Protecting Your Domain Name

Domain Dispute is no longer news unless a Madonna or Julia Roberts type of celebrity gets involved. However, greater now than ever is the risk for domain registrants to lose their domain names when they get involved in a domain dispute. The risk is originated from the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (the Policy) approved by ICANN and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) passed by U.S. Congress. The direct risk comes from reverse domain hijackers, biased panelists, and the unprepared registrants themselves.

Innocent registrants are prone to ignoring measures to protect their domain names. They tend to think they are safe and would win even if some party would complain to WIPO-the worst arbitration organization for innocent registrants.

Thus, they often do not take steps to protect their domain names. As a consequence, they are likely to lose their domain name(s) in a domain dispute. Preparation both BEFORE and AFTER you receive a complaint is equally important. Generic domain names are no exception. Net-firms.com (usid.com received a complaint from netfirms.com) and netlearning.com (the registrant received a complaint from NetLearning, Inc.) are just two examples proving how easy it is for a common word domain name to get hijacked.

The following suggestions may be useful when preparing yourself for a potential battle for your domain name's.

1) Make sure your domain record, including the ownership and administrative contact information, is complete, correct, and current. If it is incorrect, the panelists will take it as evidence against you. Therefore, check your domain record often to see if any change is made without your authorization.

2) Write down your idea or business plan about what you would use your domain for and get it notarized.

3) If possible, register your domain name, i.e., yourdomainname.com, as a trademark with the trademark authority in your country. If you registered your domain name as a trademark successfully, it is to your advantage. Once you establish your rights to your domain name(s), your domain name is entitled to legal protection even if it is stolen.

4) If you start up a business, register and or use your domain name as your business name, if possible. Use your domain name with the TM sign on your letterhead, envelope, business card, or wherever possible. When you design your web site, make sure to put the TM sign with your domain name. Print a copy and have it notarized by a local Notary Public. If your site is designed by others, make sure to get a certificate that shows your domain name on it.

5) When you do advertising, make sure your domain name shows up in the ad. If you do online advertising, even with goto.com, print a copy of your link ad that is properly dated. Keep a copy of that ad and all communications between you and your ad service provider as evidence.

6) If you are not planning to use your domain name in the near future, register it as an intent-to-use trademark with your trademark authority. For coveted domain names, i.e., mostly single worded and popular, yet generic names, you may not be able to get them registered as a trademark. For those domain names, use them as soon as possible for any legitimate purpose, such as for business, non-profit, or even a personal or fun activity.

7) When using a domain name, try to use a fee-based web hosting service that would enhance the impression of seriousness of your business. Free web hosting is costly because it will harm your business in various ways.

8) Never merely put simple links on the pages and never link your domain to porn sites. By doing so, you will be doomed if you come across some self-authorized or puritan panelists.

9) If you consider selling your domain, do not sell it until you establish your rights to it. When you receive any offer to purchase your domain name, do not answer unless you know who the person is. The inquirer may be a spy. Again, talk to a lawyer if possible before you do anything.

10) When challenged directly by a company or individual, you should never answer until you consult a legal professional. Any of your good-willed answers may be used as evidence against you later or help your challenger to shape a plan against you. Do not put out a web site for your domain in a hurry as a response to the challenge you receive. Such an action may prompt some panelists to believe you have done some thing wrong.

11) When you receive a complaint from WIPO, you should RESPOND if you want to defend your domain name(s). Many panelists would treat you lightly and rule in favor of the complainant if you fail to respond. If your domain name is critically important and you are well financed, hire a COMPETENT lawyer! The fee can be anywhere between $1500 and $5000 per response. Or, some lawyers will charge on an hourly basis, usually between $200 and $500 per hour. Do some searching and ask for references when you choose a lawyer. Furthermore, you should consider paying $1500 to have a three-panelist panel. With WIPO, you are likely to lose if only one panelist is assigned to your case. When you request three panelists, you have the right to designate one panelist for the dispute panel. By carefully choosing a registrant-friendly panelist, you will increase your likelihood of winning.

