Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with domains

Can anyone recommend a South African registrar that provides DNS management for .co.za domains?

Hartster — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:28:39 -0800

Can anyone recommend a South African registrar that provides DNS management for .co.za domains? We're* taking over a South African domain and we need it to be transferred over to us. It looks like you can't transfer .co.za domains to 'international' dns providers like DynDNS or GoDaddy (i.e. those two have explicitly said it's impossible so I'm assuming this is true for others).

All we want to do is transfer the domain to us, take control of the DNS and point it to our existing server (so we don't need hosting etc).

Reliable is essential, easy to use is good, and free/cheap is a bonus.

*Where "we" are a non-SA company

How should I point my two nearly-identical domains?

jaffacakerhubarb — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:23:39 -0800

Do I keep two domains separate but identical, or do I pick one and point the other to it? I'm using Wordpress to host a site I've just started — no content quite yet, but that comes next. I have two identical domains, like so*:

acmewidgets.net
acmewidgets.org

At the moment, you can go to both of these domains individually and they point to exactly the same content. Is this a Good Thing, or should I pick one of these domains - say, the .org - and have the .net redirect to it? Or should I leave it as it is at the moment? For consistency, it would probably be better to pick one, but I'm wondering if there's any benefit to retaining the existing setup.

Apologies if this question seems ridiculously simple to answer. The domains, in case you figured it out, aren't actually acmewidgets.whatever — I'd link to them, but they're far from ready for primetime. Getting them ready is almost certain to be my next AskMe question!

How to acquire domain name similar to our company's domain

sfdrew77 — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:47:42 -0800

Want to acquire a domain name that is the plural of our company's name. The company I work for has a domain that is companyname.com. Unfortunately, a lot of people think the name is plural and try to go to companynameS.com and someone else owns it.

There is nothing at the domain, but it has been registered since 1999 and seems to get renewed every year.

Obviously, the owner of the domain we want isn't using it. Do we have any rights to it? If not, what is the best way to buy the domain without way overpaying (we're a very small business).

What is the best process for back-ordering a .CA domain?

chudmonkey — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:31:55 -0800

What is the best process for back-ordering a .CA domain? There is a .CA domain name expiring this May which I would like to secure for myself. I can say with certainty that the existing registrant will not be renewing the domain, and also don't expect anyone else to be after it either.

I know that various companies offer a back-ordering service for .CA domains, but I am seeking specific recommendations with an eye towards finding the best price. (I have other domains registered with GoDaddy, but they do not seem to offer .CA backordering.)

Were I to forgo using a back-ordering service, would I simply be able to register the domain for myself on the day it expires, or will there be some waiting/holding period before the domain becomes available to the public again?

Thanks in advance for any perspective or experience you can share!

What's the best way to buy international, especially European, TLDs?

Hartster — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:36:22 -0800

What's the best way to buy international, especially European, TLDs? [Seeing if anything's changed since this question]

I'm looking to buy TLDs for several European countries - Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Italy etc. Gandi.net has some, but not all. Is there anyone (or anyway) else I should be looking at? http://www.europeregistry.com/ looks ideal but they seem a) expensive and b) a quick Google doesn't inspire me with confidence. The name would definitely have to registered/owned by us, rather than owned by another company who lets us use the name, which is how some registrars seem to want to work.

Emails, Domains and the Drop

ashaw — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:15:53 -0800

Domains, Email Addresses, and The Drop: Following an earlier question on MeFi, I'd quite like a unique professional email address, but my name is common and almost all ".com" variants have been snapped. Lend me your kind ears and your valuable hive experiences and advice. The situation is this, firstnamelastname.com is taken up and registered till August 2010 on EasySpace, firstinitiallastname.com is registered till July 2015 on GoDaddy.

Short of that for the meanwhile, I'll settle for the ".tv" domains, specifically, option A: firstnamelastname.tv or Option B: firstinitiallastname.tv domains.

Now here comes the first question, how realistic would getting firstinitiallastname.com be? I've been reading this article, but still can't gauge...would firstnamelastname.com be any better?

Eventually, i'd like to move to ".com" domains as well, and so in light of ".com" 'get-ability', here's the second question: What would you think is the better choice to settle down on, A or B (see above of options)?

How best to make money off of unused domains?

specialk420 — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:10:35 -0800

Best way to make money off of unused domains? Sell or sign up for PPC? I have a number of unused domains a couple of which I would guess have reasonable value - recommendations on the best services to sign up with for Pay Per Click revenue? and/or domain auction? Sedo.com obviously is the leader.

