• Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work.

    To date we have looked at most of the types of country specific traffic available to webmasters every day and, more importantly, which niches they convert on. In this article we will finish up our look at the foreign traffic and how profitable it can be with the final main country on the net – China.

    Chinese Adult Surfers – Quick Analysis.

    As with Japanese traffic, most webmasters seem to think that Chinese speaking adult surfers are pretty worthless when it comes to buying porn memberships and this is true – If you do not know what niches to offer your Chinese surfers that said, we found some interesting results given the three (3) month test we had on our Chinese traffic and, the results we observed might just make you change your mind about sending the Chinese surfers you get to your sites off to traffic trades.

    Chinese Porn Surfers – The Niches.

    Because we knew relatively little about the Chinese traffic we had on our sites we decided that, rather send it to a specific language hub site we would send it to our main hub page and, allow the Chinese surfers to filter themselves through to the sites that interested them on their own, to our surprise, only 40% of the traffic we knew was Chinese chose to filter itself to a Chinese specific language hub site, the remainder, choosing to go through our main English hub site.

    Fetish.

    Across all of the niches we offered the surfers, the Fetish niche was the one that converted most consistently month after month and, more than converted, actually retained members once they had signed up to the paysites.

    Gay.

    Unlike the traffic we had that was Japanese a lot of the Chinese traffic that hit our site decided to visit the Gay niche paysites we had to offer them and, there was less than 10% difference between the Fetish and Gay signups we observed month after month. Quite a difference when compared to surfers from Japan and, a pleasant one at that.

    Amateur.

    Specifically teen amateur niche sites or, at least sites that had amateur looking teen modes on the tours also did well on our Chinese traffic however, the conversion ratios for the recurring programs didn’t do as well as what we had expected with most memberships being cancelled within 2 months. Non the less, the Chinese surfers did join and most of them re-billed in excess of 1 month before leaving the site.

    Teen.

    As mentioned above, it would appear that Chinese porn surfers are looking for teen niches again though, the teen paysites we used featured amateur looking teens prominently on the pages so whether this was a choice on the surfers part to join the teen sites or, because we only offered amateur looking teen paysites isn’t known.

    Asian.

    Unlike Japanese surfers, Chinese surfers also joined the Asian niches that were offered up to them and, surprisingly enough, we noticed more signups to English Asian sites than localized Chinese pay sites.

    Chinese Adult Surfers – The Results.

    Overall we were very impressed with how the Chinese traffic we had flowing through our sites both acted and, converted on the sites that we offered them to join, especially since the Japanese traffic we had didn’t seem to like the gay niche sites yet Chinese traffic worked wonderfully on exactly the same gay niche pay sites.

    Across the board I think a revisit of Chinese traffic is needed with more options on our part when it comes to the teen and amateur niches especially just to see if the results we experienced thus far were unique or, are truly indicative of how the Chinese surfer navigates and joins pay sites.

    Article written by Lee

  • Converting Italian Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    Continuing with our article series of country specific traffic and which niches work for the various global markets in this article we will take a look at some of the most complicated traffic to ‘work’ Italian Adult Surfers. The reason I say most complicated is for the simple reason that, to date there are very few Italian paysites this makes it harder for us as webmasters to tap into these markets especially if we ourselves, do not know what the Italian surfer is after. That said, lets get on with the article.

    Italian Traffic – Quick Analysis.

    As already mentioned surfers from Italy are hard to pre-qualify given that there are very few sites catering to this European market at the present time, this means that there are no sources of background information to look at or, statistical analysis’s available from other paysites.

    Italian Adult Surfers – The Niches.

    For one of the most affluent international markets going it comes as a surprise to see that there are almost no localized pay sites for the Italian market this made our initial filtering of the Italian traffic much harder opting for translated free sites over paysite tour pages to send the traffic to itself then, once they hit the free sites either choosing to send them back into our central hub or, to the US version pay site of the niche free site they were visiting. That said here are the results from the previous 3 (three) months of traffic that we observed.

    Ebony.

