By entering a simplistic web address such as whois google.com, a user would be able to know the creation and the expiration date of the domain.

However, as of now the WHOIS data is not being sent in real time and it would mean that Google must be caching the information from some other source.

There has been a lot of speculation that  the WHOIS data is being used by Google for its ranking algorithms. If this data is indeed applied in the rank measuring algorithms, then there is a possibility that the domains which have been registered for a longer period may be given additional weightage (as we always thought it to be!).

Comments

I noticed this not from looking into the code itself, but from checking some rankings manually through Google. I noticed the listing wasn’t the name of the site or the page, but rather of the company itself!

At first I thought, okay maybe it is pulling the name from another meta tag…nope! I did a quick site: query and found really only one page, the contact us page, that the company name could be pulled from. Then I thought, Google wouldn’t go to a contact us page for that, too much variability. Seeming that Google is a registrar, and we all know how important domain age is to the Googlerithm, why not go to the WHOIS data for the title page? Sure enough, the title listed in Google is an EXACT MATCH to the registrant data for the domain.

Obviously one instance isn’t enough to prove it, but I’m convinced that is what happened in this case. The only other example I could find is where Google used a header tag instead.

Anyone else seen this?

Comments

Thousands of small business webmasters briefly lose their domain names at expiration, due to a simple lack of understanding about the roles of three key players in the drama: domain name registrars, web hosts and internet service providers. Fortunately for most, they learn quickly how to save their web site from oblivion by using the 30 day redemption period for expired domain names enforced by ICANN. One simple solution is to extend domain registration for the maximum ten years. The other solution is to treat domain registrar data as the critical business element it is.

It wasn’t until my third client had called asking how to regain control of her domain name that I realized that it was a common problem for small business webmasters to forget where they had registered their domains. WHOIS my registrar? Why didn’t I get an email about renewal? Why did my site stop working today?

People rarely realize how important it is to keep their domain registrar notified of changes to their email address and and other contact information. The registrar will send renewal notifications to the email address last on file. For most domain owners, the only time they think about contacting a registrar is the day they reserve their domain name. If they move to a new city and get a new internet service provider, it doesn’t occur to them that the old email address will change and that meeans that the registrar can no longer contact them through the previous address, or phone or fax as each of them change and we rarely notify the controller of our domain of those changes.

Sometimes the first indication a business owner will have that there is a problem is the day their web site stops working. If they failed to notify their domain registrar of changed email address, they may never have received their domain renewal notice. Since many registrars honor a 30 day “redemption period” allowing expired domains to be redeemed, it may be possible to save the registration within 30 days following expiration by contacting registrars during 30 day domain redemption periods.

The following URL leads to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (AKA ICANN) discussing the grace period and redemption period rules it enforces.

http://www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm

So how does a domain owner find out who their registrar is if they’ve forgotten? Simple WHOIS inquiries will tell you everything the registrar knows about your domain. Public WHOIS records show the owner’s contact email, street address, phone and fax numbers. But that’s not all, it also shows the current registrar, DNS servers, the creation and expiration dates of the domain name. Here is how to check your WHOIS data. Type the following into your browser address bar:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=google.com

Replace google.com with your domain name and click go. If you don’t, you’ll see the following contact information:

Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-14290820) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
*********@google.com
+1.6506234000
Fax- +1.6506188571

You’ll also see the domain servers, which usually includes the host name like so:

Domain servers in listed order:

NS3.GOOGLE.COM
NS4.GOOGLE.COM
NS1.GOOGLE.COM
NS2.GOOGLE.COM

This normally shows only two servers (Google is bigger than you.)

So now that you are armed with WHOIS data, you can see:

Who the registrar is. (Hence WHOIS)
Who the Domain Administrative, technical contacts are.
Owner names, addresses, emails, phone and fax numbers.
Domain creation, expiration and “last updated” dates.
Domain servers and backup servers.

What do you do if your domain name shows expired and it has stopped working? Do that WHOIS search and contact the listed registrar at their customer support number. They’ll ask you to prove who you are by verifying some registration details. If you can’t remember access passwords to log in to domain management consoles, they’ll often accept faxed copies of your photo ID or a some standard identification proof and reset your username and password to give you access again.

Forgetting to notify your registrar is not the only way to lose control of your domain. There are hundreds of stories of unethical hosting companies, webmasters and even spouses (since divorced) holding domain names in the name of a small business because the domain owner was not web savvy and didn’t understand how important that domain name signup day was. Keep your registrar name, your log in username, password and domain management URL permanently recorded somewhere with your most important business papers. Don’t allow anyone to register your domain name for you if they don’t put YOUR name, email address and phone numbers in “Administrative Contact” position during registration.

