HostEntrepreneur

A successful web site or blog is always made meaningful by its domain name. The web address that you choose must suit the theme and tenor of the web site or blog. Make sure that your name matches the subject of the web site or blog. Almost all well-known web portals have a domain name that is short, easy to remember and type into the address window of the browser. You should understand the system by which a domain works and performs. An effective name is always catchy with a definite theme and subject. Your visitors will feel that the domain name of your web site is quite powerful as it can evoke very strong connections with something that is special to the web user.

As far as possible, use main keywords that connect to the theme and topic of your web portal. You may wish to avoid hyphens and underscores as they can confuse and mislead your site visitors. Complicated web domains are those that are very difficult to type and remember. Extra symbols and strange characters can put off web users.

Choosing a very meaningful and practical domain name is actually very simple and straightforward. You need to sit down and think over all possible combinations of good keywords and their phrases. If you want to choose a good name, you can start with a comprehensive list of prospective names and shortlist the best ones among them. When you create a list of good names, the next step is to check whether they are available for registration. To conduct this important search, you will need to use an online tool that tells you about the availability of names.

Domain ownership identification tool is a very simple utility where you will find out who is the owner of the domain is and whether the name of your choice is available or not. This tool provides you the complete details of domain ownership including the date of expiry. Choosing a domain name is a trial and error exercise most of the good domains are already in use and you may need to work hard to create a good name. Domain name tools provide you a number of alternatives when the name of your choice is not available. You can pick the one from the list that best represents your theme and business idea.

If there is a domain name available for purchase, you can pounce on it and buy before someone does it. Domain name industry is a highly competitive industry and you never know when someone is going to buy your domain name ideas. While searching for a domain name think of all possible keyword phrases and wordings because most web users have their way of choosing products or services. Keywords play an important role while searching for domains by using domain name ownership online tool. If you do not find the domain name of your choice, you can always sift through the alternative list to choose the best one. Most of the online tools are efficient in providing a listing of most probable choices that eventually allow you to find a domain name that best represents your business theme, topic, style and tenor. Another emerging trend is to buy expired domain names from registrars. You will need to be very careful while buying an expired domain because the name that you wish to buy may have a shady past. However, expired domain market is a very good place to find those domain names that are not available in the fresh domain name market.

The general rule of thumb is to buy a domain name immediately when it is available in a domain ownership tool. It is always better to buy the domain name of your choice even if you are not creating your web site right now. Never ever, allow someone to buy your domain name. You may regret your decision of not buying your domain name when it was available.

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is also the owner of the path breaking web site called www.expireddomaingain.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Recently I’ve seen a few people refer to their domain name, like “myname.com” as a “top level domain” or TLD. The short answer is that it is NOT a TLD. The term Top Level Domain has a very specific meaning, and anything you can register does not fit the definition… Per RFC 920,

The domain system is a tree-structured global name space that has a few top level domains.  The top level domains are subdivided into second level domains.  The second level domains may be subdivided  into third level domains, and so on.
…

While the initial domain name “ARPA” arises from the history of the   development of this system and environment, in the future most of the top level names will be very general categories like “government”, “education”, or “commercial”.  The motivation is to provide an   organization name that is free of undesirable semantics.

Notice their words: “top level names will be very general categories…”  Recognize the categories listed, it’s .gov, .edu and .com TLDs. There are also ccTLDs with are country specific such as .us and .ca for the USA and Canada respectively. As of this moment right now, here are ALL OF the top level domains per IANA:

