Everything you need to know about domains if you are about to open a website

Acquiring a domain for your website is the first important step to getting your brand recognized on the internet. A good domain will make you accessible to the user and relevant to the search engine. A bad one could throw you on a blacklist from the start.

What is a domain?

A web domain is a unique name that identifies a web page. Its purpose is to translate the IP addresses of network assets into names that are easy to find and remember. 

Having a web domain is very important, because it grants the browser an easy access to your website. A domain allows you to be recognized by users and search engines. For example, the Facebook domain name is facebook.com. As you can see, this is composed of the website's name and its domain extension.

In other words, you need to acquire a domain name in order to be reachable. To do this, you just need to find a domain registrar. However, it’s important for you to know that hosting companies also offer domain registration among their services.

The most popular companies to do this are 1+2 and Hostinger. These are reliable and well-established companies in the market, but they can come with a higher price rate. A tip we can give you is to choose a hosting company in the country in which you are going to work. Since, working with a local supplier can give you personalized attention and reasonable prices.

One thing you should know about domains is that they develop their own authority and positioning. This means that you can work on a domain from scratch or purchase the transfer of a domain with certain advantages. 

On the other hand, there are also some domains that have a negative position. These were probably used by someone else who decided not to renew their contract, and then they were available again.

Because of this we need to do a background check of the domain's data before acquiring it. This will save you the trouble of acquiring one that is part of blacklists or spam lists.

How to obtain a domain's registration data

There are several apps and tools that are helpful to do a quick scan of a domain before acquiring it. One of them is whois.domaintools.com, its use is quite simple. Just enter the domain in the search bar and you will know where it is registered, the data of who has registered it and the first information available of its existence.

With this information you will have an idea about its SERP positioning and the starting point from which you would have to start if you decide to acquire it. In addition, you will be able to use this information when conducting a study of competitors.

How to know if a domain is blacklisted

In order for your domain to be blacklisted or marked as spam, you would have to incur illicit positioning techniques. This is caused by mass sending of emails or trying to attract traffic in a way that bothers the user or acquiring a domain with a bad history.

Being blacklisted means you won't be able to receive organic traffic, because browsers don't show you on their results page.

To check that a domain is not blacklisted, you can use the site: https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx 

This website searches for the domain in a total of 101 pages and can save you the trouble of trying to improve a ruined positioning.

How to know the past use of a domain

A very interesting tool that you can use to know the previous use of a domain is the time machine of archive.org. In the section “wayback machine" we can view the previous states of a website. 

This is because the database stores all kinds of royalty-free multimedia material and can show us all the versions a domain has had over the years. To investigate a domain in archive.org is useful to find out the projects that worked on it previously.

This tool will also help you to analyze the improvements that a competing website has made. By doing this small research, we can take note of the items that are not successful in our branch of the market. 

Finally, it is important to take into account that, when opening a website, hiring the services of an expert in the field will help you make better decisions for a digital marketing strategy. 

Sure, there are definitely many more variables to consider when acquiring a domain, beyond choosing a name. But with the use of these tools, it will be possible for you to successfully register your website and dodge a few bullets in the process.