TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction: 2

What on earth is a domain?1: 3

Top level domains (TLDs)1.1: 5

History and usage of domains1.2: 5

Where do domains come from and who controls them?2: 7

Wait, exactly who registers the domains I want?2.1: 7

ICANN and IP addresses2.2: 8

ICANN and the root name servers2.3: 11

what happens if a registry or registrar goes out of business?2.5: 12

what if I don’t want my private information be available to the public?2.6: 12

what happens if a registry or registrar goes out of business?2.5: 12

what if I don’t want my private information be available to the public?2.6: 12

Costs of a domain name3: 13

of my $9.99, how much does the registrar profit?3.1: 14

DNS Explained4: 17

How a web page is resolved4.1: 18

DNS components4.2: 19

A Record4.2.1: 20

AAAA Record4.2.2: 20

NS Record4.2.3: 20

CNAME Record4.2.4: 20

MX Records4.2.5: 21

TXT Records4.2.6: 21

URL Redirects4.2.7: 21

TTL4.2.8: 21

Buying and Managing Domains5: 22

Yay! My domain is available!5.1: 23

Buy it through your favourite registrar5.1.1: 23

Get it for free through a hosting company5.1.2: 23

No! Someone else already owns the domain I want!5.2: 24

Buy it at expiry5.2.1: 24

Buy it through public auction5.2.2: 27

Submit an offer to the owner5.2.3: 27

Managing a domain portfolio5.3: 27

I own a few domains5.3.1: 28

1

The internet would be a vastly different

place without domains.

In the 30 years after the first domain

name was registered, the internet has

undergone explosive growth never seen

before in history. A Verisign industry brief

in early 2014 showed 271 million active

domain names, with a year to year

growth of over 7%.

Truth is, the domain industry is poised for another explosion in growth as the general public

comes to accept and embrace new domain trends. It is your duty to your business to

understand how domains work, to be ready to jump on any future opportunities as they

arise. That’s where this guide comes in. This guide will teach you everything you’ve ever

wanted to know when it comes to domain names: what they are, how they work, and the

underlying framework of domains and name servers that hold up the entire internet as we

know it. This guide is intended for everyone, young or old, professional or amateur. It will try

to present technical details in an informative and entertaining fashion. You won’t find code

or jargon in this guide, only stories and tips as it relates to domains.

We hope you enjoy reading Domains- A Beginner’s Guide!

2

I own a few domains5.3.1: 28

I own a lot of domains5.3.2: 28

Glossary of Terms6: 29

Introduction

You might be asking right now: with that many registered domain names the industry

must be slowing down, right? Not even close! The domain industry is growing faster

than ever. The introduction of generic Top Level Domains, or gTLDs, in the first quarter

of 2014 flooded the stale domain market with hundreds of new domain extensions.

With the addition of these gTLDs, companies and users are no longer limited to the old

.COM, .NET, .ORG cycle. Instead, a marketing company can now opt to using a

.MARKETING domain name, and a plumbing company might use a .PLUMBING name.

2

What onearth is aDOMAIN?A domain name is a way of referring to something

on the internet with a potentially recognizable string

of words and letters. The internet is set up in a way so

that typing a domain into a browser, such as

www.webhostinggeeks.com, will send the user to the

WebHostingGeeks servers. This is called the Domain

Name System, or DNS.

Before we get further into the topic of domains, we

must first explain the components of a domain

name. A domain name is comprised of strings

separated by dots, and is comprised of two or three

parts depending on the website. The general syntax

for a domain name is

machine_name.subdomain.domain.tld, and it is

read from left to right but has a right to left hierarchy.

3

The Top Level Domain (TLD) is the rightmost part of the domain name. Thisincludes the commonly seen .COM or .ORG, all the country-code TLDs like.CA, and all the new generic TLDs like .guru.

1

The Mid-Level Domain is the subdomain.domain part of the domain name.This is the most recognizable part of the domain name, and also the partthat sets your domain apart from others. An example would been.m.wikipedia.org – ‘wikipedia’ is the parent mid-level domain, ‘en’ and‘m’ would both be subdomains indicating English version and mobileversion respectively.

2

The Machine Name is the very leftmost part of the domain name, and isused to indicate the purpose of the website. For example, ‘www’ would tellthe server to bring up the HTML of the website, while ‘ftp’ would tell theserver you want to transfer some files to it.

3

hen you buy a domain, you are buying the right to point the domain.tld

part of the structure towards your own website. Through code, the domain

owner can assign subdomains under the domain that they own. For the

remainder of this guide, we will use the word domain and domain name

interchangeably to refer to the domain.tld part of the URL and not the URL

itself.

