You found the perfect domain name for your business and it’s available. You’re free to register it, right?

WRONG!

While the name may be available on domain registries, it could easily be owned by another party on the trademark or common-law levels. Prior to registering your domain name, it is strongly advised that comprehensive research be conducted.

It is every business owner’s responsibility to ensure that the name they’re using is truly available. Don’t assume that the name is available simply because you’re able to file for the domain.

Comprehensive research includes searching the:

• pending and registered Federal trademark files;
• registered State trademark files;
• national Common-Law files, which includes DBAs, incorporations, product announcements, newspapers, company directories, etc.

Comprehensive research should also include a search of names that are similar in Sound, Appearance or Meaning! This entails searching synonyms, word placements, spelling variations. It’s not just exact names that could be a problem for you; similar names matter too!

Another important area that should be paid attention to is the industry. Completely different industries with the same or similar names should not be an issue to one another. But, of course, like with so many issues dealing with names, there are grey areas and each situation differs from the next.

While there are some free preliminary sites you can search, it’s best to leave the comprehensive research to a professional search company or a trademark attorney.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming no one else owns your domain name - only comprehensive research will tell you that!

Shannon Moore is the General Manager, East Coast for TradeMark Express. Since 1992, TradeMark Express has met the needs of their clients with comprehensive research, application preparation, attorney referrals and trademark consultation. For further details, please visit us on the web at TradeMark Express or call Shannon directly at 800.340.2010.

Ian McMillan registered the internet domain name TrivialPursuits.net and won the right to continue using it, after a challenge from Horn Abbot, the makers of the board game, failed to stop him using the domain name. The makers of the Trivial Pursuits board game failed to obtain the TrivialPursuits.net domain name from the person who said he registered the name to lament life’s loss of individual creativity.

This decision has gone against the long established principle that once a brand is “well known”, the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)1 part of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), would be able to effect the transfer of the name. However, in this case, the panel was unclear about the intentions of the respondent, and his motive for registering the domain name. The panel did not believe that there was enough evidence to support an application for bad faith activity on behalf of the respondent.

Respondent Ian McMillan informed the WIPO panellist that he bought the name with with the intention of creating a website dealing with “the 21st Century’s unique trivial pursuits, specifically the fact that most aspects of life now involve a commodity as opposed to individual creativity, from sex to salvation via surgery and sweeteners”. Currently, the site is only one page long, and refers to the WIPO case as “a fine example of a quite unnecessary and utterly trivial pursuit,” adding that more content will be added, “but at the convenience of my lazy nature.”

There was little evidence of bad faith found by the panel, although McMillan does not appear to have intention of using the website.

Comment: Usually in cybersquatting cases where there “is no use of a sign in the course of trade” plus difficulty in establishing trade mark infringement or passing off, the UDRP approach is the recommended recourse as it is far cheaper and sometimes quicker.

If you require further information contact us.

Email: enquiries@rtcoopers.com

© RT COOPERS, 2005. This Briefing Note does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the issues discussed nor does it constitute legal advice. It is intended only to highlight general issues. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in relation to particular circumstances.

Rosanna Cooper is a partner in RT Coopers Solicitors. The firm is a full service commercial law firm covering areas such as E-Business, Education Law, Commercial Litigation, Data Protection, Intellectual Property, Corporate Finance and Commercial Contracts.

Contact us at enquiries@rtcoopers.com. visit our website at http://www.rtcoopers.com

Similarities ‘tween proper and organic entertainment

The show must move on as they say and so it pass on be in both interpersonal media and amusement in interpersonal life. No matter if you run a web log or an entertainment ballpark like Lego Land, Tivoli or Universal Studios, you will need traffic and visitants to your amusement park or your website.

To reach the numbers of visitors you will need to promote your entertainment establishment or your website. Particularly for your blog it is as well very essential to measure the traffic and analyze the visitants behavior. Traffic sources are also highly important and you must meter and study keywords and Google visitors, this can be done for free using Google Analytics or the Free Trial SEO Support.