    The Ebony niche would appear to be the most consistent converting niche on Italian traffic however, given that almost all of the niches we used on the Italian surfers were quite evenly spread for sales (Ebony was only 5 sales in front) this, I am sure is not a good indicator and, likewise with the Japanese and Chinese traffic, this is an area of international adult marketing that should ideally be re-visited at a later day.

    For Women.

    Even more surprising than the fact there are very few localized paysites for Italy was the fact that the ‘For Women’ niche converted just as well as the other niches we used for our Italian traffic, of course, this at first would seem to indicate that the vast majority of surfers we had on our sites from Italy were female however, as we all know, the Straight male niche is big in gay so, there is a chance the sales we got from our Italian traffic to the For Women niche paysites we used were equally male and female.

    Softcore General.

    (Softcore Adult Tours) The other strange thing we noticed was that paysites we offered to our Italian surfers that were Hardcore in nature didn’t convert as well as the paysites that had softcore tours, this would lend itself to the fact that Italian porn surfers are not looking for hardcore – quite different to most other country traffic sources.

    Tranny.

    The transsexual niche paysites that we offered to the Italian surfers also had some good results again, this is strange given that almost every other countries surfer we sent to a tranny site didn’t convert. One other thing that comes up with this and, given the fact that the for women niche paysites we used had good results would be that perhaps the Italian surfers are interested in the more obscure niches available on the adult internet.

    Italian Adult Traffic – An Overview.

    All in all, as stated at the beginning of this article the Italian surfers would certainly appear at first glance to be more varied and obscure in their sexual preferences than other countries whom appear to have clear cut, well defined ‘types’ of site that interest them.

    I think as mentioned above Italian traffic needs to be looked at in more depth in a future article as, to my surprise the traffic didn’t work on the niches that previously converted well for the same amounts and quality of traffic.

    Article written by Lee

  • Online Dating Programs – Working The Adult Angle

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

    As the industry starts to feel the effects over the coming months from the whole Visa situation the one thing that, at present seems to be true of the adult industry is that more and more webmaster/companies are looking to increase their revenues by utilizing mainstream sponsors on their sites. However in addition to this, the adult dating program appears to have been overlooked at least up until now.

    Online Dating Sites – The Options.

    There are actually a few good online personals sites available for adult webmasters to promote ranging from Love At First Click through the Advertising Revenue Service program to specific dating sites such as Match.com and Date.com. One thing is overwhelmingly consistent however regardless of which sponsor you use for your dating traffic, they all have a relatively low payout when compared to the ‘norm’ in adult sites with payouts ranging from $1 to $5 per signup.

    Marketing Dating Sites.

    So how should webmasters market dating sites in conjunction with their current streams of traffic, this is actually a lot easier than you may think for example, almost everyone has an exit link on their free sites, you could utilize this exit link to send traffic to a dating affiliate program in fact, you could also utilize a dating affiliate program on your exit consoles or even on TGP galleries instead of pay sites. The opportunities for you to make money by placing dating affiliate program banners on your web pages are virtually endless.

    Online Personals – Sales Techniques.

    When selling online dating sites there are, in addition to the abundant methods of generating the traffic, many different methods of generating your marketing speech to the surfers, you should ideally try a selection of methods on your sites to find out exactly which method works best for you. As an example of this, if you are using a dating program on a softcore site, you might want to try a hardcore approach to selling your dating sponsor in much the same way as you would sell a hardcore pay site except not as highly graphic. In comparison, if you have a TGP gallery you may like to tell your surfer that rather than looking at sex, they might actually be able to get sex for a change. The ways in which you can entice your surfers to your dating affiliate program are virtually limitless.

    Marketing Dating Sites – An Overview.

    Whether you are already using or are planning to use dating sites, the one thing you must do is ensure that you choose wisely not only the words for selling the site to your surfer but also the placement of the promotional material, a well placed text link can have a higher impact on your overall sales than a badly placed banner and well, the same is true in reverse, find out where you are missing out on opportunities to upsell your surfers to an online dating site.

    Article written by Lee

  • The Web Safe Color Palette

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    The “Web Safe” palette is a bit controversial. It is a set of 216 colors that are, supposedly, guaranteed to appear as intended on all graphical displays when used in HTML, CSS, and images embedded in Web pages. Many Web developers believe that sticking to these colors is one of the holiest commandments in the Web design scripture.