As with any other organized information system, domains have a set of rules

that govern what can and cannot be a domain name. The rules do not

concern the everyday user, but typing a name into your browser that breaks

these rules will not get you anywhere.

• Domains do not allow spaces. In order to give the appearance of aspace, a dash or underline is usually used.

• It is not case sensitive, “WebHostingGeeks.com” and“webhostinggeeks.com” will lead you to the exact same location.

• You can have dashes, underscores, and numbers, but special charactersare generally not allowed (an exception would be the InternationalizedDomain Name)

• Domains can contain as many as 63 characters not including the toplevel domain extension.

It’s important to note that a domain name is neither a UniformResource Locator (URL) nor an Internet Protocol (IP) address. A URLcontains detailed information that tells the server exactly what you

want to see, likehttp://www.webhostinggeeks.com/

guides while the domain is only the highlighted part. How a domainname points to an IP address will be discussed in a later chapter.

4

W

Not an URL, not an IP address.

A top level domain is the extension to the name, or part of your domain after the dot.

Below is a breakdown of the common types of top level domains and what they represent

(in theory).

TLD Purpose Example

.com Commercial Webhostinggeeks.com

.net Network whois.net

.org Non-Profit/Intergovernmental Organization un.org

.gov (USA) government NASA.gov

.edu (USA) education Harvard.edu

Country code TLDs (ccTLDs) are also very commonplace on the web. These domain

extensions are used by residents or businesses in that country, or if they’re brandable

enough, as generic TLDs. Common examples would be the .co, .tv, or .me domains.

Originally representing Colombia, Tuvalu, and Montenegro respectively, these extensions

are now more commonly used as a replacement for .com, for the television industry, and

as a personal brand for businesses. (An example would be voat.co or nerdtee.me, catchy

and brandable)

Other country code domains are used to shorten the URL of a trademark, like Del.icio.us

The first domain name ever registered on March 15th 1985, symbolics.com, belonged to

now defunct Symbolics Inc. There was less than one dot-com registration per month until

the spring of 1986, and only a grand total of about 300 domains registered between 1985

and 1988.

Domain registrations were free before the year 1995, and anyone who wanted to register a

domain could do so without going through a registrar or paying any money. However, that

all changed when the NSF awarded the tech company Network Solutions the ability to

charge money for registration. In that regard, Network Solutions was the first ever domain

registrar.>

Up until 1998, the Domain Name System (DNS) had been fully controlled by the US

government. After much debate and upon the urging of President Clinton, the DNS was

partially privatized through the formation of ICANN, not-for-profit organization. ICANN still

acts as an organization independent of government oversight to promote competition and

develop policy regarding domain names. The domain industry picked up speed after the

privatization of DNS.

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Top level domains (TLDs)1.1

History and usage of domains1.2

OTHER LANDMARK EVENTS INVOLVED THEINTRODUCTION OF NEW TLDS AND THE RECORD

SALES OF DOMAINS.

Year/Date Event

1985 Introduction of .us, .uk, and .il TLDs

1986 UBC volunteers created the .ca registry

1996-1998Introduction and creation of the Internationalized DomainName system, where domains can be registered in alanguage’s native script

2000In 15 short years, 21 million domains have been registered inthe world

2001 Sale of hotels.com for $11M

2003Congress introduced the Truth in Domain Names Act,prohibiting the luring of visitors using domain names with norelation to the content of the web page

2010 Sex.com sells for a record $13M

2013 ICANN approves of the first gTLDs since the early 2000s

December 2013 Internet runs out of four letter .com domains

2014 500+ new gTLDs added

Today, in 2015, the domain industry has over 270 millionregistered names and is growing by 10-20 million names

each year.

GLOBAL HISTORICAL GROWTH IN DOMAINS REGISTRATION 2013

Figure 2: Global growth in domain registration since 2007

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The governing authority of the domain name system is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names

and Numbers, or ICANN. This organization was formed in 1998, and has been coordinating the

maintenance and management of the DNS ever since.

Unlike common misconceptions say, ICANN does not rule supreme over the entire internet. Most of

its work concerns the global DNS, including the creation of new TLDs, the operation of the root name

servers, and management of IP spaces and assignment of IP blocks to regional internet registries.

ICANN does not register domain names, nor does it control access to the internet itself. ICANN also

cannot help in policing the internet for spam or settle ownership disputes.

To understand where our domains come from, we must first understand the governance structure of

the domain name system.

