I eventually decided on a company with reasonable setup
fees that included filing for me. Sure I would still have to pay NSI (Internic)
the $100, but at least I wasn't paying $25 to $100 for someone to fill out the
forms. If you're currently considering a webhosting company, and they charge for
filing a domain name, I'd ask myself how customer service oriented this company
is. But keep it in perspective. One company may charge a lower setup fee and then
charge a filing fee since they expect you to want it. My personal view on this
is two-fold.
One the company isn't being as straightforward as I'd like.
It's like the 'ADMU' on a new car sticker. I knew what it was already, but when
looking at cars, I asked every salesperson what it was. I won't go into some of
the answers I got though it makes for good comedy piece. In the end, I wouldn't
deal with any salesperson who wasn't straightforward with me. One who outright
lied, I walked out on. When he asked where I was going and why. I told him. I
would much rather the salesperson be straightforward with me, than lie to me with
answers he thought I'd rather hear. Let me decide what and how much I will pay
and for what. By the way, 'ADMU' is 'Additional Dealer Mark Up'. It's extra margin,
and in turn profit over what the manufacturer thinks the dealer should make off
a given car. But my other thought on the subject as a consumer is 'great'. Why?
Because armed with the information in this article, I can say no to the filing
fee, and use the lower setup fees to my advantage. Setup fees by the way are different.
Setup includes the setup of the DNS servers themselves, and preparing
the site with login names, and passwords, setting up email accounts, etc. This
is actually much more work than the filing of the domain name.
Personally,
I think if a company is going to charge for the filing, then it should be a minimal
charge. Later things grew and it no longer made sense to host sites on someone
else's computer. I explored various connectivity options, as well as server hardware
and software.
I immediately remembered the fees so many charge customers
for filing new domain names. Many thoughts went through my head. I'm technically
oriented. I don't like paperwork. And other people are charging up to $100 to
file these things. This can't be good.
So I went and took a look at
the form. My first impression was with the email based form available at ftp://rs.internic.net/templates/domain-template.txt
. Not a pretty site!
The amount of information is overwhelming. I will
tell you that once you've done one filing and understand what they're asking for,
it takes all of about 5 minutes to do.
Do you really want to pay someone
up to $100 for 5 minutes of work. If so contact me, I'll be happy to do it for
you at half that rate...:) NSI has put up a couple of pages to make filling out
the form easier. If you go in armed with a little knowledge of what they want,
it'll be painless.
First, make sure your desired domain name is available.
Go to http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi- bin/whois/whois Fill in the box with
the desired name. Hopefully, it will come back with "No match found for whatever.com"
This means Internic does not currently have that domain name registered
to someone else. Once you find your new domain name go to http://www.networksolutions.com/
(Updated: and register your domain name in 3 steps.) and select 'Web Version,
single page' or 'Web Version, step by step' I prefer the single page.
It's just as fast, and I think easier to use. That's the one I'll be discussing,
but the information is useful to either method. The first thing you will be asked
for is your email address, the domain name, and if this a new, modify or delete
request.
Simply do what it says, give them your email address, and domain
name. New registration should already be checked. Then click the proceed button.
Internic wants your email address because they actually create the text based
form for you and email it to you.
You then send it back to process it.
The next section that comes up is the Organization. This is the official owner
of the domain. If you want it in a company name, put that there. If you want to
own it, put your name in. You cannot change this name later without incurring
additional expenses. Also enter the address information about the owner.
The country code field expects a 2 character abbreviation such as 'US' for
the United States of America. I don't think anyone ever looks at the 'plans for
this domain' field, but I always put 'web, ftp, email'. That's never caused a
problem for me. If you scroll down, you'll see contact information. There are
3 contacts: Billing, Technical, and Administrative.
The billing and administrative
are typically a person at the owner's site. The technical contact is usually at
the hosting site. You'll notice that each contact section has a Internic handle
field. Internic assigns a 'handle' to each person (or role account) filed. This
is like a social security number to the IRS, or driver's license number to the
DMV. It's an easy way for them to keep track of you. Internic will tell you to
apply for one first, don't. They'll assign it when they process your registration
automatically.
It'll only slow things up while you wait for the handle
to come back. I mentioned that the technical contact is usually a person at the
web hosting facility, or for larger hosting companies people (a role type contact)
it may be multiple people with a more generic email address like hostmaster@company.com.The
webhosting company can provide you with the Internic handle for this person. Just
put the handle number into the box provided. Unless you actually followed NSI's
advice and setup your administrative and billing contacts beforehand, you'll need
to enter the complete contact information as well.
As you look at the
contact section, notice that not only can you provide a Internic handle, but another
line is a hotlink to a 'provide contact information' section. This section is
actually further down on the same page... Change the radio button to the 'provide...'
line, and then click on the hotlink in the administrative contact section. Most
of the information is straightforward. First, note that they want last name, first
name.