    This was mostly a concern when most computers had 8-bit color displays; these days, most people run at 16-bit or 24-bit color. Although these bit-depths render the Web Safe palette pointless, dithering and quantification bugs in browsers and operating systems still cause problems in 16-bit displays (16-bit display, also known as “High Color” mode or “Thousands of Colors,” is generally problematic). Extensive testing has led to a new palette, called “Really Safe,” whose colors are guaranteed to appear correctly on all displays and all browsers.

    If you use different colors than these, you might see images and backgrounds of the same color appear at a slightly different tint, so that a “box” will be visible around them if the background extends beyond the image’s edges.

    Below is the table of ‘Web Safe’ and ‘Really Safe’ colors, you will see some of the color hex codes are in red, these are ‘Really Safe’ colors.

    Code Color Code Color Code Color Code Color Code Color Code Color
    000000 000033 000066 000099 0000cc 0000FF
    003300 003333 003366 003399 0033cc 0033ff
    006600 006633 006666 006699 0066cc 0066ff
    009900 009933 009966 009999 0099cc 0099ff
    00cc00 00cc33 00cc66 00cc99 00cccc 00ccff
    00FF00 00ff33 00FF66 00ff99 00FFCC 00FFFF
    330000 330033 330066 330099 3300cc 3300ff
    333300 333333 333366 333399 3333cc 3333ff
    336600 336633 336666 336699 3366cc 3366ff
    339900 339933 339966 339999 3399cc 3399ff
    33cc00 33cc33 33cc66 33cc99 33cccc 33ccff
    33ff00 33FF33 33FF66 33ff99 33FFCC 33FFFF
    660000 660033 660066 660099 6600cc 6600ff
    663300 663333 663366 663399 6633cc 6633ff
    666600 666633 666666 666699 6666cc 6666ff
    669900 669933 669966 669999 6699cc 6699ff
    66cc00 66cc33 66cc66 66cc99 66cccc 66ccff
    66FF00 66FF33 66ff66 66ff99 66ffcc 66FFFF
    990000 990033 990066 990099 9900cc 9900ff
    993300 993333 993366 993399 9933cc 9933ff
    996600 996633 996666 996699 9966cc 9966ff
    999900 999933 999966 999999 9999cc 9999ff
    99cc00 99cc33 99cc66 99cc99 99cccc 99ccff
    99ff00 99ff33 99ff66 99ff99 99ffcc 99ffff
    cc0000 cc0033 cc0066 cc0099 cc00cc cc00ff
    cc3300 cc3333 cc3366 cc3399 cc33cc cc33ff
    cc6600 cc6633 cc6666 cc6699 cc66cc cc66ff
    cc9900 cc9933 cc9966 cc9999 cc99cc cc99ff
    cccc00 cccc33 cccc66 cccc99 cccccc ccccff
    ccff00 ccff33 CCFF66 ccff99 ccffcc ccffff
    FF0000 FF0033 ff0066 ff0099 ff00cc FF00FF
    ff3300 ff3333 ff3366 ff3399 ff33cc ff33ff
    ff6600 ff6633 ff6666 ff6699 ff66cc ff66ff
    ff9900 ff9933 ff9966 ff9999 ff99cc ff99ff
    ffcc00 ffcc33 ffcc66 ffcc99 ffcccc ffccff
    FFFF00 FFFF33 FFFF66 ffff99 ffffcc FFFFFF

    Hopefully, you will find a use for the two different color palettes that are now available and, you can begin designing for your surfers, regardless of which browser they use.

    Article written by Lee

  • Maximizing Your Profit Potential – Upsells

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

    We all know the reason why pay sites have upsells inside them, to make more money so, the past few weeks I have been ‘experimenting’ with the same type of strategy the pay sites use and, to my surprise, actually found out you can make quite a nice amount of additional income by offering your surfers products or services other than porn!

    Now, this may come as a shock to many but, when you build a free site, TGP Gallery, AVS site etc you can use non adult products on them.

    I have found the following work well for the various different types of site:

    Free Sites.

