Creating a good impression online begins with your domain name. If it is well thought-out, short, easy to remember, and very descriptive on what you offer, you can be assured that it will leave a mark on your potential clients’ minds that can lead to frequent visits to your website.

1. Make it keyword-rich. You would want to attract search engine traffic to your website, right? One of the best ways to do that is make your domain name keyword-rich so it will show up on related searches.

2. Consider using adjectives on your domain names. If you are selling shoes, you can be assured that shoes dot com is already taken. However, there is no need to fret as you can use alternate names by just inserting adjectives. You can use cheapshoes dot com, qualityshoes dot com, fashionableshoes dot com, etc.

3. Choose your suffix wisely. While .com is considered the best suffix today as it communicates professionalism and credibility, it shouldn’t be your automatic choice especially if you are only targeting certain geographic locations. If you are building a website just for UK residents, for example, you can use .UK to can generate targeted, quality traffic.

4. Avoid using hyphens. Online users are not used to nor trained in typing hyphens when they search for particular websites online. If your domain name contains some, you are risking losing your potential clients to your competitors should they forget to type in the hyphens on their browsers.

5. Acronyms are not always the best. Some marketers who are aiming at getting short domain names resort to acronyms which are okay if they make sense to your potential clients. But if your business name is Cyberzone Business Global Solutions, you wouldn’t want to go with CBGS dot com, right?

Sean Mize is an Internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels. To learn more, download his free guide, How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online.

By Jerry West

This article covers the rising rate of fraud in the industries of selling expired and used domains.

I recently purchased some good and seemingly well-established domains (they had good PageRanks) from a broker. However, when I “got them home” so to speak, they were far from what I thought I had purchased. In my investigation into this, it was clear the domains I had purchased — and many of the domains being sold today from brokers (especially on eBay) — are littered with fraud.

Domain names are investments, and any investment should be researched. Never make the assumption that the domain broker has done this research for you. Chances are, he hasn’t.

Just as there is fraud in PPC, there is fraud in domain purchasing. Just because the Google Toolbar states a PageRank 5 doesn’t mean it is.

First, let’s discuss the process and how the con artist works. Most SEOs and knowledgeable webmasters know the value of a high PageRank site. And how it can take months, even a year to get a solid PageRank 5 site. So, many SEOs and webmasters turn to domains being sold to get a jumpstart on the process. Their thinking is, “If I spend a few thousand on this site, it will shave months off my work schedule.”

The thinking is sound, but unfortunately, the bad guys know you are thinking this and they take advantage of a “loophole” in the system that isn’t known to most SEOs.

The Google Toolbar

Google really didn’t know they were starting “addictive behavior” when they first introduced their toolbar back in 2002. Now, millions of webmasters all have “Green Bar Addiction” and they watch their PageRank values often as closely as investors do the stock market.

The Loophole

In order to protect their algorithm from their competition (Yahoo! and Microsoft) and “black hat” marketers, Google publicly shows “delayed” PageRank. Much like the free stock quoting tools online are 15 minute delayed, the Google Toolbar is delayed too. Only, it isn’t just a few minutes, but 3-5 months.

So, the PageRank you see displayed is actually the PageRank the page had some time in the past few weeks or months. I am sure you know where this is going now.

Google updates their toolbar about once every three months. So, the con artist usually does one of two things. The first is that they will hijack the PageRank on another domain. I won’t go into how this is done, so amateur thieves can’t replicate it. The second way they do this is that they will buy or beg for temporary links from other sites or networks, drive up the PageRank to a 5 or 6, and when the Toolbar updates, they cancel all the bought links, lowering the real PageRank to zero. You see, even though Google “delays” the showing of the PageRank by a couple of months, they use the current values in their ranking process.

So, even though the site can “verify” it is a PageRank 5, the actual value (what Google currently counts) is 0. You basically bought a “vapor domain.” Here is a systematic way to check to ensure what you are being sold is genuine. This is your “gotta make sure this Rolex is really a Rolex” cheat sheet:

1. The first thing to do is to just go to the site directly and see if the PageRank is the same as advertised. Sometimes the con artist gets lazy and doesn’t realize a toolbar update happened and their “PR5″ site is actually displaying “PR0.”

2. While you are there, look at the site. Is the domain online? Is the site still live or is there a “placeholder” page? If it is a placeholder, the domain is probably dead.

3. Next, you want to look at the site’s history. When was the domain registered? To whom? Where is it hosted? Is it on its own IP or is it sharing with hundreds or thousands of other domains? What was the site before?

A great place to start your research is DomainTools.com There you can find key information: when the domain was registered, where it is hosted, and if the domain has its own IP address or not. If it is sharing an IP address, you can access the Reverse IP Tool, and often you can uncover networks of sites. This does require at least a Silver Membership which currently runs $15 a month. It will also tell you if the domain is on any email black lists.

