domain names « Softnik Blog

September 2010
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April 2, 2010

Domain Punch Pro & Watch My Domains – Interval Between Lookups

Sometimes lookups on one or more domains in Domain Punch Pro or Watch My Domains ISP (or Watch My Domains Pro) will simply not occur even after repeated attempts. This could be due to any of the reasons mentioned in this support article or it could be because you are redoing the lookups too soon.

All our domain name management tools have a minimum interval before a lookup will be attempted again. You can set this from the “Config tab” > “App Settings” ribbon button. The “Lookup Interval” is specified in minutes.

The “Whois Check Selected” option in the context menu (that appears when you right click within the domain list) is not affected by this setting. This is so that you can quickly right click a domain and re-do a lookup.

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Software Features and Support — Tags: domain names, whois — admin @ 3:39 pm

April 1, 2010

Registrar Alias Option in Domain Name Management Software

One of the common questions we get is about the registrar names that appear in our domain portfolio management software products.

The registrar names appear differently based on the registry and or TLD. For example, for COM and NET domains “Directi” shows up as “DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM”, but for INFO domains it is “Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. dba PublicDomainRegistry.com (R159-LRMS)”.

These long names are often a problem when creating reports and print outs.

There is a way to make the software just display “DIRECTI” instead of long full names as shown above. Right click on the domain and select “Edit Registrar Alias”. Then type in the short Alias name you want to use. This will make the software display the Alias wherever the long form name is present.

You will need to do these a few times for each registrar because of the slight differences in text between different TLDs.

This is a working tip and not an April Fool Joke

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Software Features and Support — Tags: domain names — admin @ 8:25 pm

February 25, 2010

China – Photo ID for Registering Domain Names!

BBC reports that website owners in China will have to register their websites / domains and provide information about it’s contents to the government. ISPs have to meet each and every website owner in person and collect photo ids!

More details here… and here

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Filed under: Domain Name Strategy — Tags: domain names — admin @ 7:27 pm

January 7, 2010

No More CN Domain Registrations through Overseas Registrars

CNNIC, the official registry for .CN, has temporarily stopped overseas registrars from offering .CN domains. The ban is with effect from January 6, 2010.

This is supposedly because of difficulties with implementing the new registration application procedures.

Via Domain Name Wire

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Filed under: Domain Name Strategy — Tags: domain names — admin @ 6:25 pm

September 30, 2009

ICANN Gains Independence From US Control

The US Commerce Department and ICANN have entered into an “affirmation of commitments” that will see ICANN gaining some independence from US control over it’s operations.

Here are some quotes…

“DOC affirms its commitment to a multi-stakeholder, private sector led, bottom-up policy development model for DNS technical coordination that acts for the benefit of global Internet users…”

“DOC recognizes the importance of global Internet users being able to use the Internet in their local languages and character sets, and endorses the rapid introduction of internationalized country code top level domain names (ccTLDs)…”

Read the official announcement.

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Web/Tech — Tags: domain names — admin @ 11:56 pm

August 27, 2009

Freeware Rewind: Filter Domain Names From Large Lists

Domain Name Filter is a free software we released many years ago. Don’t let it’s age fool you, it is an “ever-green” domain name tool.

You need Domain Name Filter if you work with large lists of domain names. You can use it to pick domain names that contain specific keywords at the start, end or in the middle, filter domain names based on the length (domains longer than 5 characters, shorter than 25 characters, etc.) and so on.

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Filed under: Domain Name Strategy — Tags: domain name search, domain names — admin @ 12:07 am

August 20, 2009

Why is the Registrar Expiry Date Column Empty for Some Domains in Domain Punch Pro and Watch My Domains?

We often get this question from customers who use one of our domain name portfolio management software.

The reason is that the whois databases are operated based on a thick model or a thin model. In the thick model, one whois server provides all the data corresponding to the domains. This model is used by ORG, BIZ, INFO, etc.

