Tag Archives ⇒ Domains

New Domain TLDs – A Real Possibility for Q1 2013

· Brandon Hann

Back in June, it was announced that ICANN revealed a list of over a thousand new domain gTLDs (generic top level domain) could be released to the internet sometimes in early 2013. For those that don’t know, ICANN is the governing body that presides over and from time to time, they take in applications from companies and individuals alike who wish to see a new (and hopefully functional) domain TLD put out on the market.

The most recent addition to this namespace was the .XXX domain. After months of back and forth wrangling, the new domain extension was finally put into action with a goal of being able to separate adult websites from the rest. This new extension met with criticism by those who compete in the industry because many people felt that a new extension does nothing but pollute it. Those who supported the initiative said it would be much easier for network admins to block entire domain names at the extension level rather than trying to pin down individual websites.

Some of the TLDs expected to be approved are .BLOG, .WEB, .LOL, .ONLINE and .SHOP. If these and others are approved, it will change the internet namespace forever. As it is, there are over 200 TLDs available for registration, but most of them are just 2-character designators created for each country in the world. Some countries have been successful at selling domains by promoting their use for specific niche markets to English-speaking countries such as what Tuvalu did with .TV, Montenegro did with .ME and the Federated States of Micronesia did with .FM. Less than successful pitches came from [Western] Samoa with .WS (promoted as “Web Site”), Laos with .LA (promoted as “Los Angeles”) and the Democratic Republic of Congo with .CD (promoted as “compact disc”).

The new TLDs will completely change the conventional thought process behind the registration of domain names. When domains first came out, there was an attempt to separate commercial (.COM) companies, networks (.NET) and organizations (.ORG), but shortly after, the domain space was pretty much opened to anyone with the money to cover the registration costs. With new TLDs like .BLOG and .SHOP, the attempt to sort the web is back. However, once again, there are no regulations in place that would keep people from registering a .BLOG domain and putting an adult website there.

Each proposed domain that gets approved can either be hoarded for private use or be used to sell second-level domains to consumers. For example, if Google wins the rights to .BLOG, they can decide to allow users to register new domains such as MYAWESOME.BLOG or TECHNOLOGY.BLOG or just keep it for themselves. It’s only $25,000 annually for Google to own .BLOG!!

My Thoughts

Google gTLD listThe most interesting part about this whole process is that every application that was sent to ICANN carried with it a $185,000 fee just to have the TLD evaluated! In the case of Google, they have applied for over 100 TLDs! I hope they get a few approved because I’d love to set up some new websites under the .BLOG domain.

But at the same time, I think that releasing so many TLDs at one time would seriously dilute the spectrum. I imagine myself as the owner of Ledfrog.com and having to register over 2,000 variants just to lock down my name at every possible corner of the web!

This also doesn’t bode well for those who make money from registering domain names and selling them to people months or even years down the road for a hefty markup. Right now something like BUSINESS.COM is worth millions to the right person, but add in over 2,000 other versions of it and people might be more inclined to settle for a lesser known extension just to save the money.

Also, what’s the point of some of these requests? Feel free to look over the entire list (including multiple submissions for the same domain) and please tell me what we need .BOO for? Or how about .CHK? I understand that many companies and corporations are submitting TLDs to completely wipe out the need for having to type in any “dot” after their name like with Canon trying to get the TLD .CANON, but seriously…I think this is going a little too far.

However, that hasn’t stopped the speculating guy in me! I found out that at least one company is making an attempt to pre-order new TLD domains free of charge. Of course there are no guarantees, but they say their success rate for acquiring domains for the .XXX extension was about 47%. If anything, placing a free pre-order will allow you to stay informed of the changes coming (if and when) as well as possibly even being able to to secure a nice second-level domain that you haven’t been able to get in the .COM world. To check out the pre-order system, visit UnitedDomains.com.

Multiple WordPress Multi-User Installations

· Brandon Hann

I’ve scoured the Internet looking for the answer to this question and I have found it. The question was, can you you install multiple WordPressMU blogs and have them run under one webhost. The short answer is no. However, as with most things in the online world, it is possible with the right “tool”.