To find out what the site was before, you can use the Wayback Machine. The reason you want to do this is if the domain you want to acquire was a child porn site five years ago, you’ll know. You’ll want to pass for obvious reasons.

4. Is the site listed in the Google index? Just because it has PageRank doesn’t mean it is still listed, so check. The best way to do this is to check the Google Cache. Do a query in Google for cache:domain.com (home page check) or cache:domain.com/subpage.html (subpage check). Please note that if there are no results that come up, the Google couldn’t cache the site. If that is the case, use the site: command instead. I like using the “cache” command first as that allows me to see the most recently indexed page and what it looked like. If it is different than what is currently displayed, that could be a red flag.

5. Verify the PageRank is legit. In the domain buying space, PageRank is often faked — especially on eBay or other auctions. I have been a victim of this in the past.

So, how can you protect yourself? Easy. You can use the free PageRank Detection SEO tool over at SEO Logs. Just type in the domain and it will check. If it comes back and verifies that it is valid, are you safe? Not quite. One more check.

Use the Google PageRank Prediction tool at iWebTool. It will give you a prediction based on current link counts from MSN. You should also check Yahoo!’s Site Explorer. These are two great resources because they update their links on a weekly basis, whereas Google updates theirs about once a quarter.

That was a lot to digest, I know, but this is how I make sure that I never get taken when buying domains. Getting ripped off is never something that is pleasant — and domain fraud is a killer as your ability to recoup your loss is slim to none.

Now you have the knowledge that you need in order to verify what is being presented to you is real.

Jerry West is an SEO Analyst for Web Marketing Now, an SEO Testing and Research agency. He is the author of the SEO Revolution, a paid membership site for webmasters and SEOs to get access to his testing information from over 500 domains and he is faculty member of StomperNet, the leading eCommerce online instructional community.

When the time comes to set up your own Internet business one of your first thoughts is to buy a domain name to establish a website for your new business. You may spend a lot of time dreaming up possible names and testing their availability, but there is another option you should consider — buying an existing domain name.

There are a number of advantages to buying an existing domain name and if you do not yet have your heart set on a new domain name, you could find an existing domain name available at a price not much greater than you will pay for a fresh name.

One of the primary advantages of an existing domain name is that it may already have traffic flowing toward it. Obviously the amount of traffic will vary greatly depending on what the current owner has done for promotion, but any traffic is more than the zero visitors a fresh name will deliver.

Another advantage is from search engine optimization. Many domainers will have at least put in a small amount of time optimizing their domain name portfolio for search engines. Others put in a great deal of time and effort targeting keywords and making sure the domain name is listed. It takes time for various domain names to work their way into search engine listings and if someone has already done that work for you, you are ready to capitalize on their groundwork as soon as you take over the name.

A third advantage is that the wild frontier of short, targeted, keyword domain names is over. It is not impossible but very difficult to find an unregistered domain name in the form of a short, catchy phrase, and even more so if you have a specific keyword in mind. However, many of the domainers who registered these domain names originally did so as an investment rather than a long-term project, and so are willing to sell. The only way to acquire many of these great domain names is by purchasing an existing domain name. You will not be able to find one to register fresh.

Choosing the right domain name for your Internet business enterprise can be exciting and challenging, but if you take the time to learn more about the available domain names you can buy, then you just might find the bargain of a lifetime and start off your business with a bang.

Deanna Mascle publishes Renaissance Woman Online.

Domain names are dirt cheap these days and so easy to get that it seems like everyone has at least one. Many online affiliate marketers tend to collect domain names though… either they have a new business idea and register a domain name for it, or they simply come across a fantastic domain which isn’t already registered.

So they register domains. In many cases, lots of these domains end up just lying around unused — there just isn’t enough time to develop every single idea you come up with.

You don’t have to let your unused domains just sit around gathering dust. There are actually many ways you can make money from them; here are three of the easiest.

1. Domain Parking — The fastest and simplest way to make money with an unused domain name is to simply park it at a service such as Sedo where you’ll be paid a portion of the click income generated from visitors to the domain.

This isn’t a way to make large amounts of money, of course, unless you have hundreds of extra domains lying around or you happen to have one with tons of traffic. It is a way, however, to at least let the domain name earn its keep. In other words, you can usually earn enough each year to pay for the registration renewal fees. And sometimes you’ll even earn a small bit of profit too.

2. Domain Redirection to Affiliate Products — Another very easy way to create a steady stream of income from unused domains is to simply redirect the domain to an affiliate product or program you’re associated with.

If you have a golf-related domain name for instance, simply point it to a golf-related affiliate product. This way, any time someone finds the domain online, they’ll automatically be taken to your affiliate link for the product in question. And sales can dribble in all year. If the domain has a decent amount of steady traffic, you can even make a decent monthly income with this method.

3. Automated, Self Updating Sites — This is actually one of my favorite things to do with unused domain names; it allows you to slowly grow a larger site which can increase the amount of money it makes over time, increasing the amount of traffic visiting it, and it will be a sellable asset in the future if you decide not to keep it.