Our story begins, yet again, with ICANN. As a generalization, all the domains come from ICANN. In

reality however, ICANN delegates the responsibility of maintaining a certain TLD to an organization

or company, called a registry operator. Like the name suggests, a registry operator maintains a

registry of active names under their TLD. Registries are not required to be not-for-profit like ICANN. The

.com and .net registry operator is VeriSign who also manages the A and J root name servers.

Registry operators like VeriSign do not register domain names either – that job falls under that of the

registrar. A registrar is a company accredited by either the registry or ICANN to sell and distribute

domain names for a fee. A registrar like GoDaddy is the company you buy .com domain names

from, then they’ll pay a fee to VeriSign to enter your new domain into its registry. For most

companies, this process is fully automated, and you own the domain the moment your payment

goes through.

Organization Authority Registers Domain Names?

ICANN Over all TLDs No

RegistryOperators Over their specific gTLD or ccTLD No

Registrars Being able to sell domain names Yes

For generic TLDs, a registrar must be accredited by both ICANN and the TLD specific registry. The

accreditation process is incredibly complex as you must prove competency, resource availability,

and cash flow as a company, and it will not be covered in this guide.

7

Where do domains come from and who controls them?2

Wait, exactly who registers the domains I want?2.1

An IP address is a unique, numerical identifier for every entity on the internet. Like domains,

IP addresses are finite and are governed by a set of rules. The technical details of IPv4 and

IPv6 are beyond the scope of this guide, but know that since IPv4 can only support a

maximum of 4,294,967,296 unique addresses, it is likely the internet will slowly migrate to

the much larger IPv6 structure

As its full name suggests, ICANN not only oversees the names of the internet but also the

numbers. Much like the way domain names are managed, ICANN also does not run the IP

address system. The organization merely manages the supply of IP addresses in order to

avoid repetition or clashes. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

also keeps a central database for IP addresses, and will supply to regional registries as

needed.

THERE ARE 5 REGIONAL REGISTRIES IN THE WORLD TODAY, AND EACH ISASSIGNED AN IP ADDRESS RANGE BY ICANN.

Regional Internet Registry Servicing Area

American Registry for Internet Numbers—ARIN North America Region

Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre—RIPENCC

Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia

The Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre—APNIC Asia/Pacific Region

Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry—

LACNIC Latin America and Caribbean

The African Network Information Centre—AfriNIC Africa Region

Look up any variation of the phrase “IP address” on

Google to see your public IP address. Because your

computer is not a server, entering this IP address

into the browser bar will do absolutely nothing.

ICANN and IP addresses2.2

A root name server (or nameserver) is a

server at the highest hierarchy of the

Domain Name System of the internet. This

hierarchy is called the root-zone, and there

are 13 servers (more accurately, server

addresses) that operate in that zone. The

inner workings of DNS will be discussed in

chapter 4, and this section will outline

ICANN’s role and involvement in the root

name servers.

Since the privatization of DNS in 1998, the

ultimate authority in the root-zone has

rested in the palms of the National

Telecommunications and Information

Administration (NTIA), an agency in the US

government. The NTIA delegates this

authority to ICANN, who manages it on a

day to day basis. The root-zone is

maintained by VeriSign on behalf of

ICANN

Thin registry or thick registry?For domain owner identifying information

(WHOIS information), there are traditionally

two ways that information is stored. A thin

registry is one where the identifying

information is stored by the registrar, and

registry WHOIS just holds a referral to the

registrar. A thick registry is one where the

registrar merely collects the WHOIS

information and gives it to the registry to

store

As of 2005, the only gTLDs that are still

using a thin registry is the .com and .net

registries, both managed by Verisign.

There has never been a case of a TLD

registry going out of business, and thus,

nobody really knows what would happen if

one does. Historically however, registrars

have indeed gone out of business due to

bankruptcy or termination. RegisterFly is a

prime example of this, a company which

had its ICANN accredited status

terminated in 2007.

A scary thing happened after RegisterFly’s

accreditation was removed. Domain

owners who used the WHOIS protection

provided by RegisterFly suddenly had no

way of proving their ownership. Thousands

of domain owners were left stranded after In case of another failure, ICANN now

into the browser bar will do absolutely nothing.

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ICANN and the root name servers2.3

What happens if a registry or registrar goes out of business?2.5

of domain owners were left stranded after

the registrar went out of business, some

even helplessly watched as their domains

expired and were snatched up by domain

hunters

“Gasp”, you say, “Can this happen to my

domains?”

