Ok a new way to buy real estate has emerged and it’s called domaining, yes domaining. The address of a website is called a domain name and you can not have a website unless you have a domain name. Imagine a vacant block of land that still has an address. An example is ‘number one smith street’ and although there is no house on it this block of land still has an address ‘number one smith street.’ So when people decide to start a website, they will need to register a domain name. Quite often the name they desire is already registered by some one else and more often than not it is by a domainer!

Which is ok because it is legal to register a domain name to be sold at a later date. Some people register domain names as their investment portfolio instead of other types of investments such as the stock market or land. It is believed by domainers that the information highway is the most important resource of available information and entertainment that can be used by people, so a good website address is considered an asset and worth money. There are even websites dedicated to the buying selling and auctioning of domain names such as sedo.com and afternic.com and there are many forums that discuss the value of a domain name and the future of the internet, a few that come to mind are namepros.com and dnf.com, although some are specific to a certain country and the countries website extension, one example is in Australia they use the extension of .com.au and there is a domain forum called dntrade.com.au (dn is short for domain name)

The recent sale of toys.com made headlines recently because it sold for over $5 million us dollars to Toys R Us and guess what? It only cost $10. a year to register!! yes you do not own a domain name so to speak, but rather register it each year as required. A generic term such as dogs or perhaps pets is considered a great name because of the direct navigation they get, (direct navigation is when someone types in that exact website address instead of a google search) so a domain name that has a generic term is considered gold because of the natural traffic it will get. The most common extension is .com because it was the one first used when the internet started and is used world wide along side cctlds. What is a cctld? that is called the country code top level domain name, example is in England they use .co.uk and in China they use .cn So a country code is also an asset because it lets you know that the site you are looking at is local and within easy reach if you need to contact them. There is a website called dnjournal.com that reports on this industry each week and lists the sales of domain names each week. If you go to dnjournal.com at the top left hand side of the front page you will see just under where it says home (in yellow) domain sales is just underneath it, click on it and you will see the weekly sales chart …… it’s amazing and a true eye opener.

Although you would be better off joining a forum and learning the tricks of the trade before you go and spend all your hard earned cash on a domain name that is no good? Namepros.com has a section called market place and its where you can buy sell and auction names, they also have a section for newbies (new domainers) its a great place to ask questions and learn about domain names! and the domain name industry,this also has information and links to the world of domaining, check it out! you will learn alot quickly, also where you register a name is called a domain name registrar godaddy.com is the most popular, but there is many such as dynadot.com and moniker.com. Most are reasonalbe in their pricing, there is also enom.tv who offer many different extensions. So do check them out and join one if you are interested in becoming a domainer. Why am I telling you this??? Well the world is changing and one day you might need your own domain name to start a website for yourself or your business.