What happened to the Internet in 11/07?

about_time — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:15:40 -0800

A question about Internet domains and DNS: What happened to the number of registered domains between 10/07 and 11/07? For the first time they dropped, and significantly: 2 million domains were unregistered. Zooknic shows this result.

Date Total domains
11/15/2007 94,854,717
10/15/2007 96,946,506
9/15/2007 95,233,625

This is the only month in history that there is negative growth since 1998. Was there a policy change? Something cleaned up? If you know of something, a specific reference to what you recall would be great to have. Thanks.

Changing from Wordpress.com to own domain; is it a good idea, and how to?

omnigut — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:55:43 -0800

Dear Hive Mind, I'm thinking of switching my college's wordpress.com literary blog to its own domain using wordpress.org. But I don't know if this is the right thing to do. I know we'd get our own domain name, we'd be able to put in podcasts and to embed Google Maps, and design the thing ourselves. But I heard the following here: "Wordpress.com has vastly, VASTLY more drawing power than an independent blog using WP software, because of the global tag pages."

So...

1) For a blog that's hoping to get its own fans, but which is in the arts and currently helped by author searches, is that "drawing power" essential to us?
2) We're going to do the domain name upgrade in Wordpress.com before switching. However, will we be able to get wordpress.com to forward people to the relevant pages on the new domain if they're typing in our old URLs?
3) Where do I go to find someone to design us a blog using wordpress.org (I'm not skilled enough to do it myself, and the stupid college won't cough up the time or money) and how much should it cost?
4) Perhaps, for a beginner, wordpress.org isn't right for me. Is there a free blog-hosting service, like wordpress.com, but which doesn't demand that the design is one of their themes, and which allows for I-frames and podcasting?

How do I change the owner of a domain name?

inkedmn — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:54:25 -0800

A friend is buying a website that I've built, as well as the domain name. He's taken possession of the actual site (i.e., the software that runs it), so now I need to make him the owner of the domain. How do I do it? I've been googling like crazy for "sell a domain" and "transfer a domain", but neither of these seem like they describe what I'm trying to do. The worst part is that searching for terms like these inevitably yields me a bunch of spammy results.

If anybody could give me some concise instructions on what to do here, I'd be most grateful :)

Thanks!

Any way to transfer domains to another registrar if the site of the current registrar is down?

agenais — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:10:55 -0800

The website of my domain registrar (domains410.com) and its parent company (parava.net) has been down for the past 36+ hours. Is there any way to transfer my domains at another registrar at this time? I have several domains registered through domains410.com for the past few years- and I've never had another problems accessing their site. However, when I visited domains410 a couple of days ago, the site would not load. Same goes for the site of its parent company, Parava.

The sites that the registered domains point to are still accessible through the domains, but a WHOIS lookup at those addresses show no owner record- my name and contact info are not available.

Since Parava Networks is based in Houston, I first suspected Hurricane Ike as the cause for the site downtime, but I actually have no idea why their site is down (and why WHOIS records do not show up for the domains). I'm in the midst of switching hosting providers right now and need access to change the DNS for all my domains. I'd like to transfer the domains to another (more reliable) registrar, but cannot get an authorization code from domains410.com since I cannot get to the control panel on their site.

Is there any way for me to transfer my domains without an authorization code? Are there any other methods for verifying myself as the owner of the domains? I'm quite worried about losing control over the registered domains, so any help would be appreciated. Much thanks in advance!

Who to file a complaint with for a problem with a US locality domain registrar?

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:34:27 -0800

Who is the appropriate party to file a complaint with, for a problem with a US locality (*.portland.or.us, NOT *.us) domain registrar that is not updating DNS records as requested? Five years ago or so, it took over a year (not joking...) for the registrar update my DNS records and only after numerous emails, faxes, and letters. Time to move servers again, and I've already waited over a month with no results. The registrar's website says they are going to start charging for this wonderful service next year. Who can I complain to about their current service so I might see some action taken on my DNS request; who can I complain to to suggest *.portland.or.us domains be moved to another registrar?

(Un)connecting Domains

probablysteve — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:37:25 -0800

If I host 2 domains (for example, www.work.com and www.family.com) on the same basic Dreamhost hosting package, is there any way for someone -- other than Dreamhost -- to associate the two domains?

How can I get the best results from my clients domain portfolio?