    Dating Services such as http://www.oscardate.com , http://www.adultfriendfinder.com, etc etc.

    Video Stores such as http://www.mallcom.com and http://www.moviemountain.com.

    Sex Toys such as http://www.gayadultshopping.com and http://www.mallcom.com (Mallcom sells toys and videos)

    Also, to my surprise, search engines have done really well on our traffic. Where we would usually use a text link I SSI’d some files and included some text files going directly to a variety of niches earning me in excess of $0.40 per click in some instances!!

    AVS Sites.

    Dating Services like those mentioned above e have found have done reasonably well however, for some reason not as well as they did on the free sites, you would think that they should do better than on free sites so I guess it is something wrong with my marketing, either way, we just plugged a link to one of our dating affiliates and, sure enough made some $$$ from them.

    Penis Enlargement programs did VERY well inside our AVS sites again, all we did was place a simple text link with ‘enlarge your penis’ for the text and, surprisingly we made a few good sales from that.

    We also integrated our own little MallCom store front on its own domain and have been sending traffic to that and, again, the results have been reasonable.

    TGP Galleries.

    To my surprise, the most profitable thing that we have tested on our TGP Galleries is again, Penis Enlargement type programs, Viagra sales from http://www.kwikmed.com have been doing well the last few weeks and we even had a rebill already!

    One thing that I didn’t expect to work well that did was email collection, in fact, after just 10 days we already have 95 email addresses purely from our TGP Galleries. These emails will be used further in time to send out our newsletter and hopefully make some recurring sales from them.

    I guess the point of this was to let you know you can use alternatives to your adult orientated sponsors on any type of site you build and make a profit from them.

    Anyway, I’m off to do some more testing, I have found a nice casino sponsor imp going to send a few days of traffic to.

    Article written by Lee

  • 10 Killer Advertising Sentences

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

    10 Killer Advertising Sentences.

    Tell your readers what they are probably thinking, feeling or doing as they read your ad copy. This strategy will usually trigger their own subconscious mind to bring out these feelings or actions.

    You can add these sentences into any ad copy. You may have to change one or two words so it relates more to the product or service you’re selling.

    1. As you keep reading this ad copy, you are feeling more and more compelled to experience all the benefits of our product.

    2. The more you understand just how valuable our product could be to your life, the less you think about delaying this important purchase.

    3. After you read this short ad you will feel like your problems are almost completely solved, all you will have to do is order.

    4. As you’re skimming through this, you’re beginning to think you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying out our product.

    5. As you’re scanning over this ad copy, you are beginning to imagine using our product and enjoying all the benefits it brings.

    6. The more you keep reading our ad the more you feel it would be a waste to let this opportunity slip by.

    7. The more you review our ad the more you begin to find yourself getting very excited about our product and starting to feel the urge to buy now.

    8. You don’t know it yet but, at the conclusion of this ad, you will feel driven to order and experience all the benefits of our product.

    9. You don’t realize it yet but, in a few short minutes you’ll realize that you can’t put off this vital purchase and then you’ll be yanking out your credit card.

    10. As every word you read travels from this ad to your brain, you start to understand just how much our product could benefit your life.

    I hope this article has given you some insight as to how we, as webmasters, can actually ‘manipulate’ the surfer into doing what we want them to and, ultimately, into making us money.

    Article written by Lee.

  • Fighting Back Against Computer Viruses

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

    Only 10 years ago, the only way that a virus could have infected your computer was through you physically putting a floppy disk into your hard drive and running the program file that initiated the virus however, today’s viruses have become more complex in how they operate and, can spread like wild fire if they are not recognized as a virus doing damage not only to your computer but that of your associates and peers.

    So how do we minimize the risk of virus infection on our computers which, lets face it, for the Adult Webmaster are our livelihood and, need to be protected at all cost. This is what we will take a brief look at in this article, how to minimize the risk of getting a computer virus and, heaven forbid, how to deal with a virus if you actually have one on your machine already.

    Computer Viruses – A Little History.

    1981 – The first widely accepted computer virus is recognized. The ‘Elk Cloner’ virus was spread through floppy disks and, whilst by today’s standards, it was not a high risk virus it, non the less was still a virus, in fact, all this first virus did was to display a message on your computer screen.