No matter if you have a website or a material world entertainment park you must give your visitants fantastic experiences, something they will commemorate and something they will come back for. There are numerous similarities ‘tween proper and virtual entertainment and both fulfill a function in contemporary day life. It would be wrong to reason otherwise.

The most significant amusement websites pulls exactly as many visitants as do material entertainment parkland like Universal Studios or Lego Land. There are, naturally, deviations in the way the amusement will appear, on-line you only have a screen to make the context but the approachability is very much broader on the internet, which can be seen in all home, while entertainment parks are merely found in the neighborhood of big urban centers and the top order amusement parks can merely be found in a few spots in the globe.

Finding the Right Hosting

Aside from money issues there are a lot of characteristics to consider when picking out a hosting company. The opening matter to be conscious of is what sort of web site you are going to operate on the host. If you’re preparation to run a dot net or ASP website you must select a Windows IIS answer and if you plan to operate PHP or a Word Press web log, you must pick out a UNIX dependent Apache Host.

Afterward pick of the right platform you have to make sure you get infinite bandwidth and transfer and often it is also for your vantage to be able to setup unlimited email accountings. If you run dot net or ASP you must have admission to a MSSQL host and make sure the cost for that is reasonable. Operating PHP or Word Press site calls for a MySQL database and of course a PHP5 facility.

Uptime is critical, 99.99 % uptime is a must, no host will assure you 100 % uptime. You will also claim to consider the servicing and backup from your ISP to properly run your website as smooth as possible, which is also necessary for Google optimisation and SEO in general.

Word Press is advocated for a inexpensive and resilient net result and hosting your site on a UNIX based server working Apache and MySQL is an sanctioned web hosting answer which is simple to keep up without programming skills and cognition and Word Press is also easy to optimise for search engines like Google and Bing.

Your web host is the cornerstone of your WWW presence and it is very important to choose the proper web host from the set out. You can alter server later, but performing proper enquiry to retrieve a serious hosting company from the set out is the most intelligent act, particularly if you program to get a vast number of traffic which should be able to establish without the downtime which will occur during transfer from one host to different.

With all that’s written about selecting a domain name, I thought I would address the ART of selecting a name for your business. It’s by no means an easy task or one that should be taken lightly. So here we go.

Ask 500 people, already in business, how they decided upon their business name and you will get 500 different answers. Everyone has a story behind how they chose their business name. Even if the business is named after their own birth name, there’s probably a reason why this was done.

When you open a business, in a sense, you are giving birth. This new birth was created from an idea by you or your associates. It will have its own bank account, it’s own federal identification number, it’s own credit accounts, it’s own income and it’s own bills. On paper, it is another individual! Just as if you were choosing a name for an unborn child, you need to spend considerable time in deciding upon your business name.

There are several reasons why a good business name is vitally important to your business. The first obvious reason is because it is the initial identification to your customers. No one would want to do business with someone if they didn’t have a company name yet. This makes you look like an amateur who is very unreliable. Even if you call your company “Bill’s Lawn Service”, a company name has been established and you are indeed a company. People will therefore feel more comfortable dealing with you.

Secondly, a business name normally is an indication as to the product or service you offer. “Joan’s Typing Service”, “Karate Club for Men”, “Jim-Dandy Jack-of-all-Trades”, “Main Street Laundry”, “Missy’s Gift Boutique” and “Star Publishers” are all examples of simple business names that immediately tell the customer what product you offer.

However, most people will choose the simple approach when naming their business. They use their name, their spouse’s name, their children’s names or a combination of these names when naming a business. The national hamburger-restaurant chain “Wendy’s” was named after, owner, Dave’s daughter. Actually, research has proven that these “cutesy” names are not the best names to use for a business. Many experts claim that it makes the business look too “mom-and-pop-sie.” But this depends on the business. If you are selling something that demands this mood or theme to appeal to your market, it’s okay to use this approach.

Names like, “Sensible Solutions”, “Direct Defenders”, “Moonlighters Ink”, “Printer’s Friend”, “Strictly Class”, “Collections and Treasures”, and “Starlight on Twilight” are all good examples of catchy names. These types of names relate to your product or service but serve as a type of slogan for your business. This is a big help when marketing.