If you’re wondering why I would want to have two separate installs of this, it’s because I have more than one client on my web server, each of which are running their own sites. This is fine for most applications, but when you start dabbling in things like SSL certificates and wildcard sub-domains, that’s when the trouble starts. These are just two items that require their own IP address.

One of my clients would like to run multiple blogs on his WordPress Network, but because I’m already doing that for Ledfrog.com, I’m essentially blocking him from doing so. This is because Ledfrog.com is the main domain on my server and any changes utilizing different ports such as 443 for SSL certificates or services like WordPressMU that use wildcard sub-domains have to go through the server’s IP address and since this IP is assigned to my domain, his will not work.

The way WordPressMU works is once you convert your WordPress install into a network, you have the ability to add new sites to it. These sites utilize all of the main structure of the original WordPress installation while creating a separate blog directory inside the wp-content folder to store all of that blog’s specific files such as media uploads and so forth. Plugins and theme are then made available to all sites provided that you (the network admin) have made them available. The advantages here are that you no longer have to install a whole new copy of WordPress, create a new database, download all the same themes and plugins or manage different webhost accounts every time you want to start a new blog. Everything except the media files are shared. You can imagine how much faster updates are too!

Anyway, to make this happen, you need to create a wildcard sub-domain ‘A’ record in your DNS server that points *.yourdomain.com to your server’s IP address. This is needed because when you create a new site on your network, a virtual subdomain is created. An example of this is my personal blog site, Ledfrog.me. When I created it in my network, I was actually creating me.ledfrog.com.

The real magic happens with a feature called Domain Mapping. This is where you can map a real domain (provided it’s been added to your DNS server) to any virtual WordPress site you have created. Using the same example, I was able to map the domain Ledfrog.me to my virtual blog, me.ledfrog.com, so when you access either of those URLs, you’ll wind up at Ledfrog.me. Make sense?!

WordPressMU Domain Mapping

So all this is fine and dandy when you’re working with one server, one IP address and one main domain, but in my case, another client of mine would like to create his own network. The problems begin when you try to create the wildcard sub-domain. While doing this is possible and serves a valuable function—allowing him to create his own real sub-domains—it does nothing for WordPressMU!

I’ve contacted my webhost, I’ve ran all over Google and even tried Bing out for the first time looking for some help with this and eo far I’ve found two answers. First, I keep getting sent to sets of instructions that allow you use vhost.conf files in your client’s vhost container to allow the use of a wildcard sub-domain. This process basically has you creating a conf file that you then configure into Apache to tell the server that you want it to be included into the configuration for that site. It’s great for adding site-specific features to httpd.conf without affecting your whole server.

The second answer I get is the correct one. You can’t use WordPressMU on two separate installations without an additional static IP address! To verify this, all you have to do is install it on another client on your same server and watch what happens when you try to access one of the the virtual blog sites. Here’s what it does:

Domain1.com is the main domain attached to the server’s ONLY IP address.
site2.domain1.com is a virtual blog site created inside the WordPressMU installation.
site2.com is the domain that is mapped to the sub-domain above.
If you access site2.com, you are really only looking at site2.domain1.com.

Domain2.com is in another client’s hosting account on the same server and same IP address.
site2.domain2.com is a virtual blog that’s created inside the WordPressMU installation.
If you access site2.domain2.com, you are redirected to Domain1.com with an error about registrations being closed.

The reason for that is because site2.domain2.com is being read as a sub-domain of Domain1.com!!

I hope you’re not confused. More so, I hope someone who reads this is laughing their head off because they know the way around all this. Oh and by the way, I’m not try to escape having to purchase a separate IP address. It’s just that my host won’t sell me one without a valid reason and apparently this doesn’t count because they said it’s possible to use one address!

DomainMonkeys.com

· Brandon Hann

I’ve dealt with my share of registrars in the past, but this one is by far the strangest. I’m writing this blog entry because I want to share my experience with the transferring of a domain I have registered with them while the process is going on to shed some light on any issues that occur for your future knowledge.

First off, I used SnapNames.com to acquire my full name as a domain so I can redirect it to this site. Since SnapNames is a domain backordering service, it needs to utilize many registrars in order to win the backorder race from other services like it. Because of this, any domain you ‘win’ from SnapNames will have been registered at a random registrar and then login details will be emailed to you in order to manage the domain.

