1. © South-Western Educational Publishing GOALS E-MARKETING Web Hosting and Domain Names  Recognize the importance of domain names to E-Commerce  Compare the path consumers take to web sites

2. © South-Western Educational Publishing Domain Names  A domain name locates an organization or other entity on the Internet; a web address  The top-level domain name is the part that comes after the dot.  The second-level domain name defines the organization or entity.

3. © South-Western Educational Publishing Top-Level Domain Name (TLD)  Usually indicates the type of business industry  Examples  com Commercial  edu Education  gov Government  net Network gateways  fr France

4. © South-Western Educational Publishing ICANN  Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers  U.S. Federal government assigned ICANN authority to manage Internet domain naming  Domain names are registered with different companies called “registrars”  InterNic is U.S. Department of Commerce’s registered site listing domain names.  Take time now and visit the site http://www.internic.net/regist.html http://www.internic.net/regist.html

5. © South-Western Educational Publishing New Top-Level Domain Names  ICANN creates new top-level domain names  Examples:aero, biz, coop, info, museum, name and pro  Country Code Top-Level Domain Names (ccTLD) are established for countries; i.e.; uk, jp

6. © South-Western Educational Publishing Guidelines for Domain Names  Obtain a category domain.  Avoid domains that are challenging to remember.  Avoid long and complicated domains from third-party hosting arrangements.  Register related items and common typos.

7. © South-Western Educational Publishing Guiding Customers  Getting customers to your site  Portals--75% of online transactions are done through big portal sites such as Amazon.com, eBay, AOL, Yahoo and Buy.com.  Directory services--group Web sites by category. Offered by sites such as Yahoo.com and Excite.com.  Search engines--when online user searches for a business, the top 20 hits are looked at by the potential customer. Businesses want to be in the top 20.

8. © South-Western Educational Publishing Top ranking--how does a site get ranked in the top 20  Varies with each search engine  Must pay $$$$ to get site listed  Web sites with links to other sites are looked upon favorably  There are companies who charge a fee and “promise” to get your site in the top 20  Important to get in top 20 because more visitors to site = more sales = increase in “bottom line” (profits!!!)