Not likely. After the RegisterFly incident,

ICANN has adopted a series of steps to

take in case another registrar goes out of

business. For thin WHOIS TLDs, registrars

are now required to escrow the WHOIS

and registration data with another

company

In case of another failure, ICANN now

requires the going-out-of-business registrar

to find and transfer their domains to

another company. And if none of that

works, ICANN will step in as a temporary

registrar to facilitate the process.

porary registrar to facilitate the process.

The best thing to do to protect your

domains is to save a record of everything.

Make sure to save any transaction records

and emails between you and the registrar.

It’s also advisable to save or screenshot a

copy of the current WHOIS data as it shows

that you are indeed the owner of the

domain in question.

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ICANN requires that the true and up to mailing address,

phone number and e-mail address of domain owners and

administrators be made available through WHOIS. However,

this does not mean that to own a domain, your information

must be in the public record.

You have the option of registering your domain through a

WHOIS privacy service. They’re usually advertised by

registrars as an upsell, under the name of “private

registration” or “WHOIS masking”. In private registration, the

service provider will put their own contact information in the

Owner, Administrator, and Technical contact sections of the

WHOIS record. You as the owner will be provided a masking

email where incoming inquiries will be redirected to your own

personal email.

what if I don’t want my private information be available to thepublic?2.6

There are many companies that provide these services (like DomainsByProxy and

WHOISGUARD), usually for a small fee of less than $5 per year. If you feel that your contact

information is sensitive, then opting for private registration may be a good choice.

Who actually owns my private domain?ICANN’s rules make it very clear, whoever is listed under the Registrant entry in WHOIS is thelegal owner of the domain name. Technically, you’re deferring your ownership to the WHOISprivacy company, who will safeguard it and keep your information private for a fee.Even though the private registration company is the technical owner, in reality, they have nocontrol over your domain. You will still retain full control of your domain through the registrar.

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The price of purchasing a domain varies between registrars and TLDs. For example,

GoDaddy has .com domains for $9.99 and NameCheap has the same .com for

$10.29 as promotional prices for the first year of registration. Prices for renewal do

increase with most registrars.

.com .COMas low as $10.29/yearThe gold standard! This is the web’s oldest and most popular domain extension.

Register .COM Now

.net .NETas low as $12.08/yearSafeguard your brand with one of the most popular domains on the internet.

Register .COM Now

It’s important to note that the quoted cost for each domain is per year of registration.

Domain names are not owned in the traditional sense like land or property – yearly

renewals must be purchased in order to retain your ownership. Of course, you can

purchase multiple years of registration at once often for less cost compared to yearly

registration.

What’s partof adomainregistration?

Costs of a domain name3

registration?What’s included in domain

registration depends entirely on

the registrar. All domain

registrations will ensure you own

the domain, but different

companies may offer different

features as incentives. For

example, NameCheap includes

private WHOIS protection for free

for the first year as an incentive to

purchase. Registrars are not

required to provide DNS services,

so make sure to find out before

buying a domain from a

company.

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As the registry for .com domains, Verisign charges $7.85 USD per .com domain per

year as of 2015. This is a cost that all .com registrars must pay regardless of how

much they charge their own customers for

Domain prices increase too!Verisign will periodically raise the registry fee for its TLDs to match inflation and rising management costs. The last increasehappened on January 15th 2012 and resulted in a change from $7.34 to the current $7.85 per year. Dot-net domain namesalso increased from $4.65 to $5.11.

domain registration. This means GoDaddy makes a measly $2.14 every time someone registers a .com domain on theirwebsite. The actual average revenue for .com registrations is likely lower because the company has bulk domain buyingdiscounts and other seasonal discounts.

of my $9.99, how much does the registrar profit?3.1

This number of $2.14 becomes much more attractive as registrations increase. Theaccreditation fee and requirement structure for ICANN is below:

$3500 application fee $4000 fixed annual fee

Variable quarterly fee of $800-$1,200$0.18 per domain name sold orrenewed per year

Must show proof of at least $70,000 in working capital

Must show a minimum of $500,000 of liability insurance

Must have sufficient technical systems to operate theregistrar

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What we have calculated means that GoDaddy must renew or register close to 85000 domainsfor each calendar year just to break even on the fixed recurring costs. This does not includeproduct development or paying staff.Past the point of break even, the domain registrar business quickly becomes very scalable andprofitable. Let’s look at how much profit our hypothetical $9.99 company can make, if all theircosts are outlined in the previous part.

