A domain is the name of the online presence of your business, while buying a pre-existing name can help you improve your business and set up a personalized email address dedicated to the website. However, you need to ensure the credibility of the domain before buying it to ensure that you get a genuine domain. Following are a few tips and precautions to be considered before buying a domain name for your website.
Necessary checks for domain name background
Before buying any domain name, it is vital to make sure that the background record of the site is clean. You can perform free checks for the same using several online tools as described below.
1. Internet Archive Wayback Machine: This tool records the shots of web pages, when they change, thus providing a complete detail of earlier content hosted and looks of the domain. This check helps you keep a distance from hate and porn sites.
2. Dogpile: This tool also provides information about the history of the domain, including the previous content and owners. This tool performs an extensive search on all the search engines concurrently, which must be performed using “www” and without using “www” for better research.
3. Adsense Sandbox: Another important point to be verified for a domain name, before buying it is that Google hasn’t banned the domain. So, you should open the Adsense sandbox and enter the URL to check whether the domain is banned or not. A banned URL won’t show any Google Ads available for the same.
4. Yahoo! Site Explorer: This tool works along with Google link: operator and Technorati Search to provide a list of all the web pages that the domain is linked to. Using this tool is beneficial to make sure that the domain that you are planning to purchase isn’t linked to any bad neighborhood.
Additional Tips
Apart from using above mentioned tools, there are some other tips that need to be considered before making any deal for a domain name.
- Bargain with the broker: Bargaining is an effective tip to get the same domain at a reduced cost. This helps you save some money on your pocket as a broker might offer a lower price after some discount for the domain name.
- Don’t ask for feedback publicly: You might be planning to confirm the price on a public forum, but that might let you lose the deal to some other person interested in the same. Or you could get a wrong guidance from a forum member supporting the domain owner.
- Research for the reseller: Search on Google for online reviews and feedback about the reseller to confirm that you are dealing with a genuine dealer.
- Prefer phone over email: Conversation with the domain owner should be made over the phone, rather than email, especially when you reside in a different time zone.
- Copyright/Trademark: Some domains that contain copyrighted names like Dell/Microsoft should be avoided, since their lawyers might ask you in a legal manner to give them the domain ownership.
With the help of above guide, you can get a dependable domain from a reliable reseller at an affordable price, which you can use to offer online services.
