WHAT A HASSLE.

Despite all those nice full-size banners about “leaders in domain business” and great web 2.0ish interfaces all the registrars I’ve been working with simply fail to deliver.

Registering .ca (Canada) domains at NameCheap : failed despite multiple tries to fill out those company-specific data… after 2 weeks without a solution from support I tried again, failed again, mailed screenshot again and got this response

Please prefund your account with amount necessary and advise us of doing so, along with ALL registrant information (including, but not limited to .CA-specific one). We will try to register this domain manually for you then.

Thank you.

Registering .at (Austria) domains with Moniker : failed to change use the registrant data, failed to update the registrant, only tech-c was updated… (April 22) manually process promised (May 2) – still waiting for any response or result (May 9)

…We will then contact our .AT partners with the information to see if this modification can be completed…

(IF this can be completed?)

Registering .es (Spain) domains at United-Domains : pure rip off – I didn’t even get past the first page… United-Domains is one of the most old-schoolish ripoff company, and they charge EUR 79 for a spanish domain. You can get the SAME for EUR 14 elsewhere… On a sidenote let me tell you that they had the guts to charge me an “overdue fee” after a credit card expired. And in a typically germanish long and winding back & forth that lady explained me it’s my own fault I didn’t take care of updating the credit card… that was the moment I decided to transfer everything away from them.

Registering .es (Spain) domains at EuroDns : appears to be the company that United-Domains (see above) are reselling… paid them EUR 18 for the .es domains – still reasonable compared to unbelievable EUR 79 … fast registration, nice interface… actually not a bad experience.. I chose them cause they got a ton of other euro TLDs at good prices and got good information on specific country-requirements

Registering .fr (France) domains WHERE? : apparently you only get domains from the frenchies if you have a local address in France… I bet I need to get a PObox there, but it could be worse and they force me to incorporate… I guess that will be just as lengthy as incorporating in austria or germany… or even worse [and I just want a stupid .fr domain! ]

Registering/Transferring .de (Germany) domains with Moniker : started this on February 19 … got a nice promise that it’ll take 4-5 weeks until .de transfers work with the… today is May 9 and there’s no solution in sight…

Registering .co.uk (UK) domains with Moniker : more than TWO weeks the registration is still in pending state… and apparently this doesn’t go on without inquiring with Moniker support (once again)

I’m sorry however the process to register/transfer .CO.UK names is not the same as a standard .com transfer/registration. Changing ownership of a .co.uk name is a very involved process.

Below are the steps:

The change of ownership and actual transfer process for .CO.UK domain names is very different then transferring a .com or .net name.

This process can take up to 2 weeks to complete. I will cc Client Services on this email. Perhaps they can shed a little more light on the situation.

THANKS

Registering .it (Italy) domains at EuroDns : HAHA - this is a funny procedcure to get into the “DBNA (Data Base dei Nomi Assegnati)” [and no, so far I didn't have to bribe anyone ... ]

Italian language contract to be signed to get an .it domain

… still EuroDNS got a great automation interface, but in fact you have to a) fill out company registration, VAT info, etc online… b) download the generation ITALIAN contact c) sign and FAX that (ITALIAN!) contract to EuroDNS (to a Liechtenstein Fax Number) and then wait for 2-3 days… now that’s close to a company formation for the frenchies … AFAIK the steps for a DBA in the united states are not very longer – and you can do it all online…

Bonus – checkout the attached screenshot on the left of a piece of italian “domain contract” required to sign and fax

Info on some mentioned companies

A lot of hassles are with Moniker, cause I got nice prices there, got a responsive (yet not very helpful support) – but still, do a lot of registrations there after moving huge number of domains there…
Tought everything that is nt com/net/org/biz actually doesn’t work well with them (including broken privacy mail forwarding) I am quite happy with them.

The german company brand “United Domains” is about the worst experience I had with support – and despite last contact with their snotty “Support” was 3 months ago, I’m still sure I’ll get my germanish domains moved away from them

I think that were all hassles… 100% of my country domain registration were more or less hasslish in the one or the other way… and about 50% of them are STILL NOT registered after weeks.

Hey, It’s No Wonder that Country TLDs are not so important – you cannot even buy most of them…

Ok – I’m off – gotta put my “sottoscritto” on that italian contract now

What is your experience getting country-TLD domains?

What TLDs do you deem important for your business?

