Ask CWS: Should I register this domain?

Every few weeks, I'm asked a question about a domain name and if it should be registered and/or renewed from a particular vendor. Most recently, I received the following email which had been forwarded to me from a confused customer:

Dear COMPANY, Inc.,

We are Beijing Inveis Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd which is the domain name register center in China. We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register "COMPANYinc" as their domain names and Internet keyword on April 19th, 2008. Because this involved your company name or trade mark so we inform you in no time. If you considered these domain names and internet keyword are important to you and there was necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon.

Kind Regards,

Kevin zhang
Tel:+86-10-82476192 ext.604
Fax:+86-10-62477798
Beijing Inveis Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd

While I do not believe this to be a complete scam, I do find it hard to believe that COMPANYinc.cn is in high demand. They are probably simply trying to persuade the owners of the popular .com domain name into purchasing the .cn domain (by creating a sense of urgency). On a side note, I also found it interesting that the company was not using a .cn domain name themselves, they preferred the .com domain name too.

I advised the customer that there are literally hundreds of domain name extensions available (for nearly every country) and that you can't possibly register them all. Nor would you want to, as the cost of doing this far outweighs the benefits.

To keep it simple, here are a few tips to remember when it comes to domain names:

1) Know who your domain is registered with and keep this information in a safe place.
2) Know who to call if you have questions about your domain.
3) Know when your domain renews. You will receive solicitations from other registrars as much as 6 months before it will expire. If the notification is not from the company listed in #1, ignore it.
4) Have one primary domain and do your best to get it listed with search engines. Avoid trying to market/promote several domains at once. If you do have several domains, use them for testing and measuring ad campaigns.
5) If you have multiple domains, consolidate them at one company to avoid confusion.
6) When in doubt, refer to #2.

Ask CWS: How do Domain Pointers Work?

Website owners commonly use more than one address to route traffic to a single website. This practice is called domain pointing. Although the concept is relatively simple, there are actually several separate systems involved, so it's helpful to understand what's happening when you set up or change a pointer.

DNS (Domain Name Service)

Anytime you ask your computer to access a website, it has to map the friendly address you typed in (for example, http://www.cws.net/) to an IP address, which works much like a phone number -- it's uniquely tied to the server that will ultimately handle your request. That DNS query is a lot like looking up a person's phone number based on their name in a phone book, but the computer also needs to know where to find the information in the first place.

When you register a domain, you give the registrar (Network Solutions, for example) two or more name servers that will provide this information. Usually these are provided by the same company that hosts your website.

Web Server

Once a name server gives the requesting computer an IP address, it can connect to the server that holds the website. Often a single IP address can be used for many different sites, so the server software acts like a switchboard operator, examining each request and sending it to the right place. When multiple addresses are pointed at a single site, it must be configured to accept traffic for each one.

Setting up or changing a domain pointer requires that, for each address:

1. The registrar has the correct name servers listed.
2. The name servers report the correct IP address.
3. The Web server accepts and correctly handles the incoming traffic.

People set up domain pointers for many reasons -- most commonly to accommodate misspellings or variations on a company name. Sophisticated marketers might use a particular domain exclusively with different advertising channels and monitor the performance of each.

However, there is a danger to watch out for. Search engines like Google may consider each domain as a separate website, and if there are too many with perceived "duplicate" content, they may not rank as well in search results. It's often better to choose one address as the primary, and redirect traffic from the others to it.

Registering alternate domains can be a valuable tool in your Web marketing efforts, but it's important to make sure all the moving parts are covered. Drop us a line at support (at) cws (dot) net if we can help.