In the thin model there are two whois servers. The first whois server (at the registry) provides only the basic details regarding a domain. It then points to the actual whois server that can provide full authoritative information. The second whois server (maintained by the registrar) has to be queried to get all the relevant data.

The thin model is used by “.com” and “.net” registries. So, for these domains there are two different whois queries there are two different expiry dates. In 99% of the cases these will be the same. However, in some cases this will be different and you may need to contact the registrar to fix any discrepancies.

For registries that use the thick model (org, biz, info, etc.) and for ccTLDs (country code TLDs), the software will only display the registry expiry dates. The registrar expiry column will be blank.

For registries that use the thin model, the software will display expiry dates corresponding to the two whois servers. These are labeled registry expiry and registrar expiry.

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Software Features and Support — Tags: desktop windows software, domain names, whois — admin @ 9:16 pm

August 18, 2009

Using SQL Queries To Find, Display and Update Domains in Watch My Domains ISP Database

The single most powerful feature in Watch My Domains ISP is the use of SQL queries to find, display and update domains.

You can also use SQL queries to lookup domains. The SQL options are accessible from the two ribbon-bar buttons (SQL Display & SQL Lookup). The software comes with a number of pre-created queries. You can add your own SQL queries to the list and access them with a single click.

Here is a simple SQL query to display all domains that have the word free in them.

SELECT * FROM [Domains] WHERE [Domain] LIKE ‘%free%’

Since, in Watch My Domains ISP, the first part of the query (SELECT * FROM [Domains]) is always the same, you can skip typing it in. So, the following will work.

[Domain] LIKE ‘%free%’

If you want to display only the domains that start with free, use the following

[Domain] LIKE ‘free%’

To display all domains that expire on 11/30/2009, use

[Registry Expiry] = #2009-11-30# ORDER BY [Registry Expiry]

Please note that the date format is in yyyy-mm-dd and that the date should be enclosed within a pair of #.

To find all domains that expire before 30 days from now, use

[Registry Expiry] < #[TODAY+30]# ORDER BY [Registry Expiry]

Please note that “TODAY” is not part of regular SQL. This is an extension added in Watch My Domains ISP to make things a little easier.

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Software Features and Support — Tags: database, domain names, sql — admin @ 7:08 pm

August 17, 2009

Registrars could lose ICANN Accreditation For Not Providing Port 43 Whois Server!

Earlier this month three domain name registrars lost their ICANN accreditation. What is interesting is that one of them (South American Domains dba NameFrog.Com) lost it because they had not provided a valid port 43 whois server and an interactive web page for whois queries.

According the letter from ICANN, South American Domains did restore the port 43 whois server but not the web based query tool.

Read the original letters sent by ICANN.

[via < Domain Name News < DNXpert.Com]

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Web/Tech — Tags: domain names, domain portfolio management, whois — admin @ 8:02 pm

August 8, 2009

Quick Tip: How To Manually Enter The Domain Dates and Other Data into Domain Punch Pro or Watch My Domains

It is not possible to obtain every piece of data corresponding to domains automatically. For example, the expiry date is not part of the port 43 whois out for EU domains. In such cases you need to manually enter the data into software like Domain Punch Pro and Watch My Domains.

You can do this using the details tab in the lower display pane (next to the raw whois data).

Write Protecting Domain Records

Whenever you manually enter or edit any data, the software will automatically write-protect that domain record (you can change this behavior from the “application settings” dialog) . This is to prevent manually edited data from getting over-written due to a whois lookup.

Write protected domains will display a [] around the index number for the domain (the “#” column). A ~ in the “# column” indicates that the domain record was manually altered.

To enable the lookup of a write-protected domain, you should unset the write-protection. You can do this by right clicking the domain and selecting appropriate menu option. You can also do this from the details tab by removing the check from the “write-protect” box.

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Filed under: Domain and Site Management,Quick Tips,Software Features and Support — Tags: domain expiry dates, domain names, domain portfolio management, port 43, whois — admin @ 3:27 am

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