Posted on August 22, 2009 by ProProxier

Until now, you have already installed a proxy script on your local test environment and done some customizations through proxy themes. In this post, let’s talk about how to register a domain name for your web proxy site.

What is Domain Name

Just like your home address, your domain name is a unique identification for people to find your web site.

A typical domain name contains two parts: Site Name and Domain Extension. For example, Facebook.com, Facebook is the Site Name while .com is the Domain Extension. You can treat domain extensions as the categories of domain names. For proxy sites, most popular domain extensions are:

• .com - represents business, commercial, and general usage
• .info – represents information, resource
• .net – represents network, internet
• .org – represents organization, association

.com or .info

.com is often viewed as the default top-level domain (TLD). If you tell people a site name such as MyProxy, the chances are they will type MyProxy.com into their browsers. On the other side, you may face two issues with .com domains: First, because .com is so popular, many hot .com names have already been taken; Second, you may need to pay more money to register a .com domain.

.info is also used by a lot of proxy sites. This is mainly due to its cheap price. You could get a .info domain for less a dollar from GoDaddy or 1and1 during the promotion.  In addition, the competition for .info domains is less than .com, so you could still find some great .info names unregistered.

As a Pro Proxier, I would recommend you to start with a .com domain for your first proxy site. This allows you to build your brand from the very beginning. Later on, when expand your proxy network, you could purchase a bulk of cheap .info domains to save the cost.

How to Find a Great Domain Name for Your Proxy Site

There are 3 popular ways to come up with a great proxy domain name:

1. Make it Short – a shorter domain name is easier for people to remember and enter into their browsers. Especially when your site is advertised on a proxy list, a shorter name often attracts more attention from people. Ideally, your proxy name should contain fewer than 3 words and maximum 15 characters.

2. Make it Special – to make your proxy site outstanding from thousands of other proxies, you need to do something different. A special (or sometimes weird) domain name often gives you certain edge in the first place. For example, twolulu.com or hidemyass.com, those names tend to get more clicks because they are special.

3. Make it Targeted - one important way to get more proxy traffic is through search engine. So you may want to target your proxy name to a high value keyword. For example, around the keyword – Friend, you may see names like UnblockFriend, FriendLink, or ViewFriend. On the other side, try to avoid sensitive words such as Proxy or Proxies, because some firewall programs will automatically filter out sites with those names.

Tools to Discover a Great Domain Name for You

• Instant Domain Search
  A fast online service that instantly checks if a domain name is available for you.
• Domains Bot
  A convenient domain search engine to help you find some name ideas.
• GoDaddy Domain Search
  A great tool to find domain availability, get domain suggestions, and register domains at one place.

How to Register a Domain Name

You usually register a domain name through a Domain Registrar (an accredited company offers public domain services). Some popular registrars are GoDaddy, 1and1, and Enom.

Personally, I use GoDaddy for most of my proxy domains. This is mainly because GoDaddy provides a best tool to make the whole process of domain search, registration, and management  much easier. Considering a typical proxy owner has over 50 domains, it will save you a lot of time and effort along the road. You can visit GoDaddy here.

Alternatively, you may try 1and1, it often offers some great deals especially combined with its hosting service. You can visit 1and1 here.

Public or Private Domain Registration

One thing I want to point out is, always choose Private Domain Registration when you register a domain for your proxy site. This will hide your personal information (like your name, address, telephone, and email) from the public inquiry, thus protect your privacy.

In the next post, we will take about how to Find a Hosting Service for Your Web Proxy Site.

This post belongs to the How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site series which helps beginners to build their first web proxy. Read the introduction page here.

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