Number of .com domains per year Profit per year based on the formula

10,000 -$145,400

100,000 $31,000

500,000 $815,000

1,000,000 $1,795,000

50,000,000 $97,835,000 (That’s 97 million dollars)

These fees add up to around $8000 per year for the registrar, plus $0.18 per domain sold.Keep in mind that these are just ICANN fees, and does not include marketing and

operations costs of the business from a day to day business.

Other recurring costs for a small to medium sized registrar can include:

Incorporation and business registration fees (~$500/year)Payment processing and data escrow fees (~$1500/year)SSL certificate fees (~$300/year)Website development, hosting, technical support (~$2000/year)Fees for DNS and Nameservers ($3000+/year)Cost of registrar infrastructure, including servers and support personnel(around $150K/year)

At this point we’re looking at $165,000 of fees alone per year. With $2.14-$0.18=$1.96, we cancalculate the break-even number of .com domains for GoDaddy’s $9.99/year deal.

How can companies afford tocharge $1.99 per domain then?Some registrars will have deeply discounted domain names. Charging that low for a .comdomain means that the company is willing to take a loss for each sale. This is done in order to getanother customer, upsell their hosting/other services, build a portfolio, hope that buyers renewtheir domains eventually, or any combination of those. The registrar may also have calculatedthat the cost per acquisition is less than the lifetime revenue of a customer, which makes themassive discounts economical to the business.Hosting companies often provide a domain registration for free to attract new customers.

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By now you might be wondering, what is DNS? After all, the term Domain Name System(DNS) has been thrown around plenty of times in this guide. We left the technicalexplanation of DNS to the latter part of the guide for the purpose of continuity. The way theinternet is organized is complicated, which would’ve disrupted the natural flow of theprevious chapters.The DNS is a system of organizing information associated with domain names. In thesimplest terms, it is a hierarchy for resolving a domain name. That is, the DNS is a series ofsteps that your computer takes in order to translate webhostinggeeks.com into162.247.79.100. The DNS can be thought of as the phone book of the internet, and serves asan essential component for the internet to function.

DNS Explained4

As mentioned before, at the top of the hierarchy exists 13 server addresses that serve as the root-zone of the DomainName System. Every request for a website, anywhere in the world, will go through one of the thirteen to begin itsjourney. The role of the root zone is to host a list of authoritative nameservers for each TLD. Each server contains asmall root file that catalogues every single authoritative nameserver for each TLD.

14

It’s a commonmisconception that theroot-zone only has 13servers. It actuallycontains 13 serveraddresses, letter codedfrom A to M. Usingtechnology, eachaddress is hosted bymany different serverseach with redundantsystems to prevent failure.As of 2014, there are 504root server instancesaround the world.

After the DNS resolverreaches an authoritativenameserver for the TLD inquestion, it will request anameserver that isauthoritative for the mid-level domain. It will dothat iteratively orrecursively until aconcrete answer is given.Let’s look at this in a waythat’s easy to understand:

15

Imagine you’re sitting at home browsing the internet. You beginto do your daily check of webhostinggeeks.com for updates.

How a web page is resolved4.1

16

When I change my name servers, why does it take up to 24 hours to showup on the internet?

A significant amount of DNS caching occurs on the internet, both within your computer and within the recursive DNSservers of ISPs. Caches only refresh a few times a day, so your DNS change takes time to propagate across all of

these servers. This time delay is called DNS propagation.

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Registrars allow you to edit your own domain’s DNS records. Through doing that, you canpoint your domain your hosting servers in a variety of different ways. In this guide, we’ll belooking at the following types of records:

A-records AAAA-records

NS CNAME

MX TXT

URL Redirect TTL

When you change name servers, you’re telling DNS to look at a different place for thedomain records. When you’re changing host records, you’re changing the domain DNSrecords themselves.

The A record is an address record. It assigns an IP address to a domain or subdomain, andwhen a client computer is looking for your website, they will see that the website is at192.168.0.1. It is good practice to make sure no two A records point to the same IP address.

To enter an A record is simple: go into your registrar’s user panel, click on modify hostrecords or DNS records, and enter the desired IP address. The registrar’s website would then

DNS components4.2

Difference between changing name servers and changing host records?

A Record4.2.1

records or DNS records, and enter the desired IP address. The registrar’s website would thenask for a record type – choose A (Address).

The AAAA record is the 128-bit IPv6 version of the address A record in 32-bit IPv4. AAAA is amnemonic to indicate that an IPv6 address is four times the size of the IPv4 address. TheAAAA record is created to facilitate the transition from an IPv4 internet to the new IPv6internet.

2^128 possible addresses, or... 340 undecillion 282 decillion 366 nonillion 920 octillion 938septillion 463 sextillion 463 quintillion 374 quadrillion 607 trillion 431 billion 768 million 211thousand 456.

