Steps On How To Purchase Domain Name(s)

<div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr">Domain names are important criteria needed for a complete fully developed and functional websites. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><b><span style="color: red;">What are domain names?</span></b> <br>Domain names are unique identifiers that is used to access, navigate, distinguish between machines(servers, websites, web hosts etc). </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">In this article, i will be discussing the various subheadings for simplicity of every readers viz<br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">1) Prerequisites <br>2) Various domain name providers. </div><div dir="ltr"><h3 style="text-align: left;"><u><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Prerequisites</span></b></u></h3>The most important prerequisites needed to own and host your own domain include;<br><br><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>choice of domain name.</li><li>simplicity of domain name (ie length of domain name).</li><li>method of payment.</li></ul></div><div dir="ltr"><b><u><span style="color: red;">Choice of domain name.</span></u></b> <br>This is the most important thing to do before buying a domain. Choice of domain name involves the name you will like to use as a unique identifier. The choice of domain name should be based on;</div><div dir="ltr"><br><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Niche</li><li>Brand</li></ul></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color: red;">Niche</span><br>A <b>niche</b> is a kind of <b>environment</b> which well suites your preference. A niche is direct, specific, and targeted to its audience. </div><div dir="ltr">Choosing a niche specific domain name has been a long time problem to beginners and even to some professionals. </div><div dir="ltr">Therefore, before buying a domain name, your audience and articles such be niche specific except for other conditions where branding(which will be discussed later) is considered  </div><div dir="ltr">Newbies who tend to host a domain name <b>should</b> at this junction pay close attention to this article to avoid falling into pits because when an <b>ORDER</b> of a domain name has been <b>CHECKED OUT</b> and <b>COMPLETED</b>, it cannot be reversed (particularly to most domain providers e.g <a href="https://godaddy.com/">godaddy.com</a>). </div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color: red;">Types of niche. </span><br>There are various type of niche to be considered before concluding your domain name. They include;<br><br><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Technology</li><li>News</li><li>Educational</li><li>Social media</li><li>Health</li><li>Hosting and Server Related niche</li><li>Forum</li><li>Information</li><li>Electronic Gadgets</li><li>Blogging</li><li>Business etc</li></ul></div><div dir="ltr">If a user decides to buy a domain name, he/she should put into factor who his/her target audiences are. When a user chooses a domain with keyword such as "<b>tech</b>", his attention should be channeled to Technology and every thing he/she wished to use the domain name for should be "Technology Related". <br>More also, a domain name with "<b>biz</b>" and "<b>edu</b>" should be for business and educationally related respectively.<br></div><div dir="ltr">Do not make the mistake of misleading your audience and target. E.g A domain name which contains "tech" now conveying "business and banking related articles". </div><div dir="ltr">Examples of niche specific domain names include;</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>techcrunch.com</li><li>androvilla.com</li><li>247forum.xyz</li></ul><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color: red;">Brand</span>. <br>Brand is a copyright assigned only to a particular type of person, product, organization. Branding could be inform of image(logo), text, symbols, signs. Brand when protected by copyright and infringed by another party is an offense punishable by the law. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><b><u><span style="color: red;">Domain Name Simplicity</span></u></b> <br>After deciding the domain name you will like to use. Its also important the length of domain name is put into consideration. A domain name with too much character will make you lose customers. <br>If you tend to <br>Your domain name should be phrasal and  easy to remember. <br>Avoid<br>* The use of hyphen (-) and underscore (_) as this could affect SEO ranking by search engines. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Example of simple and short length domain name include;</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>aol.com</li><li>goal.com</li><li>facebook.com</li></ul><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color: red;"><u><b>Method Of Payments.