"whois" On First?

By Author: Bob Osgoodby
Total Articles: 34
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No this is not an Abbot and Costello comedy routine, but some
serious information you need to know if considering your own web
site. If you have ever looked into getting your own domain name,
you have no doubt done a "whois" lookup. If you haven't, you can
search to see if the name you wish is available at:
http://www.networksolutions.com/

There are three types of extensions available for our use at the
current time. For example, abc.com is an example of a dot.com
site - abc.net a dot.net site and finally a dot.org site.

Dot.org sites were traditionally the domain of non-profit
organizations, but have since opened up, so anyone can have that
extension. There are other extensions such as dot.gov, but these
are not available to the average person.

Before choosing a name with an extension, you should be aware
that most browsers will allow you to simply enter the domain name
such as "abc". The browser will then search for a web site with
that name - but it isn't as simple as that.

Internet Explorer first searches for a domain ...
... name with a dot.com
extension. If it finds one, it connects to that site. If it
doesn't, it will search for a dot.net extension and finally a
dot.org extension.

If you think you have a really neat name, and the dot.com
extension is already taken, but the dot.net is available, it may
not be a good deal. People are conditioned to enter a name
followed by ".com" and if you have the dot.net or dot.org
extension, you just may be sending your clients to a competitors
site.

We recently tried to reserve a web site and checked under several
names, but all the dot.com names, that we initially thought of,
were all taken. Rather than settling for a dot.net or dot.org
extension, we continued to search until we found one with a
dot.com that was appropriate for our business.

Remember - when you do a "Whois" search, the dot.com name is on
first. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Osgoodby publishes the free weekly "Your Business" Newsletter
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