Creating automated self updating websites can be done in a variety of ways, too. You can have a blog which parses RSS feeds about a certain topic, or you could have one which posts relevant affiliate products for sale. The site could also feature coupons and special sales or deals, or it could simply be a regularly updating directory on a specific topic.

Since the site regularly updates itself automatically — and especially if it’s published in blog format — it will generate search engine interest, backlinks from other websites, and organic traffic for you daily. And that traffic is likely to grow over time because your site continues to be updated regularly.

Kathy Burns-Millyard publishes the Affiliate Marketing Profit Tools blog where you can learn how to create an automated self updating site on your spare domains.

We are always looking for ways to increase traffic to our website for free. Did you know that some of the best, free, targeted search engine traffic can result just from your domain name alone? Domain names that are keyword rich or specific to your niche can result in higher rankings on the search engines. And higher rankings means more targeted traffic to your website, completely free.

How to Use This Method

Let’s say your niche is “working at home.” You’re going to want to find specific keywords that relate to your niche topic. To do this, go to the Google Keyword Tool and type in your niche. Try searching for several variations of your niche topic, such as “work at home online,” “find work at home,” etc. (you may also want to search for synonyms of your niche topic as well). Research the average search volume on these keywords, then write down the keywords that are specific to your niche and have the highest search volume. I would say to find around 20-25 keywords that have a high search volume and are related to your niche.

From here, swing over to GoDaddy and go to the “Register Domains in Bulk” option on their menu. Take your entire list of keywords and add “.com” onto the end of each keyword and place them in the area to check the domains for current registrations. Search to see if any domain names are available. If some are available, consider purchasing them. If none are available, try to tighten your search method or be more specific.

Once the domains have been purchased and you begin to lay content on them, you have a very good chance of landing a top ranking on Google and other search engines for those keywords. Why? The answer is simple: Your domain is a keyword. Each time this keyword is searched via a major search engine, such as Google, you have a high chance of being ranked first. This will bring in targeted traffic specific to your niche, all for the initial cost of the domain and some time to put up some content. So give this method a shot, because you really have nothing to lose.

Bryan Hufford is a former corporate slave turned online entrepreneur. He has successfully launched several businesses online, working directly from home. Find out how you can start working at home and join his newsletter about earning extra income online at his website.

Domain names, when wisely invested, can be quite lucrative, just as investing in real estate would be. It’s picking the right name, following the registration requirements and selling or trading at the right time. With any investment, you want to be well informed of exactly how and when you can turn a profit, and there are important considerations before you want to even make your purchase.

The shortest name is almost always the better option. Phrases are OK, and some of them will get a lot of hits to your site or get you plenty of offers for decent money, but keep in mind when people are doing searches, they usually just put one or two words. The less words, the more hits you are likely to get.

Avoid domain names that have hyphens or numbers. People rarely if ever put either of those in their searches.

If you have never purchased a domain name before and want to use one for your business, website or as an investment, you may want to ask around and find someone that has invested in domains before and get all the advice you can from them. Find out what hurt them and how they negotiated the value. You may also want to seek advice from a business advisor or domain name appraiser. It may cost you a little bit of money, but a small cost in the beginning could lead to big profits in the end.

Become familiar with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). ICANN governs extensions (i.e., .com, .org, .edu, etc.) from around the world, from its headquarters in California. Certain extensions have different rules and regulations, so your location could affect the rules and regulations you are governed by.

Don’t just buy a domain name from anyone. Do your research and get background on the seller. Make sure the seller actually has the name registered and owns it. They should be an accredited owner. There is a website called WHOIs that will tell you exactly who owns what name. In Australia, the name for the WHOIS website is AUda. Australia has some different rules they go by.

Often, people forget to register a domain name, think they own it and did at one point, but if the registration isn’t renewed every year and the $10 registration fee is not paid, the name goes up for grabs again to anyone that wants it. When buying, be sure to check the registration date, and if it is less than 60 days old, it is not a legal sale.

There is no formula for purchasing a domain name, just as there is no formula for purchasing a home. It’s about knowing the rules, regulations, registration requirements, etc., and going from there. The most important thing is picking a name that everyone wants. The more people that want it, the more valuable it is and will give you great negotiation power when selling or trading.

Always do your research when investing. Always check backgrounds as well as consider the market potential of the name you’re considering. Will a name that is valuable now be valuable in the future? For example, would VCRs.com be as valuable today as it was 25 years ago? No. Of course we didn’t have the Internet in the 80s, but hybrid cars are going to become more and more popular with the oil issue right now, so hybridcars.com would probably be a valuable name that will continue to gain more and more value as time goes on.

R. Scott Hall publishes Marketer’s Express where you can learn more about buying domain names.

Go to the World’s Largest Domain Registrar — GoDaddy.com