WDTalk

I frequent quite a few forums and often stumble upon some threads that stand apart from the crowd – providing tips that I find lend real value to their members and guests. I read a thread this morning that resonated with me, and I’m sure, with others reading this. It was written by Juan Gonzalez, the CEO of  HostLeet.Com, LLC.

First of all, most people think they have to transfer their domain name over to a new host in order to have it hosted on their servers. This is NOT true… You can always leave your domain name with your current registrar or host, and simply change the nameservers to point to your NEW registrar/host.

Now, for those of you who DO wish to transfer your domain name away from your current registrar/host. You will need to make sure you follow these steps BEFORE starting the transfer process..

1. Have your domain’s EPP Code (Security Key) handy so you can provide it to your new registrar/host (this can be obtained from your current registrar/host). When you order a transfer, you will be asked for the domain’s EPP code. The transfer can NOT be initiated without this security key, so make sure you have access to it.

2. Unlock the domain. Make sure your domain name is UNLOCKED before you initiate a transfer. This can be done from your current registrar’s domain control panel. If your domain name is locked, the transfer will fail.

3. Don’t have WHOIS protection enabled. Make sure to DISABLE WHOIS protection on your domain name before initiating a transfer. This can be done from your current registrar’s domain control panel. If your domain name has WHOIS protection enabled, the transfer will fail.

4. Make sure the domain’s Administrative Contact Details or WHOIS Information (email, address, phone, ect..) MATCHES your own personal info with your new registrar/host. This can be changed from your current registrar’s domain control panel. If your domain name’s contact details DO NOT match with the new registrar/host, the transfer will fail.

Once you have initiated the transfer process, your new registrar/host will send a transfer request approval email to the email address listed in the WHOIS details for that domain (your email address). The request MUST be approved by the domain name holder/owner.

Once approved, your new registrar/host will then send the request to your current registrar/host so they release the domain name over. If your current registrar/host does NOT release the domain, it will NOT be transfered. Make sure you can contact your current registrar/host for assistance.

However, sometimes customers don’t know who their domain name registrar is, or their current host has vanished from the face of the earth without a trace.. Most of the time, you can do a simple WHOIS search on your domain name to find out who your registrar is. A good WHOIS search tool is “ http://www.domaintools.com/ “.

Ok, I admit that – I didn’t jump on the Twitter bandwagon right away. I didn’t perceive a great deal of value with a lot of tweets I read. Twitter has evolved though, and I now realize there are plenty of super ways to leverage Twitter to grow your business.

Brand awareness – is huge on Twitter. The key to branding is keeping your business in the public eye, using promotions to increase conversions for your products and services.

Engagement with your target audience – lends to a heightened perception of know, like and trust, a crucial element in the sale of ANYTHING. And you don’t have to be the originator – simply show an interest in their tweets by reposting them or commenting on them.

Listening to tweets can identify market trends – What are people interested in today – RIGHT NOW?

Gain a competitive advantage – by monitoring your competition’s tweets. Are they coming out with a new product or service? Or are they using Twitter in a way you haven’t thought of yet?

Reputation management – is another critical app for Twitter as it allows you to know what’s being said about your brand in real-time. Quite often, simply by responding that you’re working on an issue helps quell any negativity.

Directing tweets to landing pages – can help with conversions, especially if the offer is so compelling that your tweet gets reposted. A significant side effect would be higher ranking in SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) leading to increased organic conversions.

Participating in industry discussions – may help others perceive your business as EXPERTS in the field.

Set up your corporate blog – to feed Twitter your URLs automatically. WordPress plug-ins are great for this.

Don’t forget mobile apps – for people on the move. Twitter is ideal as a mobile communications tool.

Just issued a Press Release – and want to get your announcement out quickly? Spread the word by Tweeting it.

