buying a web address

[audiothings]

i've been trying to secure a url for my soon to be launched business, and as i am primarily targeting online customers, i want the url to be very obvious/friendly. Take for example www.audioarts.com , it is an obvious and accessible url but, it seems to be occupied by some random and seemingly useless thing. Now, what (if anything) can i do to obtain the url for myself?

thanks,

[Chris Williams]

Most of the obvious web addresses are bought in bulk by a lot of people. The main reason is for when joe bloggs wants to grab a domain, instead of paying the usual $9.99 or what ever it is, they end up having to buy direct from the broker through a registrar and can end up paying 10 times more.

Recently the guy who bought pizza.com sold it for a couple of million last year and he got that by luck back in the 90's.

It's hard to get a good web address nowadays and some that other people own are likely to sell for thousands if it's a name in demand.

Most of the sites that have a "placeholder" such as the one on audioarts are google ads so everytime someone clicks on a link there, the person who owns the domain gets a couple of cents. People who are buying hundreds of domain names and getting hundreds of clicks per day are making a ton of money from virtual real estate and also can make a killing when they sell the domain name at a profit.

audioarts is owned by moniker.com who is another registrar and you can actually make an offer on the domain name through their website and they might sell it depending on your offer.

Bear in mind that if you search for other domain names through their site and then come back a day later to buy it, they might have bought it themselves as it would be seen as "in demand".

I had the same thing pulled on my when bbuying a domain name by a registrar that I won't name who then put the domain name up for auction at $2500. A right kick in the teeth since I was going to buy it the day before for $9.95 .

The only registrar I use these days is namecheap, you can search their site or set up a free acount. It's also a good way to start making a bunch of your own virtual realestate of good domain names that you might find.

[theblue1]

Ditto what Chris says.

Be very careful who you search for names through. Even huge, supposedly reputable (ha!) outfits like Verisign/Network Solutions will lock up a domain name after someone searches and finds an unused name through their domain name search. Verisign claim they only do it to protect their customers. (Yah, sure. Wanna buy a bridge to nowhere?)

I use 123CheapDomains.com myself, though they're not all that cheap at about $14/yr -- but they have very good, one-on-one service and have been very helpful to me in the past. And you do have to put up with seeing their name as registrar if you do a WHOIS on your own site... But they don't pull sleazy crap like Verisign or some of the other losers out there. (At least not in my experience. You never step into the same internet twice.)

[paulpuri]

Originally Posted by audiothings

i've been trying to secure a url for my soon to be launched business, and as i am primarily targeting online customers, i want the url to be very obvious/friendly. Take for example www.audioarts.com , it is an obvious and accessible url but, it seems to be occupied by some random and seemingly useless thing. Now, what (if anything) can i do to obtain the url for myself?

thanks,

Doing a WHOIS search, the domain is owned by:

Administrative Contact [1418766]:
Brendhan, Hight dnsadmin@mdnhinc.com
Mdnh Inc
4425 W Spring Mountain Rd
Suite 210
Las Vegas
NV
89102
US
Phone: 1.702.227.5569

You could try contacting them and see if they are willing to sell.

Paul Puri

[Chris Williams]

One of the other reasons why I like namecheap is the fact that they can maask our whois info. If you have your email addy up in the whois database it's a field day for spam bots to grab your email and you get a ton of spam.

Other good hosts that also allow domain reg are Hostgator and Dreamhost.

I used dreamhost for years but some of the more advanced programs wouldn't run on their hosting so I switched to hostgator. dreamhost are very good though and offer an insane ammount of space.

[Arksun]

Originally Posted by Chris Williams

One of the other reasons why I like namecheap is the fact that they can maask our whois info. If you have your email addy up in the whois database it's a field day for spam bots to grab your email and you get a ton of spam.

Other good hosts that also allow domain reg are Hostgator and Dreamhost.

I used dreamhost for years but some of the more advanced programs wouldn't run on their hosting so I switched to hostgator. dreamhost are very good though and offer an insane ammount of space.

I'm with Dreamhost too, great host and they respond very quickily to any issues you may be having.

[vixapphire]

nearly every registrar will do whois info masking (aka "proxy") for a small fee.

i use godaddy; they are inexpensive and quick, very responsive and have become the largest registrar by volume administered in the world. excellent company. i also have some dnr's with various others (domainpeople, netsol, etc.). no complaints, really.

generic names like "audio arts" will almost certainly be registered and, if held by an aggregator, you're s.o.l. aggregators exist to own names like that, which they populate with google adsense sites (those pointless web pages featuring a bunch of context-sensitive links to third-party sites and pages), whereby the aggregator gets paid everytime someone clicks through. they do not sell; they will only capitulate to someone who demonstrates senior trademark rights in the phrase comprising the domain name.

good luck in your endeavors.

[kafka]

I've liked Godaddy's service so far. They're very responsive. If you search GS you can find some other opinions on them. However, my experience has been nothing but positive at this point.

[rokuez]

i worked in web design for a year doing sales and godaddy isn't that great i would go with Web hosting provider - Bluehost.com - domain hosting - PHP Hosting - cheap web hosting - Frontpage Hosting E-Commerce Web Hosting Bluehost i use them for emulator forum

godaddy taxes you for little things. they have to pay for advertising

registrar/whois anonymity for instance bluehost provides this for free (godaddy extra fee). this was how it was when i got my domain.