    1991 – The ‘Tequila’ virus was the first recognized ‘polymorphic virus’ meaning, it was the first virus which actually altered its state once on your machine in order to remain undetected.

    2001 – 2001 saw the spawn of several highly potent ‘worm’ orientated viruses from the ‘Gnuman’ virus, the ‘LogoLogic Worm’ and the famed (is that the right word?) ‘Nimda worm’. These ‘worms’ were the first of their kind to actually spread themselves across the World Wide Web through infecting users email clients (specifically Outlook Express) and sending itself to every email address the infected machine had in the address book.

    Virus Infections – Prevention Better Than Cure.

    So we now have a little background on the main viruses over the last 20 years we will take a look at the ways in which we can prevent viral infections on our computers after all, as the subtitle for this paragraph says, a prevention is far better than having to find a cure.

    Here are a few simple ways you can help to prevent the spread and infection of computer viruses.

    1) Install a good anti-virus software package on ALL of your computers, Norton and, Mcafee, both have some good products to aid you in preventing viral infections of your PC. Also, you should ensure the software package you do install has updated virus definitions, a new virus is created almost every week so you need to ensure your software keeps up-to-date on the latest infections.

    2) Scan any and all email attachments you receive, irrespective of whether you know the sender or not, anything that you get sent in an email should be scanned, as mentioned above, there are complex viruses that can ‘send’ themselves from other peoples email address book, what happens if you are on the address book of an infected users computer? Can you afford not to be online?

    3) Ensure that, once you have an Anti virus program installed on your machine that you have it setup to start each and every time that your computer boots, the first thing that should be loading on your machine is an anti-virus program, you only have one chance to prevent infection.

    4) Avoid downloading .exe and .com files to your desktop unless, you know the person you are downloading the files from and, even then, before you launch or open the files ensure you scan them independently.

    Virus Prevention – Overview.

    Hopefully this article will have given you some insight into how you can protect both your computer and the computers of your associates and peers from computer viruses and, hopefully, by following the guidelines within this article your time spent online will be productive and virus free. One thing you should remember however is that no matter how hard we all try to remain virus free, someone will create a new program that ultimately, could infect our machines no matter how hard we try.

    Article written by Lee

  • Mixing Business With Pleasure

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General | Response: 0

    Regardless of your status in the world of web mastering there will come a time when you will want to attend one of the numerous webmaster seminars. However, what should you do to plan for the day you attend your first seminar, are there some things you should aim for and things you shouldn’t? Well in this article we will take a look at planning your conventions.

    Before attending the convention of your choice there are a few things that you should prepare these are.

    Exercise.

    get out for half an hour each day at least two weeks before the day of your journey to the convention. You will be surprised at how much time you will spend walking around the convention floor and, by getting some basic exercise in before hand you wont feel the strain of being on your feet for hours at a time instead of being sat in front of your computer.

    Contacts.

    Make a list of people that you want to see and arrange with them in advance a time to meet up and have a chat. Most people who attend these conventions are busy for the entire course of the show. You may not get a chance to pop by their booth and talk tot hem if someone has already beaten you by booking a time to chat with the person you want to meet. It is also a good idea to trade hotel and cell phone information before leaving for the show, this way, if anything happens to make you miss a possible appointment you can call or leave a message informing them you will either be late or canceling.

    Seminars / Parties.

    Take a look at the events and seminars happening at the convention before you go, plan which ones you will want to attend make a list and take it with you. This will save you countless hours of wandering around aimlessly hoping to make all of the seminars and get to as many parties as you can in three days.

    Booths.

    Look at who is exhibiting at the convention, find out their booth number and make a note of it. List any specific details you may want to speak to the booth owners about. You can guarantee if you go unprepared you will miss out that important question or selling opportunity you wanted to make.

    Baggage.

    When packing your suitcase for the convention make sure you leave plenty of room for convention give a ways, You will be surprised at what you will be given for free at these shows, t-shirts, toys, books, flyers, you name it, you will be offered it.

    So, you have done the pre check, what do you do when you actually arrive at the convention?

    Food.

