In computer news this week, 06/14/2001

In computer news this week, 06/05/2001

The Internet Domain Name Game, part 4. Some Games to avoid.

If the internet was assigned a motto, it should be "caveat emptor - (buyer beware)."

There are a lot of crooks on the internet, and a lot of people have lost their money on internet get rich schemes.

There are games and traps to avoid even when registering your internet domain name.

Last week we talked about how to search for and find a domain name for your company. We talked about making sure that the price you pay is for a 2 year registration period, not just a low price for a 1 year period.

Another question to ask might be "Is this company an accredited registrar?" To find out, go to icann.org and check the list of accredited registrars. Icann means The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the present authority. You will find the names of all the authorized companies who do internet domain name registration.

The authorized registrar will do a search to make sure your domain name is still available, and then properly register it. Once you've made sure you're buying a 2 year domain name registration from an authorized registrar, you can pay online via credit card, and usually within 72 hours the registration will be completed.

So now you have purchased the internet domain name acmefoods.net for 2 years for a fee of $ 70.00. Congratulations - now you can sit back and become an internet millionaire - in your dreams.....

All you have is the domain name. Now you have to find a place to put your website.

There are thousands of companies that will host your website. This means your website will actually be located on somebody else's computer that is connected to the internet. They provide the physical disk space and take care of the behind the scenes initial addressing that is needed to allow anyone in the world who types "www.acmefoods.net" into their browser to be able to find your actual site.

This can cost from $ 10 a month upwards to hundreds of dollars a month, depending on your needs and the complexity of your site. And this is an ongoing monthly expense for renting space. If you want to have an actual internet store, selling goods online and accepting credit cards, there's packages that start at an additional $ 50 a month and up with an initial $ 175 set up fee.

Then on top of all this, you have to have internet access through an internet service provider, and email addresses, which might be from $ 20 upward a month.

And on top of this there are traffic allowance fees. This measures that amount of data transfer for your site. If you exceed the built-in amount, you pay more.

And then of course you have to pay web site developers to create your website, and to maintain it. Maybe you could do that, maybe someone in your company could do this, who ever it is, it's still going to cost money. And one of the big hidden costs of websites is the maintainance. With internet trends changing so fast, if you don't keep your site attractive and up to date, you won't get visitors.

And then of course you have to register your site with all the search engines and publicize it, and that's still more cost.

What if you had an internet site, and nobody came.? It happens, believe me.

Next week on the internet domain name game, other names and games.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 624-7230