It’s likely we will never run out of IPv6 addresses.

The NS stands for Name Server. A NS record tells any visitors that the authoritativenameserver for example.com can be found at ns1.example.net. The NS record is especiallyuseful for subdomains that need to be hosted on a different server from the main domain.

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The CNAME record, or canonical name record, defines one domain as an alias of another.The aliased domain gets all the subdomains and DNS records of the original domain it’spointing to. For example, I can point webhostinggeeks.net towards webhostinggeeks.comwith a CNAME record. This would make browsing webhostinggeeks.net the exact same asbrowsing webhostinggeeks.com. (However, if the redirect is your only objective, then a URLredirect might be a better choice)

The MX, or mail exchange record, is a DNS record that points to where your email servers forthe domain are. The MX record maps a list of mail exchange servers used by the domain,and each MX record points to an email server that’s configured to process mail.You need not to concern yourself with the MX record unless you’re planning to have@yourdomain.com emails.

A TXT record allows the webmaster to enter a custom DNS record in the space. There aremany other less commonly used DNS records like SOA, SPF, PTR, NAPTR, etc.

Strictly speaking, a URL redirect is not a DNS record. However, many DNS providers andregistrars provide that option for easy to configure 301 Permanent Redirects from one

AAAA Record4.2.2

4 Billion IPv4 addresses is big enough, how many IPv6 addresses are there?

NS Record4.2.3

CNAME Record4.2.4

MX Records4.2.5

MX Records4.2.6

URL Redirects4.2.7

registrars provide that option for easy to configure 301 Permanent Redirects from onedomain to another. 301 redirects are well known to transfer the domain authority of the oldone to the new one for SEO purposes.

Like the URL redirect, TTL is not a DNS record either. TTL stands for time-to-live, and it limits theamount of time DNS information can be cached before it forces a refresh. TTL records aregiven in seconds, and it is common practice to set it to 24 or 48 hours. A lower TTL cancause extreme loads on an authoritative server, as slave servers and recursors are forced tofetch the same records over and over again.Webmasters would sometimes lower the TTL before making a DNS record change. This isdone to speed up the propagation process.

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There are many ways to obtain ownership of the domain you want. In this section, we’ll useyourdomain.com as an example for a domain you desire, and go through the processgetting your hands on that domain one step at a time.Before you can buy a domain name, it is recommended to check the availability ofyourdomain.com with a reputable and trustworthy registrar like Namecheap.

Domain front-running is the act of a registrar reserving or buying a domain name after a usersearches for it without buying. Along with domain squatting, some registrars have been

TTL4.2.8

Buying and Managing Domains5

Beware of domain front-running!

searches for it without buying. Along with domain squatting, some registrars have beenaccused of doing front-running.

Make sure you’re not a victim by searching ‘[Registrar Name] domain front running’ or‘[Registrar Name] steals domains’ on Google to find user opinions and complaints about thecompany.

For added security, only use WHOIS search to determine the availability of a domain unlessyou intend to buy it. ICANN’s WHOIS search (http://whois.icann.org/) is the most secure forthat purpose. An available domain will display “The requested second-level domain was notfound in the Registry or Registrar’s WHOIS Server.” When searched.

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Most domains are bought through a registrar. Simply enter your personal information, pay

Yay! My domain is available!5.1

Buy it through your favourite registrar5.1.1

Most domains are bought through a registrar. Simply enter your personal information, paythe registration fee, and the domain Is yours. Make sure to put true, accurate, and up todate information for the WHOIS of the domain, and retain a copy on your hard drive for proofof ownership.

Are you buying many domains at a time? Large companies like GoDaddy usually have bulkpurchase discounts for 10+ domain names. You can get and renew a .com domain for aslow as $8.29/year if you buy more than 100 domain names.

You may also choose to buy the domain at a registrar that’s currently on-sale. Domain pricesmay go as low as 99 cents for some registrars.

A web hosting company can sometimes afford to give away domain names for free if yousign up for their hosting. Coupled with the discounts given to new customers, you can oftenget a domain and a year of shared hosting without breaking the $40 mark. Pretty good dealif you ask us!The pricings list for a hosting company will show the features, and a free domain issomething to brag about for a hosting company.

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This method is only useful if you are looking to buy a single domain, however. More expensivehosting packages will include unlimited add-on domains and websites, so it becomesuneconomical to buy hosting packages for the sake of free domains.

Get it for cheaper!

