A Registrant (end user) usually registers DN through a Registrar. (Hosting companies act as registrars)
• Each name is unique.
• Propagation time for new registrations is 24-72 hours.
• WHOIS maintenance is the sole responsibility of the Registrant.
• WHOIS database will indicate the following important information:
• The Registrant
• Expiration Date
• Status
• Authoritative Name Servers
• Current Registrar

Registrant
• The person or company who registers the DN
• To do this, they need to contact the Registrar of their choice.

Registrar
o The company with whom the Registrant registers their DN. (Hosting company)
o The Registrar works with one or more Registries to offer different TLDs.

Registry
o The company responsible for a particular TLD, such as.com,.org, or.net.
o The registry maintains the database for that TLD to ensure that there are no duplicate registrations.

ICANN
• The various Registries and Registrars are all accredited by ICANN.
• ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
• They are responsible for managing and coordinating the ovrerall DNS.

Registration Process

1. Registrant contacts Registrar

2. Registrar contacts Registry to see if DN is available.

3. Registry contacts Registrar to confirm availability.

4. Registrar contacts Registrant to confirm availability.

Updates and Changes

Any updates to the record need to be made through the Registrar.

The customer contacts the Registrar and provides new information. ( Usually done via a control panel)

The Registrar contacts the Registry with the updated information.

The Registry makes the requested change.

Transfer of Registration

• Registrants have the option of transferring their DN registration from one Registrar to another.
o Only after 60 days have passed from the initial creation date.

• Request for transfer must be made through the gaining Registrar.

• The losing Registrar must provide authorization for transfer.
o Authorization Code

• DN must be in an ACTIVE status.

• Transfer authorization is sent to the Administrative Contacts email address listed on the Registrants WHOIS record.

• ALL communication is sent to the Registrants Administrative Contacts email address

DNS

• Is a system that stores, and associates many types of information with domain names.
• It translates the domain name (computer hostnames) to IP addresses and vice versa.

DNS consists of three components:

o Domain Names

o Authoritative Name Servers

o Zone Files/Zone Records

Other Functions

Aliases

o A domain alias allows you to point domain names to a domain name that has a hosting product.

o Aliases are NOT included with normal registration fees.

o An alias has the same zone file as the target domain name

Subdirectory DN’s

• This feature allows you to create 3rd level domains that point to subdirectories of the corresponding 2nd level domain.

• Subdirectory DN’s can be anything you want, such as: mydomainname.com/blog

Forwarding

• Forwarding allows you the ability to send all requests for one domain to another URL.
• By typing in and entering one name in a browser, you will be forwarded to a website with another domain name(URL or IP address)

Soruce: ezinearticles.com

Domain names are hostnames that allow us to remember websites more easily than using an IP address. So, for example, instead of having to remember 192.168.1.146 to come to this website, instead you can simply remember Domains.org.

Domain names are allowed to have letters, digits, and hyphens. No other characters may be used in a domain name. Domain names are also not case sensitive

Examples

The following example illustrates the difference between a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and a domain name:

URL: http://www.domains.org/
Domain name: domains.org

In the past, domain names and server IP address were completely interchangeable. You could type in either and find the website you were looking for. Now, however, there are far more websites than there are servers, so servers now commonly use “virtual hosting” for websites. This allows multiple websites to exist on a single IP address.

For example, the server at 192.168.1.146 could handle all of the following sites:

example1.com
example2.net
example3.org

Source: domains.org

This tutorial will not promise you a top search engine position. It will also not reveal how to get your site into thousands of search engines.

Instead, you will discover the exact locations where you can submit your website for free and the few “paid submissions” that are actually worth the price.

Yes, there ARE still places where you can submit your website for free. There are actually even extremely busy search engines that have not (not yet anyway) migrated to requiring payment for listings.

Here’s a listing of these engines along with the URLs where you can add your site(s) for free:

1. Lycos
Add URL: (http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html)

2. Google
Add URL: (http://www.google.com/addurl.html)

3. HotBot
Add URL: (http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp)

4. Northern Light
Add URL: (http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html)

5. DMOZ – The Open Directory Project
Add URL: (http://dmoz.org/add.html)

6. Direct Hit – An Ask Jeeves Service
Add URL: (http://www.directhit.com/util/addurl.html)

7. Fast – (Formerly “All the Web”)
(http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php3)

Those seven search engines above have been responsible for sending literally thousands of visitors to my website over the past year. And they will send thousands more. And perhaps the best part is that I didn’t have to pay them a dime.

But that’s not to say that paying for a listing in a search engine is a bad thing. Sure, lots of “purists” have been bashing the search engines’ move to charging for listings. But let’s face it, they are in business to make money too. And advertising revenue is not what it used to be for many of these companies. Their CPM (cost per 1000 banner impressions) rate has dropped significantly and they need other revenue sources. So why not charge businesses for a listing?

Now as a small business owner you cannot go around and start paying every search engine that wants a hundred bucks or more just for the privilege of listing your site (or just considering it!) So you have to concentrate your budget on just the search engines that can deliver serious website traffic. Those are the engines, or networks of engines with the most traffic themselves.

After researching the field, I’ve narrowed this down to just three that are undoubtedly worth the price. They are:

8. Yahoo! Business Express
(http://help.yahoo.com/help/bizex/)

Currently $199 for non-adult sites, Yahoo! still has the busiest directory by far and you’ll get lots of traffic from a decent listing.