AC, AD, AE, AERO, AF, AG, AI, AL, AM, AN, AO, AQ, AR, ARPA, AS, ASIA, AT, AU, AW, AX, AZ, BA, BB, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BIZ, BJ, BM, BN, BO, BR, BS, BT, BV, BW, BY, BZ, CA, CAT, CC, CD, CF, CG, CH, CI, CK, CL, CM, CN, CO, COM, COOP, CR, CU, CV, CX, CY, CZ, DE, DJ, DK, DM, DO, DZ, EC, EDU, EE, EG, ER, ES, ET, EU, FI, FJ, FK, FM, FO, FR, GA, GB, GD, GE, GF, GG, GH, GI, GL, GM, GN, GOV, GP, GQ, GR, GS, GT, GU, GW, GY, HK, HM, HN, HR, HT, HU, ID, IE, IL, IM, IN, INFO, INT, IO, IQ, IR, IS, IT, JE, JM, JO, JOBS, JP, KE, KG, KH, KI, KM, KN, KP, KR, KW, KY, KZ, LA, LB, LC, LI, LK, LR, LS, LT, LU, LV, LY, MA, MC, MD, ME, MG, MH, MIL, MK, ML, MM, MN, MO, MOBI, MP, MQ, MR, MS, MT, MU, MUSEUM, MV, MW, MX, MY, MZ, NA, NAME, NC, NE, NET, NF, NG, NI, NL, NO, NP, NR, NU, NZ, OM, ORG, PA, PE, PF, PG, PH, PK, PL, PM, PN, PR, PRO, PS, PT, PW, PY, QA, RE, RO, RS, RU, RW, SA, SB, SC, SD, SE, SG, SH, SI, SJ, SK, SL, SM, SN, SO, SR, ST, SU, SV, SY, SZ, TC, TD, TEL, TF, TG, TH, TJ, TK, TL, TM, TN, TO, TP, TR, TRAVEL, TT, TV, TW, TZ, UA, UG, UK, US, UY, UZ, VA, VC, VE, VG, VI, VN, VU, WF, WS, XN–0ZWM56D, XN–11B5BS3A9AJ6G, XN–80AKHBYKNJ4F, XN–9T4B11YI5A, XN–DEBA0AD, XN–G6W251D, XN–HGBK6AJ7F53BBA, XN–HLCJ6AYA9ESC7A, XN–JXALPDLP, XN–KGBECHTV, XN–ZCKZAH, YE, YT, YU, ZA, ZM, ZW

So unless you somehow managed to register one of those (not a domain WITHIN one of those but one of those actual TLDs), you don’t have a TLD… It’s not open for discussion, you don’t. You have a “second level domain” according to the people who designed the dns system. Please stop telling people you do, or trying to sell a TLD. You just sound stupid to people who know better.

cPanel has an option to cluster cPanel servers for DNS services. This allows you to have a true secondary, or tertiary, or… , dns server for your cPanel based hosts. This option is called Clustering and is installed but turned off on the default installation. But fortunately, the it is easily enabled. And if you don’t have a second cPanel server, cPanel offers a freely licensed “DNS Only” version. This is basically just the dns portion of the software… but for clustering acts the same as a standard cPanel server does.  If you want the DNS Only version it can be obtained here: http://www.cpanel.net/products/cpanelwhm/related-server-software.html

Step 1 – Get your 2nd cPanel server (or cPanel DNS-Only server) up and running… we’ll call it “ns2″, assuming “ns1″ is on the main server.
Step 2 – Log into ns2′s WHM at http://your.ip.address:2087/  with your root password
Step 3 – Under ”Cluster/Remote Access” on the left side, select “Configure Cluster”
Step 4 – Under “Modify Cluster Status”, enable dns clustering if it is disabled.
Step 5 – Back under “Cluster/Remote Access” select “Setup Remote Access Key”.
Step 6 – Go ahead and “Generate New Key” for some reason I’ve had trouble with the existing key the 1st time.
Step 7 – Copy the Current Access Key, make sure you select the WHOLE KEY … scroll down to get it all.
Step 8 – Log in to ns1′s WHM with your root password
Step 9 – Under ”Cluster/Remote Access” on the left side, select “Configure Cluster”
Step 10 – Under “Modify Cluster Status”, enable dns clustering if it is disabled.
Step 11 – Under the Servers in your cluster section, add the ip address of ns2 and click configure.
Step 12 – When prompted for the access key, paste the whole key into the box.
Step 13 – Back under “Configure Cluster” your new ns2 should now be listed, change the Role to “Synchronize Changes” to start sending dns to that server.
Step 14 – Under “DNS Functions” on the left pane, select “Synchronize DNS Records” to push existing records to the new server.
Step 15 – You should now be able to query the new nameserver with nslookup for existing domains that you serve.
Step 16 – If all went well, update your registrar with the new name and ip address of your new secondary nameserver.

 This is the perfect application for a small vps… We even offer a secondary cPanel dns only vps service that we install it for you, and only handles dns for a rather reduced rate of $5.95/month at Lagniappe Internet, http://www.LagniappeInternet.com/ . Perfect for vps resellers who don’t want the expense of maintaining their own secondary cPanel server but want the redundancy of a real secondary dns server.

http://www.whatsmydns.net is a cool little website that let’s you check dns across more than a dozen dns servers all over… many are in the US, but the UK and Australia are also in there. This is a great tool that lets you check if your dns changes have propagated yet.