12) If you lose at WIPO, you have 10 days to appeal to your local federal court or the court that has jurisdiction over the registrar.

13) If the challenger goes directly to court to sue you, you should file your response timely. Do not get scared because the plaintiff may do this simply as a tactic to scare you by the fact that a court action is more expensive than dispute arbitration. The most important thing is to establish your rights to your domain name. Keep any and all evidence that is indicative of your using your domain name for a legitimate activity. And finally, be careful to avoid the traps that would endanger your rights to your domain names.

The tips in this article are intended for reference only and should not be construed as legal advice.

Dr. Peter Liu is a consultant to Marsgerm.com web hosting service at http://marsgerm.com. He runs http://www.domainmanual.com. Contact him at shopseek2@yahoo.com if you have any comment. new@domainmanual.com

what is Bandwidth and data transfer

Bandwidth and data transfer are synonomous. It is referring to the amount of data that can be transferred over the network in a fixed amount of time. It is calculated by the size of your web page. For example, if you have a page totalling 20KB in file size, when a visitor loads that page on their browser, they are receiving 20KB of data. It is the same as saying that you have used 20KB of bandwidth.

To calculate bandwidth, you need to consider
a) the size of your web pages
b) the number of web pages being loaded (pageview)
c) the kind of files you offer your visitors. eg. audio, video files.

Most personal websites have only a small amount of data transfer, as their websites are small in file size and they do not have a lot of visitors. Business and professional sites are larger with more visitors and therefore use more bandwidth. If your site offers a lot of graphics, audio or download files and the daily visitors are huge, you'll need to consider a hosting plan that offers sufficient data transfer.

Using our website as an example. The average file size per web page is below 40KB. If there are 1000 web pages being viewed on a particular day, the total data transfer would be 40MB. Or the bandwidth is 40MB x 30 = 1.2GB per month.

The bandwidth offered by our recommended web hosting services ranging from 40GB to 300GB. Unless you are going to have tons of graphic and/or download files, you do not have to worry that you'll ever exceed the bandwidth limit

Dedicated Web Hosting FAQ

What is dedicated hosting?
How should I decide which type of dedicated hosting for my business?

Shared or Dedicated? Which should you choose?

What is dedicated hosting?

Dedicated hosting is a form of Web hosting where the hosting provider dedicates a single machine for a customer’s website's.

Dedicated hosting divides into two categories: managed dedicated and unmanaged dedicated. Managed hosting is a dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from unmanaged dedicated web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties.

How should I decide which type of dedicated hosting for my business?

To understand the two types of dedicated hosting, please refer to the first question for details.

If you're unsure about the server configuration, we recommend you to choose a managed server. Going with the managed server is more expensive but is much more reassuring for the inexperienced administrator. Remember, you can always downgrade your account to an unmanaged service later once you've acquired some expertise in server administration. Though once you opt for the personal attention you will receive through a managed host, you might think twice of turning into an unmanaged service later on.

CI host is managed dedicated hosting by default and all other hosts on our list are unmanaged type

Windows Web Hosting FAQ

What is Windows Hosting?
What is ASP?
What is ASP.NET?
Shared or Windows? Which should you choose?

What is Windows Hosting?
Windows Hosting is hosting account that uses windows as their server platform that allows for software such as MS FrontPage, ColdFusion and MSSQL. Windows Hosting is a popular choice among programmers requiring ASP and MS SQL for their work

What is ASP?
Active Server Pages, introduced by Microsoft in the mid-1990s, is a scripting language designed to be embedded within the HTML code for Web pages. This is the standard programming system for Internet applications hosted on Windows servers. With ASP, you can combine HTML pages, script commands, and COM components to create interactive Web pages or powerful Web-based applications, which are easy to develop and modify.

What is ASP.NET?
ASP.net(sometimes referred to as ASP+) is the next generation of Microsoft's Active Server Page technology(ASP). ASP.net is different from its predecessor in two major ways: it supports code written in compiled languages like C++, Visual Basic, and Perl. Also, it is able to separate the code from the content, allowing WYSIWYG editing of pages.

