Domain
Registration by Earthfire®
How do I
find out if a domain name is available?
Use this Domain
lookup or the Domain
wizard and select from a combination of names. The
lookups are at Open Veld, a companion site.
 How
do I register my domain name? Please just tell
us at Contact Earthfire.com
and provide a payment of $73. You can decide later how
to develop the site. As dot-com domain names are currently
being registered at 15,000 per week, time is of the essence.
For domain registration, the most important things are that
you give us accurate contact and ownership information.
If the domain is to be owned by a business, we need the legal
name of the business. We also need an accurate and stable
e-mail address for you, and physical snail mail address and
telephone information.
Is
a domain name necessary for my business web site?
Yes, if you want it to be effective. The domain name
is important in branding your product or service. Even
clients who do not visit your web site will see your good
name in the cyber-context. And for those who visit your
web site, a domain name should be easy to remember, so they
can find it.
What
is a good name? Be clever, not trite.
Ask your friends, but listen to your own judgment. Because
your domain name will contain content, you should ally it
positively with your product or service. It is desirable
that you select a name which will be (or already is) the trade
name or service name for your business. Be careful to
avoid names that are already in use by another similar business,
and totally avoid the big names, the famous marks like McDonald's
and Microsoft. Don't even think about registering minisoft.com,
swimwearRus.com, or disneydudes.com, unless you like looking
for an attorney.
Which
names are best? You know your product or service,
and hopefully you have already given careful thought to distinguish
yourself from other similar businesses. Names can identify
you, and good names can identify you as being good at what
you do. There are excellent books available on trademark
selection, and there are paid consultants who can help you
with focus groups and research. Really big successful
names like Xerox and Exxon were made up before the internet.
Other names, such as Amazon.com, were chosen to evoke powerful
connotations. (And they didn't start out as Amazon.com)
Some whimsical names such as razorfish.com or bignosebird.com
are powerful because they use the names of animals, and they
create a mental picture, an easy way to remember the domain
name. Having your trade name the same as your web site
domain name strengthens your company's reputation in the marketplace.
Lawyers call this "goodwill."
What
language considerations are there? If you use
a non-English word with characters different from a-to-z,
you've got a problem. There is no such thing as piņon.com,
so if you sell pine nuts to Spanish language people, your
domain name pinon.com will always remind them of the cultural
imperialism of the English language.
What
about digits and hyphens? Avoid them.
Usually. Avoid numbers unless you have a domain 911.com
or club57.com or love4u.com, in which the number strengthens
the name, without being too cutsey. Same for hyphens.
People tend to forget to put them in.
What
about trademark conflicts? For legal advice,
hire a lawyer. Trademarks are easily subject to potential
litigation, thus if the trademark owner showed that you had
caused damages, you could have to pay damages, or at the least,
give up the domain name. Even if you did no wrong, and
you are sued frivolously by someone supposedly protecting
their trademark, and the case is later dismissed, you could
still be in for some major legal costs until it's all over
with. Be advised. Don't mess with other people's
trademarks, registered or not. Unfortunately, Network
Solutions tends to hand over disputed domain names to the
first registered trademark owner who shows up, regardless
of whether it's your family name or legal trade name.
This is odd, because more than one industry or product can
have the same name mark. If it's not a registered trademark
it doesn't get much respect from Network Solutions.
There are other better registrars, and we currently use Melbourne
IT, a four-star registrar based on reviews by the DomainNameBuyersGuide.
The
choice is yours, but . . . If you want some
suggestions, write to us and you are under no obligation to
take our advice!
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