Tag Archives: Domain Names

Extra parked or redirect domains don’t show up in search engines

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Extra or redirect domains that redirect to a different “primary” domain do not help you by showing up in search engine results.  For example, if Bevelwise were to own the domain websitemarketinggrandrapids.com which is full of keywords and redirect that domain’s traffic to bevelwise.com it would not help us in search engine rankings at all.  If someone were to look for the domain websitemarketinggrandrapids.com in Google, it wouldn’t be found.

If search engines were to see this extra domain and try to index it, they would see that there is not any content on this domain, it just redirects to a different website.  Therefore, it has no search engine value and the search engines will completely ignore it.

Back in the earlier days of the internet, people used to type in the address bar a keyword and add “.com” to try to find something.  For example, someone who wanted to buy office furniture might type in “officefurniture.com” and hope they are taken to a legitimate website.  People who wanted to capture this traffic would purchase these domain names and put up websites or redirect this traffic to a different site. This is sometimes called “blind” searching and it is very rare to find people doing this today.  Search engines have  removed the need to do blind searching.

There are a few reasons to have and keep these extra domains.  The primary reason is to ensure that no one else (like your competitor) buys the domain.  That is a very good reason why you would want to buy the “.net” and “.org” version of your primary domain, you wouldn’t want your competitors to have those domains.

The other reason to have extra redirect domains is to capture the traffic of common misspellings of your primary domain name.  For example, Google owns the domain gogle.com and if you go to that address it redirects people to the primary domain of google.com.

Outside of the two above reasons, we do not recommend to purchase additional or extra domain names unless you intend to create unique websites for those domains.

To www or not to www

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When you go to a website, say Bevelwise for instance, do you type www.bevelwise.com or bevelwise.com in the address bar? If you care at all about SEO what your users type into their address bar should concern you.

Personally, I type the www because technically bevelwise.com is the main domain, the house that all of the services live under. By typing the www I am telling bevelwise.com that I would like to see the website of bevelwise.com. If I were to be transferring a file I would be using the File Transfer Protocol, and I would expect the bevelwise.com house to be looking for this type of access request at ftp.bevelwise.com.

I understand that www, ftp, cdn, rss, etc, are all just sub-domains on the main domain of bevelwise.com and that what really matters is what protocol / port is being used to make the request.

To take this to a more relatable direction, let’s take a street address: 1313 Mockingbird Ln. We can analyze this address in much the same way as we do a domain. Consider if we think of the domain “bevelwise.com” being the equivalent of the street “Mockingbird Ln.” Now, if we wanted to go to the Munsters house (1313 Mockingbird Ln. is their address on the TV show), we could technically find the house by going to Mockingbird Ln and looking around. I assure you we would eventually find it and get what we came looking for. But, if we add the house number (1313) to that address, we have the complete street address of what we are looking for, much the same as when we put the www in front of a domain when we want to go to a website.

I know there are a lot of people out there in the technology industry that are of the belief that the www is irrelevant and unneeded and is only added as a DNS record to help those people out there who don’t know any better. However true this may be from a purely technical standpoint, we need to think about the users of the internet who, as a majority, are not technically savvy.

So, from my understanding, Google will see www.bevelwise.com and bevelwise.com as two different and separate sites regardless of the fact that one is a sub-domain and one is a primary domain. It will be seen as 2 sites with the same content and will get a negative mark.

Now to help with this issue, we basically have 2 choices in this scenario. Forcibly add the www via 301 redirect when someone goes to bevelwise.com, or forcibly remove the www when someone goes to www.bevelwise.com. I personally lean towards adding the www in any case where the address requested is not already a sub-domain request (i.e. bevelwise.com will be changed to www.bevelwise.com, but ftp.bevelwise.com will not be changed to www.ftp.bevelwise.com because ftp.bevelwise.com is already qualified with the ftp prefix).

Just for fun, take a look at your browsers address bar right now, when coming to this site, did you put the www in there or no, any reason why you did one way or another? Call it a personal and professional curiosity.

Top 10 Domain Name Search Engines and Services

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Here are my picks for the Top Ten Domain Name Search Engines – there are a ton more than these ten out there, however, I’ve found these to be the ones that I’ve used most often and had the most success with. You can use these domain name search engines to check if a domain name you’re considering is still available for purchase, or just to view domain name information.

1. CheckDomain

“Search, look up, check, select, reserve, purchase, register, transfer, renew, protect, and / or monitor domain names, internet / Web addresses, or URLs for any country in the world from checkdomain.com.” The search process here is very streamlined and easy to use.

2. Clickey

Clickey does the standard domain name search, but also offers the option to view popular domain name searches on the front page, a nice feature. All countries are available to search for domain names, and you can also view contact info on a specific domain name by typing in “widget.com” to the search bar.

3. Norid – Domain Name Registries Around The World

You can search for domain names here, but the real appeal of this site is that it lists all the domain name registries from all over the world. For example, did you know that Burundi’s is .bi?

4. Whois Source-Wildcard Domain Search Lookup

This is an interesting service – you can not only search for available domain names, but you can also see what’s at auction or for sale if you’re in the market to buy a domain name. Whois Source supports four different kinds of searches – IP address, partial words, full domain, and whois history.

5. ICANN

ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers, is not so much a domain name search engine, but more of an informational site about domain names and how they all got started. The ICANN Frequently Asked Questions should be your first stop when learning more about this organizational body.

6. NIC

Lots of different serives here at NIC; you can check WHOIS, view domain name registries from around the world, check out a nice set of domain name FAQ, and lots more.

7. Domain Name Universe

Click on any of the geographic or generic extensions to search for domain names by country, or just use the general search bar to find an available domain name.

8. InterNIC

Just like ICANN, InterNIC is more of an informational site about domain names – what they are, how the work, how they got started, and more. This is a good hub of information that you might eventually need, such as how to submit a complaint about an accredited registrar.

9. IANA – Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

Very deep site with lots to offer: domain name services, IP address services, protocol number assignment services, etc.

10. Xona.com – Domain Hacks Search Engine

From the site: “Domain Hacks is a special domain name search utility. It results domain hack domain names, which are unconventional domain names like del.icio.us.” This is a way to find out if specific domain hack names are already registered – and looks to be the only one of its kind on the Web.

Domain Value Tips

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Here are some of his tips for determining the value of a domain name:

  • Is there a keyword in it?
  • How many people search for that keyword on a regular basis?
  • Is it memorable?
  • What is the history of the domain name (number of on-topic links, level of traffic, TLD of the domain name)?
  • Does it have a hyphen in it? Domain names with hyphens are less valuable, but may be a good option for SEO purposes because the main keyword may be in the domain name.

When deciding whether you should buy a keyword-rich domain name for your business or your newly-redesigned Web site, keep in mind that you don’t have to come up with all of the cash for a domain name purchase. Several companies allow you to finance domain name purchases. For example, Domain Capital offers financing to businesses based on the “inherent and recognized value of premium domain names.” So, it’s possible you won’t have to come up with $20,000 for a domain; you could finance the domain name purchase and pay it back over time, working in the financing cost into your marketing plan.
So, take a look around when you’re looking to upgrade or redesign your Web site with a new domain name. If you don’t immediately find a domain name that is available for registration, consider acquiring a “premium” domain name. It might be more affordable than you think.