Also notice that there are radio buttons for individual or role account.
Remember role accounts are groups of people doing the same function, such as tech
support for a webhosting company. More than likely you'll want to leave individual
checked.
You should be aware that the information you're providing can
be looked up by anyone doing a 'whois' on the domain name, or your Internic handle.
This includes your phone and fax numbers, as well as email address.
One other
point, the email address must be active. So if you're registering a new domain,
then the email address can't be at that domain, as it doesn't exist yet. But don't
fret, use another for the time being. Don't have one? Go create on real quick
at one of the free email services such as hotmail or juno. Then when the domain
is active, and your new email account setup, then do a modify (same form just
prefilled out with existing info), and change the email address.
Confirmation
will be sent to the registered email account so don't deactivate it until you're
sure the change is complete. I should also point out that only 2 people can actually
change a domain's information: the tech contact and the administrative contact,
and they use the on-file email addresses to confirm any changes. The billing contact
also has lines to make it the same as the administrative and technical contacts
if wanted. Quite often the billing contact will be the same as the administrative.
If it's going to be a separate person, just follow the same procedure as for the
administrative contact. Almost home...
The last section is the most
crucial. Getting this one wrong will result in delays in activation your domain.
This section is called 'Name Server Information'. Name servers, or domain name
servers, are computers that will translate a hostname to the real IP address.
IP addresses are numbers. I won't go into how DNS works but just know that a computer
somewhere must know what the real IP address is for each machine serving your
domain, such as www, ftp, and mail. The Name Server Information section will tell
the root DNS servers, where the machine that really knows is. Unless you are setting
up a machine with a dedicated connection (which if you are and you're reading
this, find a good consultant to work with you real fast), you won't know where
these machines are without asking.
More likely you're using a webhosting
company. They know this information already. Ask them for it. It comes in pairs
of hostname and netaddress. Hostname is a registered name such as ns.w3-sales.com;
while netaddress is the real IP address of that machine, in this case 206.27.190.24.
These servers much be registered with Internic already. You must have at least
a primary and one secondary nameserver. You can have more than that though. When
you enter these, be sure to enter them EXACTLY as your provider has given them
to you. If Internic's registration complains about these numbers (you won't know
until they try to process the request), try to ping the machine by name and make
sure the IP address reported back matches. One quick way of verifying nameservers
that often works, is do a whois on the webhosting company by using the url http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-
bin/whois/whois/domain_name.com?STRING=domain_name&x=28&y=15 as in http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-
bin/whois/whois/mindspring.com?STRING=mindspring.com&x=28&y=15 At the bottom you
should get a list of 'Domain Servers'. On the left hand side is the hostname,
and the right the corresponding IP address. Check this against what they gave
you. Look for typo's. If they are radically different, ask the webhost. They might
not be using the same servers for their own stuff as they will for yours. When
you have it all filled out, it should take you less time than reading this page,
click on the 'Submit...' button. The form will be created and mailed to the email
address you listed on the first page. When you get it, hit reply. Before you send
the reply, check over it for typos and make any corrections. It's not necessary
to go back to the website, just change the text in the email message as it's what
really gets processed.
When it's right hit send. Within a few hours,
usually within minutes, you'll get your first reply. This is simply a "we got
it" reply. Tell your webhosting company, that the request has been filed. They
may only take the nameservers down so often for changes, so advanced notice is
helpful. They will need to update the nameservers with your domain's information.
Sometime later, which can be anywhere from minutes to days, you'll get either
a "can't process" or "completed" reply. If you get a "can't process" reply, look
over the reply it will tell you why.
Sometimes someone may have had in a
request right before yours for the same domain, or more likely, the nameservers
are wrong. Make any changes needed to the message they sent you, and resubmit.
When you finally get your "completed" message, you should know that it will not
be active right away. Depending on what time of day it is when it's completed,
it will go in either that day's or the following day's root DNS update. After
that's done, they site should be active, provided that the webhosting company
has done their part. You did tell them that it was filed right? That's pretty
much all there is to it. And it's really not that bad. I went into a lot more
detail of why than you need to know file one. But now that you know how and why,
you can amaze your friends... If you run into problems, or have questions I can
be reached at rporter@w3-sales.com
Robert Porter
is president of First National Financial Corp., the parent company for w3-Sales.com
a small business oriented full featured webhost. A core belief is that not every
company's needs are the same. With that in mind, w3-sales.com was created with
flexibility in mind. Robert brings a 14 year career as a professional programmer
with a background in database management, and communications across a wide variety
of platforms..
Robert is of the old school of computers, where learning
not only how but why is important. Just as important is sharing that knowledge
with others. Robert can be reached at rporter@w3-sales.com or visit his homepage
at
http://www.w3- sales.com/rporter/
