GoDaddy lets you assign AccountExec who can manage the domains you want them to based on the roles you assign them. Here’s how it will work.

1. Create folders of domains – Assign as many as domains you want and even include a domain in multiple folders. The role of the AccountExec works at the folder level, so assign all the domains to a folder that you want someone to manage for you.
2. Choose the person or people you want to mange your domains. Send an email invitation to them.
3. As soon as the person accepts the invitation, assign them roles for the folders you have created.

A list of possible roles that you can assign to people is as follows:

Read Only – Your AccountExec can view entrusted domains, but cannot make modifications.
Admin – Your AccountExec can assume all defined roles defined for the entrusted resources.
Contacts – Your AccountExec can modify contact information for the entrusted domains as well as email forwarding for third level .NAME domains and Nexus information for .US domains.
Nameservers – Your AccountExec can modify nameserver information for the entrusted domains.
Auto Renew – Your AccountExec can set whether or not entrusted domains auto renew upon expiration.
Cancel – Your AccountExec can cancel the entrusted domains.
Hosts – Your AccountExec can manage hosts for the entrusted domains.
Domain Forwarding – Your AccountExec can manage domain forwarding settings for the entrusted domains.

This is a very nice feature that people with a lot of registered domains will find useful. How do you manage your domains that are registered with other domain registrars?

Don’t just sit there waiting for a notice to arrive in your mailbox, act now and find out if someone has already registered your company’s name as a trademark or a service mark for their use.

How to find if a trademark is already registered?

Begin searching for trademark rights at Trademark Electronic Search System of United States Patent and Trademark Office for free. In case you don’t have Internet facility, you may also conduct a trademark search by visiting the Trademark Public Search Library near your location. Also, certain information may be searched at a Patent and Trademark Depository Library near you. You can also take the help of your attorney to this task.

How to register your mark as a trademark?

Filing a trademark application is easy. You may file your trademark application online using the Trademark Electronic Application System.

What if the name is already registered as a trademark?

You don’t have many options in that case. You can either change the name of your company or consult your attorney for more options that you might have. I doubt if even your attorney could suggest your something other than using a different mark but there could be some possibility you may want to explore.

So, don’t wait! First search through the database and if your mark is not registered then file a trademark application at the earliest. It will save you from a lot of trouble later. Trust me!
[tags]Hosting, Internet, Trademark[/tags]

Most of the domain names that registered and hosted have nameserver entries assigned to them by either the domain registrar or the company that is hosting the domain. Almost every company ensures that the primary and secondary nameserver addresses are on two different networks so as to provide redundancy in case the primary goes down. But how effective is this strategy? Let’s look at two hosting scenarios and determine what happens when name servers fails.

This will NOT work even when primary or secondary are available.

A domain is hosted on a server and has two name server entries on two different networks. The server goes down, the domain is no longer reachable. Why? – Because there is a single point of failure. Got it?

This will NOT work when primary name server is down but secondary nameserver is available.

A domain is hosted on two servers in two different networks, primary nameserver points to the server in first network and secondary nameserver points to the second server in a different network. The first server goes down, the domain still points to first server. Your site is not reachable. Why? – Even though you have two nameserver entries on two different network, there is no domain failover service or mechanism used.

So what do you do to ensure that your website is always available?

Employ a DNS failover service that will watch your primary server and when it goes down, the dns failover service will automatically forward incoming traffic to the second server. Yes, the best strategy would be to maintain the exact copy of your website on two different servers in two different networks.

So, don’t leave your site under the assumption that if the primary nameserver will go down, your site will still be reachable. We recommend that you talk to your hosting company and get to know the facts about the availability of your nameservers and website. Goodluck!

According to their communication, Verisign’s fee for each annual increment of new domain name registration, renewal and transfer of a .COM domain from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another will be $6.42. Similarly, their fee for each annual increment of new domain name registration, renewal and transfer of a .NET domain from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another will be $3.85. Verisign’s fee excludes the ICANN fee charged with each domain name registration, renewal and transfer.

By the way, domain names once used to cost $100 USD per annum, then came down to $70 and now to whatever it costs today. Thanks to registrars like GoDaddy because of whom the prices have come down dramatically.

» Source: [Techcrunch]

Over 95% of the domains that I own and others that I manage on behalf of my friends and clients are registered with GoDaddy and one feature that I want to highlight is their ‘Domain Expiration Notice‘ email that I start receiving as soon as the domain nears its renewal time. The first expiration notice email shows up 90 days before the domain will expire, the second email before 60 days, the third one shows up before 30 days and the final one shows up before 15 days of expiry date. This pretty much makes me aware of the fact that my domains are going to expire very soon, and since I am receiving the notices in advance it also helps me plan my budget in case there are plenty of domains to renew during same time.

Receiving such expiry notices has many advantages. A quick run down of some of them are:

• Your domain is safe – Since you now know that your domain(s) will expire, you will renew and not lose them to someone who might be watching your domain name(s) for grabbing them up.
• Renew your domain or don’t – You may have some domains registered since long for some plans that you had but you are no longer interested in using them. In such case you may simply cancel the domain or prevent them from auto renewing. This saves you lot of money if you have a lot of domains registered.
• Your business is always online – Since you will not forget to renew your domain, your business will always be available to its customers.

Does you domain registrar has this feature? If not, you should get yourself some domain monitoring service or transfer your domain to a registrar who offers this feature. But then that’s not the only feature for which you will transfer your domain, look for other features too before you make the decision. Point is to have the domain active and keep the business running.