The problems arise when you use one registrar for all your domains and you now have this new domain somewhere out there in a space that might not allow the same controls as your preferred registrar. The other problem is that you can’t transfer a domain until it’s been at the current registrar for 60 days.

Anyway, SnapNames registered my new domain over at DomainMonkeys.com and I must say that I’m surprised this company gets any business with the way it’s run and the lack of services and features that you can use on your domains. Regardless, I want my new domain in my GoDaddy account and on Sunday (1-10) I placed a transfer order there. In the past, all you needed to do was unlock the domain from the losing registrar and then retrieve the transfer codes to input into the site, but now, you have to wait for the “Transfer Concierge” to do things.

So I wait. And what happens? Well, because DomainMonkeys’ whois server is not using the standard port 80, no other whois servers can access it and therefore appears down. Now I have to wait for some type of human interaction on GoDaddy’s part to move this thing along.

As of this writing, I’m stuck of step 1 of 4 and the actual message I’m getting is:

Step 1: Initiate
Transfer is waiting for the Transfer Concierge to address a whois data problem. We were unable to get the whois data from the losing registrar. The Transfer Concierge will resolve this issue.
Recommended Action:
No customer action is required at this time.

I’ve already unlocked the domain and have even requested the authorization code, but since I can’t input it, I’m stuck waiting!

UPDATE – Jan 16, 2010

A couple days ago, I was moved up to step 3 which is the Accept or Decline step and normally when you receive an email from the losing registrar that someone is trying to transfer your domain away. At this point you can allow it or not. This is all contingent on two things: 1, the domain is not in “transfer lock” status and 2, you have the correct email address set for the admin contact. I have satisfied both of these requirements. I have the domain in “ok” status and is ready for transfer and I also have the right admin email address.

Easy enough, right? I should have been transferred by now. But no, I’m still waiting for that accept/reject email and there’s no way to force it through at DomainMonkeys.com! So, back at GoDaddy, it says that if the domain transfer is not accepted or rejected within 5 days, the transfer will proceed.

Well it looks like after about 7 days after everything was started, the domain is now resting comfortably in my GoDaddy account. I’m feel much better now.

Review of DomainMonkeys.com

If the first indicator of their professionalism didn’t come from the fact that their name contains the word “monkeys” in it, then maybe a quick look at their homepage did the trick. Here’s a screenshot as of today (Jan 18th, 2010):

DomainMonkeys.com homepage

The rule is and always has been, never judge a book by its cover, but this website is lacking everything but the cover. First off, my impression is that this company is simply one of the hundreds, if not thousands of ‘dummy’ registrars setup by sites like SnapNames.com, Pool.com and whoever else in an effort to add more outlets to snap up all the deleting domains coming out each day. I came to this conclusion because I discovered this site after a successful auction with SnapNames. They also don’t sell any other services or even try to offer you any type of support.

Down to the nitty gritty. There’s five links on the homepage. There’s one for the Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, WHOIS, Support and my favorite: Domain Updates. The first three require no explanation so we’ll start with the support page. It’s a very basic form that you have to manually fill out completely and this is also where you can apparently order new domains, although I wouldn’t recommend it because I can only guess as to where you’re supposed to type in your credit card number. And even after I guessed, I’d probably still be wrong. They do have a support number located at a 303 area code, but I get the feeling that I’d be dialing a rotary phone sitting on a tv tray in someone’s living room.

Updating your domain for those of you who use sites like GoDaddy, Register.com, Moniker, etc. is fairly an easy process and these days, you can probably add all sorts of free services to spice up your cool domain. The best part about DomainMonkeys’ domain update page is the login requirements!

As an example, say your domain is: LEDFROG.COM, your email is: nothing@nothing.com and your password is: passw0rd. This is how you login:

You click on the Update link from the homepage and you’re taken here:

DomainMonkeys.com Login page

In the account verification box, you are to type in this string: ledfrog.comnothing@nothing.compassw0rd

No joke. That’s the login. All three. All together. No spaces. Plain text.

…

Once you’re in, you’re golden until you want to transfer your domain to someone else. More on this later as the developments of my own transfer unfold!

Final decision: I will never use DomainMonkeys to register any new domains and I’m likely to never deal with them again unless I’m forced to by SnapNames.