“prefered partner lists” from Snapnames…

I must admit that the whole Snapnames buying process is crap… some of the domains I paid a week ago are still not accessible …

but then, I also got that domain reg’ed in 2002 with 2 .gov and 14 .edu backlinks – and it has a PR4

And I paid a stupid $9 for it…

Not sure why other people didn’t jump in on that… frankly I purchased a lot of domains – 64 to be precise – and ALL of them are years old, got PR, and many got .edu backlinks

Is this a hidden treasure?

What I still don’t get is that SOME domains get a new registraton date – which basically sucks

and others keep their cool 1996 reg-date…

I wonder why that happens… anyway… now I need to find good ways to develop, redirect those domains to make use of their linkpopularity while it’s fresh

Therefore the new public release #22 is a good reason to sum up the new features… and play with them – Lots of cool new features…

• IDN Support: Domain Research Tool now supports international domain names (IDNs). This is required for *Umlaut-Domains and domains in foreign character sets (like Japanese) …

This means that you’ll be able to load and scan international domain names just as easily as you scan regular domains. All IDN conversion is done in the background so that you never have to worry about converting from UTF8 to punycode. DRT is the only tool to offer integrated IDN support and a bulk IDN converter.

• Domain Typo Generator: You can generate hundreds to thousands of typos from other domains and keyword phrases. Generate typos in 250 TLDs and quickly check them for availability and typein score. a great addition as this feature was missing initially (but the existing domain name generator tools were already quite extensive, so this makes it a 99,99% afte 98,88% functionality required

• TLD .SE Whois/availability checking now works

• Dmoz and Yahoo directory scanning for domains now available. you can scan domains for Yahoo/Dmoz directory listings. an obviously useful feature!

• the new TLDs .BE, .GR, .DK zone files were added.

• Referer spoofing – the user can now set referer in HTML header when performing availability checks

• new Word Combinator feature in the Domain name generator – this feature allows you to combine primary and secondary keywords for your domain name checks…

• you have the ability to scan just keywords for popularity in Google and then
  - the ability to convert keyword results to domains.

• monitor various domain changes such as nameservers, IPs, through the new domain portfolio manager ( like a workbook for your interesting domains )

Wow… what a load of features…

and remember you can still download a free trail of the Domain Research Tool DRT and the MarketingFan promotion price is still active… so you can still save over $50 when buying thru my link compared to the MSRP price.

The DRT tool that I wrote about in January is going get a recurring fee license system and all new customers will have to pay a recurring fee in addition to the flat purchase price in the future. According to the company owner Luc L. the existing pricing model will remain same for only 2 weeks – and he wrote that to me on March 14 – that leaves not even a week left.

By purchasing now you will lock your membership in as a lifetime member and never have to pay a recurring fee.

Today I want to share an impressive new tool I found 2 weeks ago with you …
it was made for domain research and purchases



Yes, I hear you say – oh no – not another keyword generator combined with a WHO-Is Lookup… I love the keyword generator at whois.sc and it does not cost me anything.

Well I must admit I did think just like that before, until I saw an impressive list of features and a recommendation on the DNforum – the biggest domain professional community there is.

I am talking about the Domain Research Tool – DRT – available from Lezon Corporation at domainresearchtool.com

How to do convenient domain research with DRT

This tool is particularly interesting for all SEOs and affiliate marketers, because it combines a set of unique features I - up until now – only found separated in other tool.

• Find type-in domains using Overture keyword data – the Overture Digger allows for deep scanning of Overture based on domains generated from Overture keyword results.

• Find existing domains and developed sites listed in Google, MSN, YAHOO- based on their rankings for keywords you specify – can be used to find patterns between various domains, rankings and keywords.

• Of course the obvious keyword mixing generators from keywords, lists, existing domains, etc.etc. that such a tool needs

• Analyze the domains for their Alexa Rank, PageRank

• Analyze the domains for their Link Popularity in Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa

• Nice automatic functions like Auto-Appraise domains – setup your own value formula to get and idea of a domain's worth – or use the existing one
  #Send bulk offers on domains
  
  #Track offers, auctions, negotiations, purchases, sales.
  
  #Scheduler – Set domain alerts to go off at certain date and time.

• Check whois of over 100 TLDs – even all the country TLDs like Austria, Poland, Romania, .EU etc.etc. and even more exotic countries can be queried from one tool – THAT is convenience – let your machine work for your – not vice versa!