Some business owners confuse their web host with their internet service provider and further confuse both with the domain registrar. Since many ISP’s offer web space, or hosting, and also provide domain registration through their initial signup package, it’s not easy to separate the three distinctly different entities. You needn’t host with your internet service provider and they’re (almost) never your domain registrar. Keep them separate and completely apart in your mind.

Internet service provider. (AT&T, Verizon, SBC Global.)
Web hosting provider. (Pair Networks, Verio web hosts.)
Domain Registrar. (GoDaddy, Register.com Yahoo Domains.)

When a client recently moved her hosting, she asked me how to make that happen and had no idea how important the details were. We first established a new hosting account, then determined new domain name servers, uploaded her web files. we made sure that account was live with the new web host, then contacted the domain REGISTRAR to change to the new domain servers in a domain management console.

This same client had nearly told her old web host to close her account before we found out that the registrar had her old, previous email address as “Administrative contact” email for her domain name. It took two days to straighten that out and make corrections. Her site would have been down for two days if she had shut down her old hosting account as she had planned before speaking with me. She had a new hosting account set up, but failed to realize the importance of the registrar change to DNS server records in the moving scenario.

We then notified the previous host of the change, only AFTER the domain was resolving to the new host so that when the site was turned off at the old host, it was already working at the new host.

Don’t be caught by surprise! You can protect your domain name by registering it for the maximum time of ten years and extend it every year to that final, tenth year, rather than waiting for it to near expiration. This will prevent you losing control of the name, but shouldn’t mean you can forget your registrar login details or renewal date. How likely is it that you will move, or at least change internet service providers within that ten years? Be sure to keep your registrar apprised of new email, street address, phone numbers at all times! Especially that all important Administrative contact email. “WHOIS” your domain registrar? Do you have domain name management console login details? Have you extended your registration to ten years? Your business is worth careful domain name management.

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Mike Banks Valentine operates SEOptimism, Offering SEO training of
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as well as the Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial at
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where this article appears with live links to SMO stories, buttons, blog posts and examples.

Nope, that’s not a typo. On Neil Patel’s list of domain names owned by Google, gmmgjd appears five times in the list. An acronym with a top-secret meaning? An odd misspelling of Google?

Who knows? But there are a lot of domains owned by the Big G. As the Guardian Unlimited blog demonstrated, there are at least a trio of reasons for some of the registrations (sorry, had to leave out the examples to keep spam filters happy):

The defensive preemptions keep anti-Google types and others from registering certain unflattering, and occasionally profane, domain names with Google in the mix. Misspellings were a commonly used tactic by adult site owners who would redirect unsuspecting web users with poor spelling skills to their sites.

Not all of the domains listed by Patel return Google information, or even that of its favorite registrar, Mark Monitor, in Whois lookups. Vertiablebevy.com, for example, returns an individual’s name as the registrant.

Others like eperfumez.com simply redirect visitors to Google’s main page at google.com. Someone at Google may be an Om Malik fan, as gigagoogle.com/.net/.org have all been registered.

We don’t particularly expect to see Google4MP3.com launch anytime soon. Besides, there’s already the G2P site running online, not owned by Google, and Google probably would rather not provoke the RIAA on music issues.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

This would certainly give fuel to those who believe Google “sandboxes” newer domain names.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Link: Google Down?

Gmail still worked, though. A little later, Google.com was back, but News and Froogle were still down. As of now, all Google services are operating normally.

Search Engine Watch posted time-stamped updates. At 7:35 pm (Eastern) they had Google.com, Froogle and Gmail, but not News or Froogle.com. At 8:00 pm everything was working.

At 8:30, Google’s David Krane sent out an official statement, which read:

Google’s global properties were unavailable for a short period of time earlier today. We’ve remedied the problem and access to Google has been restored worldwide.

Om Malik had this from David Krane:

Yes, it was a DNS issue. We’re seeing things as fully restored as of more than 30 min. ago. You’re the first to send such a screen shot and report this kind of issue. I’ll bounce it to the tech staff and will keep you posted.

This refuting reports that Google was not just down, but hacked. Screenshots have been popping up of Google redirecting to a search engine called Sogo or MSN Search. Also, a Whois page reported the Google domain as being stolen. However, the only widespread report with any credence seems to be the Sogo one.