Scramblejam — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:21:56 -0800

Web Business Filter: How I can help my clients utilize the domain names they have which are related to/associated with their their main flagship business website? Forward traffic? Create minisites? Advice needed please! I have recently created a new flagship website for my clients brand. When they registered their main domain name, they also registered a whole host of related domain names that sound similar and which target a lot of keywords in their niche.

How can I best advise them to use their domain portfolio to boost the visibility and ranking of their main brand?

Should I create mini-sites that relate to the larger?
Should I redirect traffic from the additional domains, directly?
Should I redirect the traffic in some other way to capitalise on keywords?
How can I avoid duplicate content?

Any and all advice gratefully received.

Domains and Movies

boyinmiami — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:45:31 -0800

Please help me price this deal. Got a call from a company that specializies in rights clearances for television and feature films. They would like to use my domain as a backdrop in their story. While they have been short on what part the domain plays exact in their story, they did say "would like to use the website on a computer screen as set dressing in our upcoming motion picture" and "Production will create their own web design for the page with a still of one of our lead characters. We feel that this use would lend an authentic touch to our production. " Any recommendations on how I should approach this? and the way to make this most profitable for me?

Death and domains

brandnew — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:39:06 -0800

How may one obtain access to a web site, or ownership of the domain, of someone who had recently died? The person who had created my friend's church's web site recently died, but he didn't leave behind a password for the domain account. What should my friend's church do to obtain ownership of the domain?

My friend has since temporarily created a new site to host the church's content. However, he would still like to obtain ownership of the old domain because of its legacy value. Many other sites still point to the old domain. Web searches for the church reference the old domain, and although the hosting has expired, Google still caches the old site and attempts to re-direct to the old domain.

Does my friend have any options, or must he wait until the domain expires in December?

How do I allow users to use custom domains?

jcruden — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:18:09 -0800

What do I need to do to allow users to point their domains to my web service? Let's take tumblr.com as an example. They're a blogging type service, and they allow users to point their custom domains to their tumbler account, the instructions for a user to do so are available here: Using a custom domain name.

If I were to want to do the same with my web application, what's required on my end to facilitate users using custom domains?

NetSol, .Mac or other host for .ca domains?

Marquis — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:30:59 -0800

My friends have a webhosting account with Network Solutions. NetSol seems to be saying that you cannot point a .ca domain-name to that account. Is that really true? Are .Mac accounts compatible with .ca domains? If the answer to both is no, can you recommend a webhost for .ca domains? (They have already bought the domain.) [NB: I don't want to just use a page forwarder - that is, I want www.mysite.ca/blogs/newblog etc urls to work.] Thanks!

How do I perform this Active Directory black magic?

arnold — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:06:37 -0800

Best way to perform this Active Directory black magic? Our company has dozens of Windows terminal servers at remote locations (client sites), and we need a way to centralize Active Directory. Currently, most of these are connected via OpenVPN back to a subnet here. I have a couple set up as domain controllers for a child domain, but this is becoming really hairy to manage, as logons take forever due to the VPN lag, the unpredictability of our clients' internet access, and various other factors. Add on to that, group policy settings in our central location are more suited to our set up here rather than the many varying setups at our client sites.

Previously, all these servers used local accounts only and this is also frustrating to manage, as well as a security problem, since all it takes is one errant account somewhere that a former employee might know about to cause us major headaches with a client.

I really like OpenVPN, and I'm sure this sort of thing has come up before. What's the best method to administrate all of these? Single domains for each client? One forest? Single domains with trusts? What's the best practice here?

Extended info: Server 2003 domain, all profiles are roaming profiles with folder redirection. not able to use mandatory profiles due to the extremely stupid software we have to support.

Who really owns a domain?

missmagenta — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:56:05 -0800

Who really owns a domain? If a company registers a domain under the name of an individual, who really owns the domain and what are their rights? If a hosting company registers a domain on behalf of an individual, who owns it, the individual or the company? Specifically, if the whois record lists the individual's name as the registrant can the hosting company hold the domain to ransom? If the individual wants to change hosting suppliers but keep the same domain what are their rights if the hosting company refuses? Do they have any?

Domain-tor? [realtor + domain]

yoga — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:41:46 -0800

Is there such a thing as a domain name agent? Like a real estate agent, but for .com (or other) domains instead of chunks of land? I have a handful of domain names I'd like to sell, but I don't want to bother with the hairsplitting exercise of looking at traffic & whatever else supposedly predicts popularity / marketability. I'm familiar with sites like www.domaintools.com, but I'm willing to pay someone a small percentage of actual sales price to do the selling / auctioning for me.