Buy it through your favourite registrar5.1.2

uneconomical to buy hosting packages for the sake of free domains.

Even if your domain is currently owned by someone else, there is still a chance you can buyit using the following methods.

Domain name registrations will all expire sometime in the future. You can see the expirydate and registrar used by searching the domain’s WHOIS data.

Important WHOIS DatesUpdated Date: 2013-03-11

Created Date: 1997-0520

Registration Expiration Date: 2016-0521

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If the domain name you’re interested in doesn’t point to a website, nor is it being auctionedoff, then there is a high chance that the current owner will not renew the domain when timecomes. This is certainly good news for you, but it does not mean you can buy the domainthe day it expires.There is a set of mechanisms that an expired domain will go through, for the owner andregistrar’s benefit. Before a domain name is released to the wild (pre-release), mostdomains go through these 6 steps:

Step 1: Domain registration expiryIf the owner does not renew the domain before the expiration date, domain will enter into astatus of RENEWAL GRACE PERIOD. The domain will remain in this status for about a week.This means that the registrar is holding the domain for the owner, and he/she may renewthe domain name without competition or any additional fees.Domains in this stage will still be considered expired, and the expired status will beavailable to the public

Step 1: Domain registration expiryIf the owner does not renew the domain before the expiration date, domain will enter into astatus of RENEWAL GRACE PERIOD. The domain will remain in this status for about a week.This means that the registrar is holding the domain for the owner, and he/she may renewthe domain name without competition or any additional fees.Domains in this stage will still be considered expired, and the expired status will beavailable to the public

Step 2: End of grace periodAt the end of the RENEWAL GRACE PERIOD, the expired domain is then placed under theREGISTRAR HOLD status. This status means the registrar technically holds ownership of thedomain, and may offer the original owner his/her domain back for an additional fee. Theregistrar may also hold auctions to sell the domain to the highest bidder at this stage.While GoDaddy only auctions their own expired domain names, other registrars haveagreements with domain auction services like SnapNames and NameJet. Under this status,anyone may bid on the domain, and as long as the original owner does not renew thedomain name, the auction winner will receive the domain name at the end of theREGISTRAR HOLD period.

No! Someone else already owns the domain I want!5.2

Buy it at expiry5.2.1

Step 3: Nobody made a bid – closeout/fire saleAt the end of the expired domain auction, if nobody bids on the domain and the originalowner did not renew it, then some registrars will attempt to sell it at a discounted buy-it-nowprice. Not all registrars do this, and some will release it to the registry right after an auctionends without a bid.When you buy a domain name at a firesale you still have to wait for the REGISTRAR HOLDperiod to end. Technically, the original owner can still regain their possession of thedomain.

Step 4: Domain name returns to the registryAt the end of the REGISTRAR HOLD period, the domain is released to the registry. Theregistry will put the domain on a status of REDEMPTIONPERIOD for a maximum of 30 days.During this time the domain cannot be modified – it is also removed from the DNSdatabase rendering the website inaccessible.Only the original owner may claim the domain during the REDEMPTIONPERIOD, usually for afee.

Step 5: Pending DeletionAfter the expiration of the registry’s redemption period, the domain name will bePENDINGDELETE for 5 days, as a buffer zone before it is released. During this time nothingcan happen to the domain in question, and the website that it is supposed to point to willbe inaccessible. The owner cannot re-claim the name at the PENDINGDELETE period.

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Step 6: DeletionThe moment a domain name comes off of the PENDINGDELETE status, it is dropped from allregistry records and is available to the public. (Aka released into the wild). A registry willusually release their deleted domains in batches once per day.While it is possible to wait until deletion to snatch up an expired domain, it is highly unlikelythat the domain is still available at that time. It is best to participate in expired domainauctions or closeout sale to get the domain of your dreams.If your domain is not yet expired, you can put a backorder on the domain in anticipation ofthe expiry. GoDaddy has a system where you bid on a domain by backordering. It does notguarantee that you’ll get the domain and nor does it guarantee that it’ll expire in the firstplace, but it doesn’t hurt to try: you’ll get a full refund if you don’t buy through thebackorder.

www.expireddomains.net is a good place to find expired, auction, closeout, ordeleted domains and to organize them by pagerank or number of backlinks.

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If your desired domain has no intention of expiring, you can still buy it if the owner is sellingit on public domain auction websites. Check the domain name on all of these populardomain auction websites to see if it is for sale.

http://auctions.godaddy.com/

http://www.namejet.com/

https://flippa.com/buy-domains

https://sedo.com/us/

https://www.snapnames.com/domainauction.jsp

A particular domain name’s value can only be determined by you, but beware that an auctioncan go into the hundred thousand range for a valuable domain.