Even KCBS, a San Francisco area news radio station, got in on it, with a radio update on the situation. The audio is here, and here are some quotes I hopefully transcribed correctly:

[female anchor] Speculation is swirling over the cause of a reported Google breakdown this afternoon…

[technology reporter Larry Magid] I got through to their chief spokesperson who says the the service was down globally, he says for about fifteen minutes today, and he says it was not an outside attack, it was not a hack, that it was an internal problem, and based on some skulking around on the web, it appears as if it may have been a DNS server…

… and apparently, that was the culprit, that that name server wasn’t giving out the address or getting people to Google. So, it wasn’t that the service was down, it just was inaccessible…

[female anchor] How did that breakdown affect people?

[Larry Magid] Ah, well, no. He simply said that it happened, and I thing that’s something that obviously their technicians would deal with. And it also shows that if it could happen to Google, and I think Google has good security in place, and some of the brightest technicians around, if it could happen to them it could happen to anyone, and indeed it has happened to just about every major web server that I can think of… Its just one of the realities of the world we’re in right now that this stuff is good but its far from perfect.

I tried to figure out who the female anchor was, with no luck (help me out if you know).

As Gary Price notes, Google is lucky this happened on a weekend. He also has a list of other prominent outages. I wonder if this affected Accelerator users.

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

Did you know that www.google.com works as a telephone directory?? If you`re in the USA, anybody can find you through their search engine. If you`ve got an unlisted number, this won`t apply to you:

Go type your phone number into the search box in this format 555 444 1212 (no dashes or anything). It`ll bring up your full name and address, and it`ll give you 2 map links. The yahoo map will even give driving instructions on how to get to where you`re at!!

There should be a telephone icon next to your listing. If you don`t want to be listed, click on that and request to be removed from the service.

This one`s for USA only, too: Free Internet Access to Public Records

Listed are over 800 state, county, city and federal (court) URL’s where you can access public record information for free. http://www.crimescreen.com/linkspage.htm

Don`t think you`re outta the woods just because you don`t live in the United States. There are worldwide lists too. Here`s an example: http://www.hansaprint.fi/eypeng.html This one`s a combination of worldwide yellow and white pages. A lot of them will link you to maps, where anybody can see your location.

Ok, here`s another one, this one is reliant on people giving accurate info though. Do you own your own registered domain? go do a “WhoIs” here: http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois Brings up a lot of info, huh?

So how can you stop your personal information from getting broadcast on the web? Maybe you can`t, totally, but there are a few guidelines, that if followed, will make you less “available”

Make sure your phone number is UNLISTED! A lot of online phonebooks are based on a database used by the telephone company. Which in turn leads to your address.

Use a web based email program instead of the one provided by your ISP. Your ISP provided email address should only be given to your most trusted friends and family. This is because your ISP has your address, and possibly your banking information if your are allowing them to bill you automatically.

Get some software to make your websurfing anonymous:
http://www.anonymizer.com
http://www.articsoft.com/fileassurity_anonymizer.htm
http://www.inetprivacy.com/a4proxy/
http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html

Use a firewall program if you aren’t behind one already. That way the information on your computer can’t be accessed by another online computer without you being prompted for permission. This site contains an excellent list of many different personal firewall programs: http://castor.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/security/firewalls.html

So what if your information`s already out there? What can you do about it? Well it`s a long, hard job, but it CAN be done, by actually using search engines to find your personal information, and then using the remove features supplied by each particular website or writing the webmaster and requesting that he remove the info.

There you have it, you`re “available” but you don`t HAVE to be unless you want to.

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Registering a domain name

It’s best to choose a hosting company first before registering your domain name. Have the hosting company register or transfer your domain name.
You can check the availability of a domain name at http://www.networksolutions.com or http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois or any of the registrars listed by http://www.internic.com.

You can register your domain name yourself through domain name registration services. Internic provides a list of ICANN-accredited registrars (the organization governing domain names) at http://www.internic.com/regist.html. When submitting a registration or transfer, the registrar will ask for the name of two domain name servers that contain your IP address. Your host will give you that information. Once your domain name has been registered or transferred, it takes approximately 72 hours before it becomes active.
Fees for domain name registration

Each domain name registration service or registrar, sets its own price for registering domain names. Fees range from $10 to $35 to register a domain name for one year. You can register a domain name for one or two years. Some registrars offer free or discounted registration services in connection with other offers, such as Web hosting. Make sure they are reliable. Receiving a $10 discount is not worth the delays and hassles you may encounter. Ask your professional Web designer for a referral. To keep your domain name, you need to renew the registration and pay a renewal fee each year.

