Domain Names are the most fascinating things that I have ever come across. It took me a lot of time to digest that a domain name is actually Online Real Estate. Here in this post, I share some basic stuff related to domain names and why everyone should at-least acknowledge their presence.
What is a domain name?
Domain names are the virtual address that you type in the browser to access a particular website. You can think of them as a virtual land and websites are buildings made on them.Just as a person claiming to be the owner of a piece of land, same is the case with domain names. You can find the owner of any domain by scanning through WHOIS database maintained by ICANN. Suppose a person has bought Google.com or Amazon.com he could claim to be the owner of whatever is made on it. (Now must be starting to feel its importance).Come back to reality, you cannot own these names now, neither could you buy domains containing these words as that would be direct infringement of well known trademarks.
Any business, small or big, that has a website online has to have a domain name and there cannot be any other person owning that same address. This is similar to the concept of our unique Land Address where only one person can claim to be the owner of a piece of land. The domain names are not only associated with your websites but also with your Business Email Addresses.
As domain names are unique, we can only have one Loans.com or one Insurance.com or one Mobile.com. Now imagine how many companies would be interested in acquiring these valuable domain names. The ones that actually own these exact match, premium domain names, not only get customers through people directly typing the names in the browser, they also command their brand authority over these verticals. In this example Loans.com is Owned by Bank Of America, Insurance.com is with QuinStreet INC and Mobile.com is with AT&T. These are therefore Million Dollar Assets and are occassionally traded between companies and investors.
You can imagine the number of companies coming up and how many of them would like to have a similar name. They might also be interested in the same generic domain name. Possibilities are endless.
That’s about it for getting started.In my next post, I will discuss the valuation of domain names. Don’t forget to leave your opinion in comments below, like