9. The Looksmart Network’s Express Submit
(http://submit.looksmart.com/)

Also $199, this network powers over 1/2 million websites including AltaVista, CNN, Excite, iWon, Microsoft Network, Netscape Netcenter, NetZero and WebCrawler.

10. Inktomi’s Search/Submit service
(www.networksolutions.com/catalog/searchsubmit/welcome.jhtml)

At just $30 a year for the first URL and $15 for each additional, this is a cheaper solution to the Looksmart Network submission. Inktomi powers searches through AOL, iWon, MSN and the Looksmart directory itself. The best part is that the network updates every 48 hours so you get your listing in quickly.

OK, there you have it. A quick, cut to the chase, search engine submission guide. Just be sure that before you submit your site to ANY search engine or network that your site is ready to be listed favorably. This means adding targeted keywords to your content, META tags and title as well as spell checking and browser checking your site. Once you are sure everything is set to go, visit those 10 URLs and submit your site!

Source: cyberindian.com

Your competitor has a Top 5 ranking for an important keyword phrase, but your company doesn’t crack the top 100 search results. Why? Each of the search engines uses similar, yet different algorithms comprised of changing variables that determine how a Web page ranks for keywords and phrases. There are numerous inputs into these algorithms, but some of the more important include Title tag, link popularity, inclusion of keywords in page text, and for a few, directory inclusion.

The following is Intevation’s list of 13 of the most common search engine optimization mistakes that companies make. (NOTE: To view the tags and code on a Web page, simply go to “View” and then “Source” on your Web browser.)

1. Using the Same META Tags Throughout: Perhaps the most common error we see is the use of the same META “Description” and “Keyword” tags on each page. While most search engines do not use the “Keyword” tag, the “Description” tag can help your page ranking and is used by many search engines in the results that are displayed.

2. Poorly Named Title tags: The “Title” tag is perhaps the most important element of each page of your site. Yet it is an after thought to most Web designers and Webmasters. Look at the title of most “About Us” pages and you’ll usually see something like “About Company X.” Very few people search using a phrase such as “about company X.” Instead, use a relevant message from the page for the Title tag, such as “Integrated Web services for professional services firms,” and optimize for an important and popular search phrase.

3. Lack of Relevant Text: Most search engines look for a match between the keyword phrase being searched and the text on your site. They also tend to place a higher priority on the text and keywords located higher on the page. Make sure you have a theme to each page and optimize the Title tag and page content to reinforce each other.

4. Putting All/Most of the Text in Images: Most Web designers develop sites to look good, but with little to no understanding of how search engines crawl Web sites. An extremely common mistake is to have all or a lot of text on a page in a graphic image. It might look great, but a search engine crawler can’t read it. Make sure you supplement any “text in images” with enough page text.

5. Lack of META Tags: Not including any META tags won’t really hurt you too much on search engines such as Google, but will reduce your ranking on many other search engines. As mentioned above, inclusion of the Description tag is fairly important – while the Keyword tag is of little importance.

6. Not Using Each Page of the Site: Whether your site is 10 or 100 pages, every page of your Web site is a potential search engine entry point. Have a plan for every page and optimize each one for specific keyword phrases.

7. Not Submitting Your URL to Search Engines and Directories: Most of the search engines will find your Web site if it is linked to other sites within its database. But with no or few sites linked to yours, chances are you won’t be crawled unless you submit your URL directly to the site. Most search engines have a “Suggest a URL” link on their home page. Additionally, make sure you are listed in the Open Directory Project (ODP) and consider paid inclusion directories such as Yahoo and LookSmart.

8. Few Links From Other Sites: Most companies spend minimal time and resources on gaining links from other sites, yet it is one of the most important elements in many search engine algorithms, including Google. Make sure your company is listed on all the major directories, industry-specific directories and portal sites, your partners and clients as appropriate, and other sites. Secondly, expand the content on your site, including the development of “resources information,” and seek reciprocal links from other sites.

9. Too Much Focus on the Keywords Meta Tag: Check out the Keyword Meta Tag on most Web site pages and you’ll see a long list of words and phrases, including the name of the company CEO, product names, etc. The problem: Almost all of the search engines actually don’t use this tag, but they do look at the keywords in your Title tag and page content, and a few look at the Description Meta tag.

10. Lack of ALT Tags: The ALT tag is used to describe the contents of an image on your Web page – and is what you see if the graphics are switched off in the browser or the image doesn’t load/or loads slowly. Search engine crawlers read the tag as text and so when used correctly with appropriate keywords (related to the image of course), this tag could improve your ranking a few places or pages.

11. Lack of Text Links on Home Page: Make sure you include a number of text links (that takes visitors to various pages within your site) on your home page. Why? Most of the search engines will crawl your home page first, and then look for text links further into the site.

12. Low/High Keyword Density: While the use of keyword density in the search engine algorithms seems to be changing and waning in importance, it should not be ignored. Keyword density that is too low suggests that the page may not be as relevant as another, yet too high and your page is considered SPAM by most and will be penalized in the ranking.

13. Use of JavaScript, Flash and Frames: Though it varies by search engine, the use of Frames, Flash and too much JavaScript can cause problems with crawlers – relegating your pages to the end of the line. All is not lost, however, there are a number of approaches that can be deployed that will reduce or eliminate these problems.

Source: cyberindian.com