When you name a child, you may not decide upon a definite name until after they are born. Hospital nurseries are loaded with “Boy” Smith and “Girl” Jones name tags. You do this because a name is sometimes associated with a type of personality. Somehow, I don’t think Tarzan and Jane got the message, “Boy”? (dah!). When you name a business you may need to wait until you have a product or service to sell and then decide upon a business name before going into the business itself because your business name should give some clue as to what product or service you are selling. A business named “Joe’s Collections” normally wouldn’t sell car parts and a business named “Charlie Horse” would not sell knitting supplies.

To generate ideas - begin looking at business signs everywhere you go. Notice which ones catch your eye and stick in your mind. Try and figure out “why” they stuck in your mind. Naturally, the business “Dominos Pizza” sticks in your mind because it is nationally known. These don’t count! Look around and notice the smaller businesses. Take your time. Within a few days you should be able to come up with a few potential business names.

Then, when you finally find a few names you really like - try reciting them to other people and get their opinion. It won’t be long until your business will have the proper name that will carry it through it’s life!

A final thought. Are they kidding? What your company does or long product description, domain names?

Try VeryLongBusinessNamesThatAreHardToRemember.com (and enter it without a typo)?

Well maybe it’s just me; but what happened to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)?

About the Author —- Jim Capobianco, the author of “10 Steps to Your Own Home-Based Business”, has been self-employed for over 25 years, both on and off line. At his web site, Cap-Tech.com and in his newsletter, The Cap-Tech Times, he shares his experience and expertise when it comes to owning your own business. Come pay a visit at: http://www.cap-tech.com

One of the biggest challenges to a webmaster is how to generate traffic. More traffic to your website equates to more sales. So how does one generate extra traffic to their website? Search engine optimization, email campaigns, pay-per-clicks, banner advertising, are among some of the tactics that are popular. Another method of generating traffic is through expired domain names.

Step 1: Find a domain pending expiration

Every day thousands of domain names are released. Many of these expired domain names were active websites that have already been promoted by the previous owner. A few of the domains that are released daily are valuable because of their age and the number of links that they already have at various locations over the Internet. How does one find these domains? There are many means at which you can research these domains. There are newsletters to which you can subscribe and request to receive a daily email with up-coming expired domains. Go to google and enter “search for expiring domains”. There are hundreds of thousands of locations at which you can find domains pending deletion. One site we often use is Expired Domains. This site is focused on just one thing: helping people find the perfect domain name for their website. Another example of a newsletter for web marketers is NitroMarketing.com- a newsletter specifically aimed at helping web marketers. Once you find a domain that you want, at google enter links:domain.com (replace “domain.com” with the domain you are researching) - this will show you how many links this domain already has. This will tell you the value of the domain. You want to look for a domain with a respectable link popularity of around 500 to 1,000.

Everyday, hundreds of developed and thriving websites expire Yet, these sites still receive endless traffic from the search engines and links to them Identify these hot sites, make use of their expired traffic, and make $$$

Step 2: Bid on the domain: If you have decided that you want a domain that is pending deletion, you can bid on it at one of the many sites that have auctions or bidding forums. Bidding and winning these domains is not something that you can leisurely embark upon. It takes time and persistence. However, if you spend a little bit of time every day, you will get great domains at a low price. Some auction houses that we recommend are namewinner.com or enom.com. Most require no deposit to begin bidding, but they will ask that you confirm your identity via telephone or electronic means. This is in an effort to reduce fraud and keep the prices lower for legitimate bidders. After you have established an account, and you have found a domain that you want to try for, open a bid on that domain. Start low, but keep a watchful eye on the date and time that the bidding stops. Twenty minutes before the bidding is scheduled to be closed on that domain, re-visit their site and watch the top bid. Refresh your screen every minute to see the current highest bid. If the price gets too high for your budget, stop. But if you can afford the current high-bid, you might want to keep bidding in order to win that domain. If the bidding stops and you are the current high-bid, then you have won that domain.