• Flexibility – the Domain Research Tool allows the user to configure almost every feature to match that user's needs. From thread settings, to filter settings to e-mail server settings and much more, all with a few clicks.

• Separated Scan and Watch Windows keep your important domains in a separate watch list so that you can monitor them constantly while allowing you to scan raw lists in the Scan window

• Filters – filter incredibly large domain lists and zone files and setup things like "only domains with keyword xy", max 10 chars long, etc.etc.

• One Click Export allows for exporting your scan or watch list into Excel, HTML, XML or text.

The following two sections explain some especially interesting features for you

Who else want's built-in support for 1000 proxies ???

This tool has a full multi proxy checker integrated – it checks for function and anonymity, so search engines won't ban you for the 1000s of queries you send automatically to their user interface.

Only working and anonymous proxies are used – and you can get 1000s of public open proxies – the hassle is, that they might go down during analysis… but DRT disabled proxies on the fly if the error rate reaches a specific limit.


Now you could even use this functionality ALONE to get a really clean and working proxy lists for your rank checkers, keyword researchers and other tools that don't offer this functionality!

How to take maximum advantage of D.R.T. Hosted features

That's what the owner and producer of the tool doesn't emphasize too much on his site

• they provide you with a hosted licensed zone files for .Com/.Net/.De/Co.UK – 100s of Megabytes to download with ALL the domains registered

• domain lists including expired, expiring, registrar-hold and redemption period allow you to quickly download and scan daily updated drop lists.

• they provide hosted SMTP for the bulk offers for the domains – let's you send out hundreds of offer mails

• the TURBO lookup – is a hosted WHOIS proxy – that can speed up lookup dramatically compared to the usual sluggish whois lookup

Why do I need a domain research tool? I'm not buying domains!

well, even if you don't buy a single domain you can

• find developed sites based on their keyword rankings and age and send offers to them

• monitor your existing domains for search engine stats

• use the great proxy scanner for your other tools

• do your overture keyword research with it – creating 100s and 1000s of keyword combinations with the integrated tools

What will this tool cost me?

The original price that you can get it on their website is $249.90

You can check that price by just visitng their normal site without my promo link at https://www.domainresearchtool.com/buy.htm

Well, after testing the tool for a while and talking to the company and it's owner Luc, I negotiated a promo price for my readers andd clients to offer you that
tool at

Anyway, you can download a trial that let's you test everything with 10 domains only for free…

And as soon as you decide to purchase at that great promo price, just use this link

Domain Research Tool DRT for $199.90 $129.90 Promo

This will allow you to order the tool at this steep discount, using credit cards of even Paypal, which works perfect – you'll get your serial number within seconds and can continue working with DRT after entering it into your trial installation – no extra setup binaries are required.

But remember, this promo will expire soon!

Update 02/14: there is a new version out that allows even faster domain-availability checking by simply trying a DNS resolve instead of a full and expensive WHOIS lookup – I love that great speed!

Everyday roughly 20,000 expired domains are available to purchase at any registrar. Many of these expired domain names have already been promoted by the previous owner. That means that they are linked by other websites, directories including Google, DMOZ or Yahoo and that with the purchase of such a domain you get it's traffic, link popularity in major search engines and existing PageRank.

Recycled-Traffic provides you with a browsable database of expired domains including the most valuable info PageRank.

For each domain in the text searchable index your get information about the link popularity, WHOIS data and expiry date. Additional options include a live check for domains that might interest you. That's especially valuable, because not all domains are checked all days… Actually I don't even know if once expired domains are re-checked after some days or weeks – have to ask the webmasters later…

Since I joined their service they updated the system to include the Google PageRank aswell as probably migrated to an own or new server… that means the creepy initial performance is gone and they are fast now!

Recycled-Traffic claims to be the only service of its kind that also includes listings of tlds like .cc .biz .nu and several foreign available domains with Yahoo directory listings (like .fr or .it I already found).

The free test drive is sort of a test mode, were you can play around with the UI, but get no valuable ranking info – that needs a sign up. But if you desire to improve your site stats I would give this a trial now. But don't expect domains higher than PR6 (highest page rank of a domain from .FR I have seen)

I have not yet ordered such a recycled domain, but will get a PR4 or PR5 in the next days to see if the PR lasts (or the directory links vanish)…