Do you own the domain name for your name? For example, I own mikemaddaloni.com and own a few names with just my last name, Maddaloni, as the dot-com name is owned by someone else.

Owning the domain name may seem vain, but it is an important component of your personal brand. What you say – personal brand? Yes, just as a company brands itself and its products and services, individuals should do the same. If you think about it, if you are a jobseeker or have your own business, you are doing this to a certain extent. By developing a personal brand you are making a constant and consistent effort to market and promote yourself.

Recently I have seen several references to personal branding, including this article on a brand trainer in Forbes as well as Chicago networking guru Jason Jacobsohn who has been writing and speaking about it. A service from a Chicago company called Naymz allows you to develop an online profile and a link to it will appear as a Google text ad – try Googling me and you will see it.

So what do you with your personal domain name? You can create a personal Web site and use it for your email. If you are not ready for a Web site yet, you could forward Web traffic to another Web page, such as your blog or LinkedIn profile.

Business • Domain Names • (7) Comments • Permalink

Earlier I had posted about knowing who manages your domain names. I would like to build on this by adding being aware of solicitations that appear to be invoices for domain name renewals or services.

Recently the mail has increased with what appears to be an invoice for the renewal of a domain name or for Web site services such as search engine submissions. These usually come by US Mail, but are now starting to come by email. Where they look like an invoice, they are in actuality a solicitation, and further inspection will show small print to that effect. The hopes of these scam artists is to trick you into moving your domain name to them or to pay for services you may not want.

In that original post I said there is a big business around domain names. You can register domain names with any number of sources. My business Dunkirk Systems is a reseller of domain names, and all domain names are registered through ICANN-accredited domain name registrars. Asking a person or entity for their business is not deceptive or unethical itself, but it can be in the way it is executed.

If you receive such an invoice letter or email, verify who it is from. Contact whomever you have your domain names registered through to verify if the invoice is legitimate or not. If you do get a letter or have any questions, please post a comment here – I am more than willing to help!

Business • Domain Names • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink

Years ago when I was working at a dot-com, I got together with our Marketing and Operations heads to determine what domain names we should be registering to protect the brand of our company. In our meeting we came up with just about every derogatory word to describe our company’s name and product, including words to prefix and suffix them. It was as much fun as it was serious. Unfortunately, by the time we went to register the names, the company folded.

Johnson and Johnson, the global giant that makes everything from Band-Aids to pharmaceuticals, went through this process for their alternative sweetener, Splenda. DomainTools.com reported on the list of Splenda domain names. What is interesting about the list is that it goes well beyond adding “sucks” to the end of the product name and hints at some of the product's dangers, including diabetes.

J&J is smart to do this. It is common practice to register such names in the branding process. The cost of a domain name is small as compared to the damage to a new brand when someone registers a domain name that is against it. Some of these names may be disturbing to the common consumer, including myself. If they wanted these domain names, maybe they should have registered them in the name of an individual who worked for the company, and not in the J&J name, so not to draw such attention.

Domain Names • (3) Comments • Permalink

Recently I wrote about the canceling of the use of domain names by Internet providers, sending their users into a tailspin to change their email address and notify all of their contacts of the change. Now it seems like Google may be the next to do so.

The search giant lost the trademark rights to the GMail name in the UK, and the company that won the case is now taking the case to the US. This article on the GMail trademark case outlines much of the detail that led to Google losing the case.

Yet another reason to own your own domain name!

Domain Names • (7) Comments • Permalink

If you own a domain name, you should know who manages it. This includes who you should be paying when it is time to renew it. Where some may think this is obvious, there are businesses out there who want you to be confused and they will use various online and offline tactics to do so.

If you register a domain name with company X, you can continue to renew your domain name through company X or transfer it to any other company. In some cases, you may have your domain name registered through a reseller, who then has it registered with an accredited domain name company. Dunkirk Systems is a reseller of domain names, and works with accredited domain name companies to handle hundreds of domain names for its clients, but I digress.

As domain name registration is a business, and there is money in registrations, companies will tempt you to transfer your domain name to them, and they will offer add-on services or low pricing to do so. That is called legitimate business. You may have received spam emails from "companies" who want to manage your domain name that you have never heard of, and probably have typos in the emails. That is not legitimate business.

However spam is not the only way companies may try to get your domain name business. One such company is called Domain Registry of America, and they use both the emails and letters that look like bills to try to get you to pay them – usually higher fees than you are paying now – to get you to transfer your domain name. Yes, it looks like a bill, and if you look at the small print, it says that you are transferring your domain name to them. The large print, however, does not say this. I get these letters every so often, and they go right in the shredder.

Once again, consumer beware! Know and trust who you are working with, and you will be fine.

Domain Names • (0) Comments • Permalink