This is the only option of obtaining a domain name if it’s not expiring or for sale. Dependingon the offering price, the domain owner/webmaster may be open to negotiating for theirdomain. Find the owner’s contact information by querying the WHOIS information of thedomain – the owner is usually listed under the registrant.

Once you become the proud owner of the domain you want, you must manage it a fewtimes a year. This is usually composed of simple tasks like updating the WHOIS informationso that it stays current, changing DNS records as needed, and making sure to renew thedomain so it does not expire.

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Buy it through public auction5.2.2

To learn how to value a domain name, see our guide here

Submit an offer to the owner5.2.3

Managing a domain portfolio5.3

If you own one or two domain names it is likely you got them for free from your hostingprovider. As mentioned before, hosting providers usually give a year of free domainregistration for new customers.For managing one or two domains, and you like their hosting services, you should leavethem with your hosting company. This option is good for a few domains because you canmanage hosting and domain information with the same login. This way you don’t have togo through the messy process of transferring a domain to another registrar.The downside to leaving your domains with your webhost is that they make it difficult totransfer the domain away from them. This is done in an effort to keep you as a customer. Ifyou’re not planning to continue with the current hosting company, then it’s best to transferyour domain to another registrar when you can. Hosting companies’ do often charge morefor domain renewal compared to registrars like GoDaddy – usually around $15 per year torenew.Let’s take a look at the domain prices of some popular registrars and hosting providers onWebHostingGeeks at https://webhostinggeeks.com/besthosting.html in 2015.

Registrar First year.com registrationcost .com domain renewal cost

GoDaddy $9.99 $14.99

Namecheap $10.29 $10.69

Name.com $10.99 $10.99

.gov (USA) government NASA.gov

.edu (USA) education Harvard.edu

Hosting Provider First year.com registrationcost .com domain renewal cost

InMotion Hosting Free $14.99

WebHostingHub Free Free as long as you use theirhosting services

Arvixe Free Free as long as you use theirhosting services

GreenGeeks Free Free as long as you use theirhosting services

FatCow $16.99 Harvard.edu

*Price with hosting package only

After months of domain hunting, you now own 100 valuable domain names. How on earthcan you manage that many domains at the same time?Your domain registrar will usually provide a good suite of tools to manage a large portfolioof domain names. The registrar is required by ICANN to email domain owners at least twicebefore their domain expires, and registrars have automatic renewal programs where youcheck a box and the registrar automatically renews your domain. Domain registrars usuallyalso have options to bulk edit DNS records and nameservers, and to bulk modify WHOISinformation.usually also have options to bulk edit DNS records and nameservers, and to bulk modifyWHOIS information.Want more data and options? Domain management software is perfect for the dedicateddomain owner. Domain management software like Watch My Domains or DomainMOD hasa wealth of features including scheduled tasks, analytics, bulk modification etc.

I own a few domains5.3.1

I own a lot of domains5.3.2

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Term .com domain renewal cost

Domain/ Domain Name identifying name that points to a website in the form ofdomain.tld

DNS Domain Name System

TLD Top Level Domain

gTLD Generic Top Level Domain

ccTLD Country Code Top Level Domain

ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

IDN Internationalized Domain Name

URL Uniform Resource Locator

HTML Hypertext Markup Language

WWW World Wide Web

FTP file transfer protocol

Registry (operator) ICANN accredited operator of a specific TLD

Registry (file/database) Information about all domains under a specific TLD

Registrar Companies accredited by registries and ICANN to be ableto sell domains

Name server/nameserver Server that contains DNS information

Expiry Domain that was not renewed by the expiry date

Deletion Domain released into the wild

Domain Squatting The act of holding valuable domain names until someonebuys it

WHOIS (Who Is) Public information about the ownership andstatus of a domain name

(WHOIS) EscrowEntrusting a copy of WHOIS information with a third party –as required by ICANN for registrars and to ensure datasecurity

SSL Secure Socket Layer – an encryption protocol

IP Internet Protocol Address

IPv4 IP version 4: 32-bit IP

IPv6 IP version 6: 128-bit IP

A Address Record

AAAA IPv6 Address Record

Want to make money by flipping domains? See our guide

here

Glossary of Terms6

AAAA IPv6 Address Record

NS Name Server Record

MX Mail Exchange Record

CNAME Canonical Name/ Alias Record

301 Redirect Permanent redirect

TTL Time-To-Live

Web Hosting Providing storage space and access for websites

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