Although ASP.NET is not backwards compatible with ASP, it is able to run side by side with ASP applications.

Shared or Windows? Which should you choose?
There's no definite answer to this question. It's what you need to do with your site that lead you to the type of hosting. If you want the tightest security then Unix is probably for you. If you’re looking for compatibility with all of Microsoft's products, then Windows is the best for you. If you opt to use PHP to power your web site, then you’ll want to go with Unix hosting. Between Windows and Unix server, there is no difference in terms of ease of use and speed.

Unix Web Hosting FAQ

What is Unix Hosting?
What is Shared/Virtual Hosting?
What is PHP?
What is Perl?
What is MYSQL?
How can I edit a mySQL database table without creating an application?

What is Unix Hosting?
A. Unix is an operating system developed by Bell Labs in the 1970's. It is a popular operating system that is used by many companies all over the world. Most web hosting providers use a unix based OS called FreeBSD on their shared hosting servers.

Your personal computer's operating system does not affect your ability to use a Unix server for hosting. Having a Windows system at home does not mean you must have a Windows Hosting account. A unix account will work just as well.

What is Shared/Virtual Hosting?
A. Shared Hosting refers to a hosting package where two or more customers share the same server (computer). This is the least expensive way to get a real web site.

What is PHP?
A. PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language.

PHP is a tool that lets you create dynamic Web pages. The web pages with PHP enabled are treated much like regular html pages.

In an HTML document, PHP script (similar syntax to that of Perl or C) is enclosed within special PHP tags. As PHP is embedded within tags, it does not have to rely on heavy amounts of code to output HTML. Also, PHP code cannot be viewed by the client as the script is executed on the server.

PHP can perform any task any CGI program can, but its strength lies in its ease of use. PHP can talk across networks using IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, or HTTP.

What is Perl?
A. Perl is a programming language that was created to primarily process text. It is widely used as a rapid prototyping language that makes it possible for different systems to work well together.

It is also the most popular language used for the Custom Gateway Interface. With this support, you are able to use various Perl scripts that will allow you to open your store, chat room, newsgroup, classifieds, etc. There are countless numbers of pre-made scripts that can be found on the Internet.

Perl's roots are in UNIX. Because Perl is an interpreted language, Perl programs are highly portable across systems.

What is MYSQL?
A. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program that runs on the Linux operation system. It is able to handle million of entries all at once.

Its flexibility and speed allow you to also store logs and pictures. MySQL is designed to scale well under heavy traffic conditions and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled Web sites.

You can use MySQL with PHP and/or Perl. MySQL and PHP have become the dynamic duo of Open Source, data-driven Website creation.

How can I edit a mySQL database table without creating an application?
A. Cpanel allows you to use phpMyAdmin to edit mySQL tables through the use of SQL query language.

How to Make Money with Web Hosting

We all know that web hosting is the basis of all web sites. It helps us attract visitors, it displays what we are desperately trying to get across, and it allows us to survive in the cut throat internet world. While these are all important qualities that come with web hosting, there are many other opportunities. Dying to make extra cash? Surprisingly, web hosting can actually help with your bills. In a few simple steps, you will be on your way to a richer lifestyle.

Fortunately, there is a new trend in the web industry. Reseller Hosting, which consists of purchasing a web hosting package and reselling it for a larger price, has been making webmasters just a few cents richer. Although this sounds like a daunting task, it actually only requires a large amount of space. Once the webmaster acquires such a large server and bandwidth, he/she is able to divide it up among other people. As long as they are willing to pay a monthly fee, you will never get screwed over.

Regardless of how much money you want to make, purchasing this re-seller hosting does not cost much. For an average of $30/month, you can purchase enough space to make a profit. While all of these websites will be on a shared server, the majority of webmasters do not mind this downside. After all, not everyone can shell out thousands a month just to acquire their own dedicated server. Once you have found a few loyal customers who will not create any illegal material, you will be generating a profit every single month out of the year. Fortunately, until you stop your hosting, you will never be out of a job.

