moved company. All e-mail addresses used for critical functions like this should not be linked to individuals, they should be function specific (domains@example.co.uk which then redirects to at least two people – ask your IT people for an "email distribution group").
Always have a plan B – and C
This all assumes that your registrar has everything set up as they should. Our experience has shown around a 1% failure rate of domain registrar systems/staff, which isn’t bad unless that 1% is a live domain. For this reason we always have another backup system in place to catch any slips and because we realise just how serious a failure is, we put another backup in place on top of that. This all takes time, requires regular attention and an investment in software/systems, but is well worth it considering the alternative.
A brief note about Nominet: they will assign an account to every company who registers a .uk domain even if you register through a registrar. Change your details even slightly or use a different registrar and you’ll get a new account. Consolidating these accounts can be a chore but is worthwhile if you need to bypass your registrar and take control yourself. It is not unknown for registrars, especially small ones, to go out of business while still administering your domain.
You will be contacted from time to time by companies pretending to be something they are not, such as the "Domain Registry of America", who let you know that your domain is expiring and imply that they are the authority with whom you need to renew. In the past they have made their spam look like invoices but all they are trying to do is to get you to renew your domain through them at their extortionate prices rather than your normal registrar.
Name servers – don’t touch that switch!
Typically your domain registrar will have a couple of boxes in its control panel allowing you to choose what "name servers" to point the domain to. What this means is that they want to know where your web site is and where mail should be sent to. Simple - but horrible if you get it wrong. It takes any changes you make here 24 to 48hrs to "propagate" around the Internet and the same amount of time to correct if a mistake has been made. Only change details here if you know what you are doing and have double checked everything.
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