    Eat at every opportunity you get. Most people will end up not eating for the entire length of the convention. perhaps even arrange to meet up with someone you want to talk to in a restaurant and grab a bite to eat whilst talking business.

    Business Cards.

    Take them and lots of them. Everyone and anyone will ask you for your contact details, if you have a bunch of business cards with you at all times, you can just hand them out. Make sure you include your full contact details, your name, nickname, email, icq and, aim contact details. The more ways you give someone to reach you, the more chance you have of them actually attempting to get in touch with you.

    Clothing.

    Wear comfortable, clothing and shoes. Think casual but, also think business, shorts and t-shirt may be good for comfort but, it doesn’t portray a good business image and, that’s the sole reason you are attending the convention, to do business.

    Parties.

    If you get offered an invite to a party, take it, plans change so quickly at the conventions, your friends may suddenly feel tired and you have nothing left to do, attend a party, then you have another opportunity to network some more.

    Behavior.

    Although the conventions are a fun atmosphere, don’t forget that they are in the first instance a place to do business, treat it as such, you may miss out on the ideal business opportunities if you are acting like a drunk ass hole. This will reflect badly on you long term.

    You have taken in all the events you can handle, you have made your way back home what next? how exactly do you put this information and your new found contacts to use?

    Business Cards.

    Go through all the business cards you have been given and send your new found contacts a quick email thanking them for their time. This will be a good way for you to give them another reminder of what you spoke to them about and, I have personally gotten more business from the shows using this follow up method than if I had just waited for them to contact me.

    Notes.

    If you made any notes at the show, take a few minutes to re-write them, keep them safe in a notepad, you never know when one of these bits of information may come in handy.

    Well, that’s pretty much it for the basics of the adult conventions, obviously there is more to it than this but, if you are attending your first convention you will have a bit of insight into the work involved.

    Article written by Lee

  • Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

    Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.

    With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.

    So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?

    Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:

    The Gay Boards:

    Rock Me Hard
    Triple X Gay
    Gay Webmaster Chat
    Gay Wide Webmasters

    The Straight Sites With Gay Boards:

    Ynot Gay Board
    Xbiz Gay Board

    Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.

    So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.

    It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.

    The Gay Board – An Overview.

    When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.

    Article written by Lee

  • Domain Name Registration Services What To Look For

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Domain Names | Response: 0

    Once upon a time, if you wanted to register a domain name, you could only do it by visiting Network Solutions at http://www.networksolutions.com/ and paying them whatever they asked for, about $35.00 per year.

    Then ICANN, http://www.icann.org/, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities, decided to change the rules.

    The initial testing phase of the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org domains quietly began to take place in April of 1999.

    It started with five participants who were the first to implement the new system for competition in the market for .com, .net, and .org domain name registration services.

    Previously, registration services in the .com, .net, and .org domains were provided by Network Solutions, Inc. under an exclusive contract with the United States government.

    In the two years since this program began, things have really changed.

    Just this last week, ICANN reported that two of their registrars, Tucows and New York-based Register.com, had recorded more new registrations for Top Level Domains (dot-com, dot-net and dot-org) than VeriSign’s Network Solutions.

    This marks the first time ever that VeriSign’s Network Solutions was out-sold by any of the registrars and signals that their past dominance of domain name registration is certainly fading.

    Why?

    Because besides others being allowed to make domain name registrations, these new registrars are also cutting prices.

    The Rules have most certainly changed.

    The Shared Registration System (“SRS”), ICANN’s accredited registrars program, allows people to submit application to become a registrar along with a non-refundable $1000 filing fee.

    After someone is accepted into the program then they must pay a yearly fee of $5000 to maintain their status as an accredited registrar.

    This situation has created a very competitive environment which can only be beneficial to all of us as the price to register a domain name has fallen like a rock from a very tall building.

    However, if you plan to register a new domain name using a virtual unknown registrar, make certain they do indeed have the legal accreditation from ICANN by visiting the ICANN web site and viewing their posted list of ALL accredited vendors:
    http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

    It will only take you a few moments to make sure you are dealing with a reputable vendor of domain names. Those few moments will make the entire process legal and worry-free.

    Article written by Lee

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