Step 3: Receive the traffic: Now what? You have a great domain… you can park that domain so that it redirects visitors to your main website. With domain parking, visitors will automatically be re-directed to your main website. Some web hosting companies charge a small fee for domain parking. WebsiteSource.com offers free unlimited domain parking to its web hosting customers. If you maintain the domain’s registration every year, you could have targeted visitors to your website for less than $15 bucks a year. Cheap targeted traffic really does exist!

Results: Increase your company’s unique brand recognition with more exposure. Increase your traffic = increase sales.

About the author: S. Rosendahl is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. Her established writing skills coupled with experience in the website hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.

Every day thousands of expired domain names come back onto the market. This is due to the owner not extending their registration. The reason for non registration of domains can be for a simple a reason that the owner forgot of no longer has any interest of funds to continue with the registration of their domain.

Once failure to re-register their domain it becomes an expired domain. If you are new to expired domains then this article on expired domains will tell you all you need to know.

Now there are several reasons you may want to register an expired domain. Two good reasons to do so are that all of the current domains you have searched for are already taken. Or that the expired domain names already have a good link popularity in the search engines which means that for a time you will get lots of free traffic.

The first step to finding an expired domain is to search for it. There are several sites available that offer expired domain searches. You can find many by searching on Google. Here are a couple of expired domain search engines I have found useful, you can try Deleted Domains or DomainsBot.

Once you have found some domains that are about to expire or have just expired then you will need to back order them to give yourself a chance of getting your hands on the expired domains that you have found. Backordering a domain can be done through many of the domain registration sites, however if you want to increase your chances of getting the domain name here is what you do.

The registry for com and net names gives each registrar a limited amount of bandwidth to attempt to register an expired domain name. Each registrar has a certain amount of affiliates; some have 1 affiliate whilst others have several. To increase your chance of successfully registering the domain you want you need to backorder with a service that has a greater number of affiliates.

To find out who has the most affiliates you can look at this whois search. This is a list of affiliates for each registrar, by choosing registrars with the most affiliates this increases your chance of winning your back order. For example Pool currently has the most affiliates so registering with them will give you a better chance of succeeding than someone who went with Godaddy.

This technique by no means guarantees you will get the domain you are after, but it will improve your chances over someone else who has registered with fewer registers. However you will increase your chances of winning by having the greater amount of back orders with different registrars. This is something many people do not realise when they back order expired domains.

Allan is the webmaster at NameSearchDomain.com where you canfind out all about Domain names.

There are only two occasions in a domainers lifetime when he cries.

# One is when he lands a super sale with 3 to 5 figures.
~For example when he sells his domain then there are tears of joy in his eyes.

# And other is when the domains get stuck in the portfolio and that $7 to $8 registration fees is also not recovered.

~Another example here is When the huge portfolio which had been build up with lots of investments starts getting expired because there is no money to renew the domains and wait for yet another year.

# But nowadays I am seeing other type of crimes which makes a domainer cry.

~Domains Thefts.
~Domains Bought with generated traffic. (When the domain is in his possession there is no traffic).
~Artificially inflated prices. (In Domain After Market and Auctions).
~Looking at others (This one is a classic. People buy lots and lots of similar domains if they hear that particular keyword sold for XXX.)

Photoshop and even MS-Paint can do wonders with the screenshots of the traffic.

So the moral of the story is to watch out for scams and pitfalls and learn from Mistakes that had been already made by others. There is no need to learn from the mistakes made by us.

I am sure that many of the people are not aware of the nature and the process involved in the domain name renewal. Even those who have knowledge on computers might have no knowledge about this thing. So for those who haven’t heard anything about the domain name renewal and for those who wanted to renew their domain names on the internet, this article is right for you.

For everybody’s information, the domain name renewal is actually known as the process of buying additional time to an accessible domain name registration. In simple terms, the domain name renewal takes place when the current domain name registrant wishes to extend the term of time for a registered domain name. Accordingly, the domain name renewal can be done any time, however, it is often made within a few months of when a domain name’s term of time is about to reach its due time.