More and more I see entire websites that consist entirely of RSS feeds – and while most of them contain content relevant to the theme of the site, that content is often not categorized, so I lose focus and move on to other sites (as I suspect others do). And on the rare occasion a headline captures my attention, more often than not, once I read the summary and click to ‘read more,’ I’m taken to another summary, then another summary and finally the complete article (four or five times removed). 

On the flip side, if someone is looking to add – content to their site and your RSS feed contains content exactly matching what they’re interested in, you’ll have a better chance of getting syndicated. The good news is, if you’re using WordPress (as millions do) and publish a variety of topics, you can publish multiple feeds – matching your categories. When you submit your feeds to feed directories, instead of submitting a feed for the entire site, submit your category feeds. 

How do you know – your category feed URL’s? If the category page URL looks like “http://example.com/blog/category/web_hosting/”, then the RSS feed URL for the category is “http://example.com/blog/category/web_hosting/feed/.” 

My recommendation – If you want your feed syndicated, publish interesting information and publish it often. If your readers are looking for regularly updated content, they’ll be less tempted to move elsewhere. Be careful not to trade quality for volume though

All in fun – I actually love Microsoft products and technology, but these are still hilarious.

If Microsoft built houses:

• the oven would say “Are you sure?” before heating up
• they’d all be leasehold
• would take 5 mins between hitting the switch and the lights going on or off
• the roof would only be finished two years later as a patch

And if General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

• For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
• Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
  buy a new car.
• Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
  and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
• Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
  your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
  have to reinstall the engine.
• Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
  “Car95″ .” But then you would have to buy more seats.
• Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
  five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
  on five per cent of the roads.
• The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
  replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
• New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
• The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.
• Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
  and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
  door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
• GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
  Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
  neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
  would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or
  more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
  Justice Department.
• Everytime GM introduced a new model car, buyers would have to learn
  how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
  operate in the same manner as the old car.
• You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.

I first saw Let Me Google That For You  on a web hosting forum this morning. One of the members asked a question he clearly should have Googled first. OMG, he was flamed by the moderator with a response from www.lmgtfy.com that started a trend by others on the board.

I tried to think of some good keywords for examples, but you can use any search term you want. Click on any of the links below to see why this made me smile.

What is a Virtual Private Server?

Is the correct term bandwidth or data transfer?

What does BGP mean?

What is a favicon?

Why can’t dogs fly?

Super Bowl Champions – Saint Louis RAMS

The Best Places to SELL Domain Names? 

If you have a domain you’re not interested in anymore, here are some options to consider. 

Should you use – a broker or advertise your domain yourself? Brokers normally charge fees, but that’s not always a bad thing. Brokers offer increased exposure and sometimes that’s what it takes to move certain domains. There are plenty of free options as well, like advertising on popular web hosting forums. 

Which methods are recommended – by those in the industry? 

Surprisingly, eBay is favored among the top venues, followed by 

• Sedo
• Afternic
• GoDaddy
• NamePros and
• DNForum 

Other venues recommended are 

• Flippa.com
• Dnchat
• ddboard.com
• SnapNames
• Websitebroker.com
• DigitalPoint &
• SitePoint 

One of the great divides across cultures has always been the language barrier. Not only do I not know how to speak, read or write other languages, often I cannot tell what the language is just by looking at it – for example, Korean, Chinese or Japanese. I received an email in Chinese? today and went to my normal online translator to see what it said, but Chinese to English wasn’t one of their options.

Auto Detection
I’m thinking, what if this isn’t Chinese? Do I try multiple translators until one works, or is there a translator out there that simplifies this whole messy process? To my amazement, I found Bing Translator which has an auto detect option. Wow! I plugged in my email message and was able to instantly read Chinese spam in English. LOL.

Online Translators
Google’s language tools currently offers the following interface languages:

Yahoo also has it’s own language translator named Babel Fish, allowing you to translate a block of text up to 150 words.

Of course, there are variations of translators, like The Dialectizer. The Dialector can translate web pages and text into Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, or Hacker. I just tried Redneck on our site and it’s hilarious.