Parking a domain name

If you want to reserve a domain name but don’t have a hosting company yet, you may have to pay a fee to a hosting company or registration service to hold or park your name. Some registrars charge $40 and others offer parking for free. Make sure they are reliable.

IMPORTANT TIP: When registering your domain name, make sure you are both the billing contact and administrative contact. If your hosting company lists itself as the billing contact, you won’t have much leverage to keep your domain name if you decide to switch hosts.

Changing hosting

When changing hosting companies, you can keep the same domain name and email address (connected to that domain name e.g. www.Webmaster@fivestarWebdesign.com). You simply transfer your domain name to a different hosting company.

It is important to protect your business and product names by registering them as a domain name before someone else does.

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I’ve added our standard code to prevent ASP page caching for your convenience.

<%

Response.Buffer = True
Response.AddHeader “cache-control”, “private”
Response.AddHeader “pragma”, “no-cache”
Response.ExpiresAbsolute = #January 1, 1990
00:00:01#
Response.Expires=0

Function WhoIS(sDomain)

Dim oXMLHttp

on error resume next

Set oXMLHttp=Server.CreateObject
(“MSXML2.XMLHTTP”)

oXMLHttp.open “GET”,
“http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois
/whois/?STRING=” & Trim(sDomain), false

oXMLHttp.send

if oXMLHttp.status = 200 Then
WhoIS = oXMLHttp.responseText
else
WhoIs = “0″
end if

Set oXMLHttp = Nothing

End Function

response.write WhoIs(“eggheadcafe.com”)
%>

Robbe D. Morris

http://www.EggheadCafe.com

One of the first things you should do is go through the site of the program you are interested in and determine who is running it, where they are located and what their contact information is. Know who you are dealing with. If you can’t find any of that, that should bring up a red flag!

If you were referred to the program by someone, email them or call them and find out what they know about the program, who runs it, how long they have been involved and are they making money. If they can’t give answers, ask them for their sponsor’s name and email. Maybe they have information from being able to access the program’s member pages, from a welcome email they received upon joining or maybe from checks/statements that they might have received. If they don’t have any information or are reluctant to tell you, they may be promoting it in the dark.

If they have some company information, i.e., telephone number, address or email addresses, contact the company and ask questions about how many people they have in the program, how long they have been in operation, do they have any business references you could talk to and whatever else you want to ask. If you email them and they don’t get back to you timely or at all, pop up another red flag. This may be an indication of the type support you are going to get.

If you can’t find any information on them through the above avenues and you still want to do some research take the URL (web site address) i.e., www.theirname.com and go to one of the major search engines and enter the address (theirname.com) or the name of the company.

The other day I searched on a company that has been around for a number of years. I entered the name of the company in quotes at Iwon.com and got a list of almost 25,000 sites. By doing this you can then check out some of the sites that you find for contact information or at least find other members who you could contact.

Another place you can go if you can’t find any contact information on the company is a domain registration site. Take the URL of the company you are checking and go to:

Network Solutions Whois Site http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois and enter the URL. You should in most cases be able to determine who registered the domain name, where they are located, a telephone number and/or email address. This will be under the Administrative contact section. You can also determine who hosts the site.

If the URL ends in one of the new domain types i.e., .tv, .ta, or .de for example I generally use the register.com site since it has info on these type domains: Register.com http://www.register.com

There are a couple of discussion boards that may have information that may help you. They are:

Victims Against Scams http://pub31.ezboard.com/bvictimsagainstscams

Friends In Business (Scams 101) http://friendsinbusiness.com/board/index.cgi?

iCop! Discussion Forum (International Council of Online Professionals) http://pluto.beseen.com/boardroom/h/50220/

The Home Business & Marketing Discussion Board http://www.homebizlink.com/wwwboard

A couple of sites that you may want to also check are:

The Consumer Sentinel http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/

Internet ScamBusters http://www.scambusters.org

The Federal Trade Commission http://www.ftc.gov

One other resource is the good old online telephone books. If you have an address or telephone number go to www.yellowpages.com or www.whitepages.com and check them out. You can use the telephone number and do a “reverse directory check” which checks the telephone number and gives you a name and address. You can also check out the address that you have and sometimes may be able to tell if the address is a valid business office or a mail drop by making a couple of telephone calls.

If you are getting ready to spend some of your hard earned money by joining a money making opportunity whether it is a one time cost or a monthly cost, make sure that you check it out. First you want to reassure yourself that it is legit and secondly if you are going to promote it, you want to make sure you have confidence in it since you are going to risk your reputation by recommending it to others.

Article by Joe Reinbold, Publisher of Home Income Quarterly
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