Hope?

Is a .ae domain OK despite net censorship?

me3dia — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:19:44 -0800

I'm considering registering a .ae (United Arab Emirates) domain name for my business. I've got a couple concerns. I'm aware of the UAE's record on Net censorship, which brings up two issues for me:

1. I'm a little worried that even though my business would not deal in anything prurient or critical of Middle Eastern governments (both against the rules for the domain), my website may be censored in some manner. I'm a professional blogger and the site would link to client work; who knows whether one of those sites might offend a UAE censor.

2. I worry that my using a .ae domain will imply that I endorse or condone the UAE's policies. For obvious reasons (see 1.) I wouldn't be able to protest these policies, even though I disapprove of them. Is this a big enough issue to preclude using the domain, or, can anyone think of a good way to demonstrate my disapproval without getting my site banned?

The domain itself bridges the dot, incorporating ae into a word, so using another TLD would not be an option for this particular name. I could probably come up with another domain name, but it wouldn't be as cool.

Help us name our Adult site Part 2

boyinmiami — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:29:02 -0800

PornFilter question- some of you metaheads might remember our last question here; wanted to say a big thank you for those suggestions. (I will also be taking metahead Britain’s advice and will be giving a donation to the charity of your choice, will determine thru another post). Question inside due to graphic nature/language. Not for the easily offended. Thanks :) We have narrowed it down to two domains and need your help in picking one. Before I reveal the finalist, I want to give you the criteria of judging.

1. Most memorable
2. Easiest brandable (think Bangbros, Realitykings or Naughty America)
3. Initial response (what you think of when you first hear the term)

The basic idea would be to have a domain which we can create the identity of our sites behind. This would be the umbrella under which all of our sites would be in (we have sites in all niches, so the domain wont reflect the niche). Think how mainstream BangBros; and sites of that nature have become, so please consider what term might have more mainstream appeal.

Domain 1: CreamTeam

Domain 2: TeamSkeet

If any of you guys would like a free password to our sites, drop me an email (in my profile) and ill set you guys up 

Our .edu is jealous of her prettier, more popular .com sister

Fred Mars — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:50:39 -0800

My university department has a dept.com as well as a dept.univ.edu domain. The .com is just a pointer to the .edu. dept.com is the top google result for searches on our name, but results for dept.univ.edu are buried many pages deep. Here is the problem: there is now a problem with registration of dept.com, so Google's links are not working. What can we do? Is it possible to have Google replace instances of one with another or something? I don't understand this fully, obviously, but afaik the problem stems from DNS changes made by my university's IT dept. Furthermore, they do not agree with my dept's desire to have a .com domain. Our .com registrar says there is nothing they can do, because the school's DNS servers are not in the .com/.net registry.

Can Google even do anything about this? More people on the web are linking to the .com, which explains its higher rank in search results, right? I used their webmaster tools to explicitly add our .edu URL, but it seems that does not guarantee anything. The .edu is ostensibly our "official" URL. That is, it is the one on printed materials, business cards, etc. But does that concept even make sense, Google-wise?

Okay, I hope that made sense. I know I am confused. It seems to me that the simplest solution is the political one: convince the school to allow our .com and make it work. Barring that, what are my other options? What should I be doing to move the .edu above the .com in search results?

Help us name our new adult (porn site)

boyinmiami — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:58:59 -0800

Help us name our new Adult (porn) website!!!! Question inside due to graphic nature/language. Not for the easily offended. Thanks :) We are a small adult company based in Miami Florida. In the web, most companies that have paysites (we have three), bundle them up and have one full website that features all the sites (basically an all in one deal).
Alot of companies these days, have started branding all their sites with this all in one name, which increases brand appeal and awareness. Examples would be realitykings.com, bangbros.com and naughtyamerica.com

We are ready to launch our all in one site real soon, and we would like this domain to be our brand name that we umbrella all of our sites under. We have racked our brains to come up with the top name but so far the suggestions have not been that great....though we have had some funny/weird ones.

(we only do straight sites, if that helps)
((also, if any of guys, feel taking a look at the sites might help, email me (my email is in my profile) and I will make sure to give you a free peek))

Our top ones so far;

Teamskeet.com (leading the pack right now)
smutcouncil.com
fuckfaction.com
pussypartners.com
creamteam.com
bonerbrothers.com
hymenhunters.com
clitclick.com
puntangclan.com

We want something easy to remember, easily brandable and overall fun!!

Thanks for your help