In order to sell this type of hosting, you absolutely need to network. Regrettably, there are many webmasters trying to follow the trend. For this reason alone, you should look in unpopulated areas. Try and find a website or forum that has not yet been tackled by other masses of website owners. For instance, find websites similar to your own. If you do not have one, look on webmaster-related forums such as Digital Point or Webmaster-Talk. These areas are populated with thousands of interested clients, who will be more than happy to jump on the bandwagon, if you do have a great deal.

Still desperately trying to find other ways to market? Many website owners advertise through blogs and buy text link ads. As a result, people will be more apt to find what you are offering. If this doesn't work, you could even start marketing in a local newspaper or a newsletter that goes out to professional companies who are always looking for alternatives. Nevertheless, there are plenty of consumers out there. You just need to be creative and put in the effort, in order to get anywhere.

For years web hosting has been flooding the market. However, it has just recently become a form of revenue for webmasters who just don't own their own web hosting company. It is a wonderful alternative to an additional part time job, especially if this is what you love to do. Networking with others, controlling a server, while working on your website certainly sounds like the perfect occupation.

Copyright notice: This original article is the property of Web Hosting Geeks (http://webhostinggeeks.com). Web Hosting Geeks provides independent customer and webmaster reviews of top 10 web hosting providers. Top web hosting reviews, best web hosting awards, web host rating, web hosting articles and more.Requirement: You must also post the above author information if you would like to republish this article!

Which Web Hosting is Best For You?

With thousands of beginners trying their hand at websites, it is certain that the market is becoming quite crowded.
From music blogs to gossip communities and technological havens – these online avenues can be a wonderful hobby for people who just want an audience. After all, who wouldn't want to be heard among thousands of visitors every day? For this reason alone, websites are one of the most popular forms of entertainment. While making a website is essential, the majority of beginners do not realize that web hosting is even more important.

In simpler terms, web hosting provides you with the space to create your masterpiece. When you design your layout, post thousands of pictures, and even set up a chat room, you absolutely need a place to do so. For instance, if you were to do something like this outside of the virtual world, and build a theatre, wouldn't you need your own space? Luckily, web hosting is extremely affordable and can be easy for even the beginners to use.

After you purchase a domain name, the next step is to find a company that will host your website. There are many different paths you can take to do this, but it depends on your main goals. Therefore, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself why you want to create a website. Is it for personal use – simply to post your pictures from college? Or perhaps your dream is to create the most popular music website on the internet. Regardless of your priorities, companies have built specific web hosting packages based around your needs.

If you are looking to just post pictures or create something for fun, a free web hosting company is the way to go. There are many of these around the web, including Geocities and AngelFire. These two companies are dedicated to helping beginners.

As a result, new webmasters do not need to know extensive HTML or CSS. In this day and age, it is quite easy to build a masterpiece. While these hosts give you a large amount of space and freedom, there are downsides. The majority of companies will stick pop up advertisements on your space, in order for them to market their company.

Unfortunately, this is an annoyance for most, and can cause visitors to leave immediately. Luckily, Geocities lets you close the box when you enter the website. Nevertheless, if you are looking for an easy website and do not care about visitors, you simply should try it out.
On the other hand, if you are looking for something a bit more professional, you should be emptying your wallet. Providentially, 3ix.org and GoDaddy are two companies that offer extremely cheap website hosting. This means that you can easily pay $12/year just for an abundance of space. Still looking for more features? These companies will let you add on everything from FrontPage Maker to extra bandwidth. If you are serious about your venture, these are places to check out.

Web hosting may sound like a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be difficult. With so many beginners flooding the internet, companies have put it upon themselves to make these programs much easier to use. As long as you can type in your name, have overflowing creativity and an e-mail address, the opportunities are endless.

Copyright notice: This original article is the property of Web Hosting Geeks (http://webhostinggeeks.com). Web Hosting Geeks provides independent customer and webmaster reviews of top 10 web hosting providers. Top web hosting reviews, best web hosting awards, web host rating, web hosting articles and more.Requirement: You must also post the above author information if you would like to republish this article!