In line with the period for the domain name renewal, it is generally considered that domain names can have a maximum of ten years of registration term that is affixed to them at any given period. So as it is given, the domain name registrant can only keep the domain name indefinitely by the process of the domain name renewal before the due date and time again.

Knowing such fact, it is also interesting to know that there are companies who provide one hundred year domain name registrations. However, one should be aware that such companies are either scams or companies that will create your money now and then renew your domain name for you. They usually do the domain name renewal every ten years until one hundred years run out.

In taking into the domain name renewal, it is a common observation that a domain name registrant add whatever amount of time he or she select on the remaining time on his or her domain name registration. One of the examples that show this kind of situation involved in the domain name renewal is this one: if you have eleven months remaining on your domain name registration and then you decided to keep your domain name for a very long period of time, it is fact that you can perform a domain name renewal for nine years, but the maximum number of years is ten. As such, the additional nine years now brings the date of your domain name’s expiration to nine years and eleven months into the future.

In lieu, it is important to note that the longer your term of domain name registration, the lower the price per year costs. So for any of the domain names that you wish to keep, it is the best move for you to take register your domain name for several years at a time.

The 12 Month Millionaire Will Show You Everything you did and didn’t want to know about making One Million Dollars by this time next year… revealed LIVE! Active hyperlink must remain w/article.

Registering a domain name is seen by many newcomers to the web as a really complicated, highly technical task that the average mortal cannot do.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

You only need to bits of information on hand when you register your domain name:

- What you are going to call this domain

- and your web hosting DNS values, these are give to you by your hosting company and look something like:

NS1.WEBSITEWELCOM.COM and
NS2.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM

They are almost always provided to you in pairs.

So first go to a reputable domain name registrar.
I suggest using either www.Better-Domain-Names.com or www.Godaddy.com

These may not be the cheapest registrars currently on the web but their service, and reliability are incredible. I generally work on the principle “You get what you pay for”, and never a truer thing can be said about domain name registrars.

OK, lets walk through the process of registering a domain name:

Using your web browser, visit a domain registrar. Usually on the front page there is a search option to check if the domain name you want is available.

Lets say for example, that you are trying to register a domain name for your Dog Training website.

So you type in dogtraining.com press enter, and it comes back that that domain is already take.
Now, I would suggest that you place prefix and or suffix words to the domain name you are after.
So you could try:

betterdogtraining.com
bestdogtraining.com
dogtrainingnewsletter.com
dogtraininganswers.com

You could also try placing dashes “-” in your domain names to separate words.
Admittedly, there are a group of search engine optimization people who currently believe that the search engines are now starting to penalize sites with ‘dashes” in them.
Another thing, sites that do not contain dashes and do not have any numbers in them, generally seller for a higher price.
So if you think you might sell your domain sometime in the future, then it may be advisable to avoid using both dashes and numbers.

Lets say, that you find dogtraininganswers.com is available.
So you move to the next page. Generally this asks you for the details of the person that is going to be the owner of this domain. Generally this will be your name, address, phone number etc.

Next the system will ask you for how long you want to register your domain for, the minimum period is 1 year and the maximum I have seen is 10 years. Most people go for the 1 year period, only because it costs the least.
On the Better-Domain-names.com screen and the Godaddy.com page, you will see a link that says:
“If hosting your site elsewhere, please click here to set name servers”

Please set your name servers now (using the name server values given to you by your hosting company), otherwise if you have to come back and change the default name servers at a later date. the problem is that it generally takes a long time for the name servers to propagate around the net and you could wait several days for this to happen. But if you set them now, they should propagate within a few minutes, maybe half an hour at the most.

Once you have keyed in *both* name servers values, you then move onto the payment screen where you key in your credit card details.

Here you may see an option called “Auto Renew”. Check this box!
This allows you to renew the domain automatically when its term expires. Any good domain name registrar should send you an multiple emails before the domain is set to expire, and if you take no action on these emails, then the domain will get automatically renewed.
If you don’t set this “Auto renew” option, then system will let the domain lapse and it becomes available for some else to purchase.

Once you press the “submit” button, it will take just a few seconds for that new domain name to be yours.