</b></u></span> </div><div dir="ltr">After decision making on what  your domain name is all about, a need for method of payment should be upfront. </div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Before you can rightfully own a domain, there is need for payment. Method of payment for domain names involves wireless transactions but some domain providers allow money deposits via banks. </div><div dir="ltr">Various acceptable method of payment include;</div><div dir="ltr"><br><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Mastercard (credit cards) </li><li>PayPal </li><li>Verve cards (debit card) </li><li>Gift cards</li><li>Vouchers</li><li>Visa card</li><li>American express </li><li>Bitcoin</li><li>Bank deposit </li></ul></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Therefore, you need have one or more of the above as your preferred method of payment.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><h3 style="text-align: left;"><u><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Various Domain Providers.</span></u> </h3></div><div dir="ltr">There are countless of domain providers currently. To the best of my knowledge and scope of broadness, I will only be listing only the most reliable, trusted, customer responsive domain providers. Like i said, there are numerous providers therefore, no reader should see my post as been biased and sentimental if some domain providers ain't listed.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><u>Godaddy.com</u></div><div dir="ltr">This is the number 1 most rated domain providers in the domain industry. They aint only restricted to providing domain names. They also provide web hosting services, email services, vps hosting</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><u>Namecheap.com</u></div><div dir="ltr">Similar to godaddy, namecheap are also reliable. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><u>1and1.com</u></div><div dir="ltr">This provider is known to be the most cheapest domain name providers. They sell their .com TLD for as cheap as <span style="color: red;">$0.99/yr</span></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><u>Hostinger.co.uk</u></div><div dir="ltr">Hostinger is a company which has its office situated in United Kingdom. They are best at providing cheap web hosting services. </div><div dir="ltr">They also provide VPS hosting alongside with other hosting packages. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><u>Whois.com</u></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="ltr"><h2 style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">Complete Steps On How To Purchase Your Desired Domain Name.</span></b></h2></div><div dir="ltr">1) Launch your browser and type in any of your preferred domain host provider listed above. </div><div dir="ltr">For this tutorial, i will be using godaddy.com as case study </div><div dir="ltr">2) Next, create an account by signing up. </div><div dir="ltr">3) Follow every instruction after sign up and confirm registration link to your email. </div><div dir="ltr">4) Note down your signup details such as username and password. </div><div dir="ltr">5) Login into your dashboard using the signup credentials.</div><div dir="ltr">6) Click on register new domain from "MY DOMAIN TAB" at the top left side bar Metro menu of your account dashboard. </div><div dir="ltr">7) Input the name of your desired domain and click Check Availability to ascertain if the domain name has not be taken by another user. </div><div dir="ltr">List of available and unavailable TLDs options will be prompted to you as shown in the image below</div><div dir="ltr"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-xsfQ3ry7iQbMNJV9zN3TG2UBBA6fPW3_z81-dGTNLu3jd6qs1sNu5c-yXFF_ve_qbAedVpI8ersZrO9TZr13zVPdVO43r_qkTmfu8VetSL-MQy5ZlrefBRxCR-CyfZLx5pDWg041g-P/s1600/2016-10-05--14_17_50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-xsfQ3ry7iQbMNJV9zN3TG2UBBA6fPW3_z81-dGTNLu3jd6qs1sNu5c-yXFF_ve_qbAedVpI8ersZrO9TZr13zVPdVO43r_qkTmfu8VetSL-MQy5ZlrefBRxCR-CyfZLx5pDWg041g-P/s320/2016-10-05--14_17_50.jpg" width="299"></a></div><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">8) If Domain is available, click add to cart then click go to cart.<br><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjEYfMlozqK7rPpxlmiYWrZIElg4yywYwiCpxsLO90HGZu44JkEoVKSsKPbwkYPjtX4JIVeHc8fUx9bFxWdVGv2Dq7FlYgv3HTO5kKAFLGn6r2n0FPSBt8XJsAs0-8izNUN9JD9bYOp88R/s1600/2016-10-05--14_18_32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjEYfMlozqK7rPpxlmiYWrZIElg4yywYwiCpxsLO90HGZu44JkEoVKSsKPbwkYPjtX4JIVeHc8fUx9bFxWdVGv2Dq7FlYgv3HTO5kKAFLGn6r2n0FPSBt8XJsAs0-8izNUN9JD9bYOp88R/s320/2016-10-05--14_18_32.jpg" width="320"></a></div></div><div dir="ltr">9) On the next page which will be displayed (Order summary), tick option "privatize details" if you don't want your Information used for domain registration to be displayed. Ticking this option will incur additional charges thereby increasing total order cost. </div><div dir="ltr">Un-tick if otherwise. </div><div dir="ltr">10) Select PROCEED TO CHECKOUT on the same Order Summary page to Complete order. </div><div dir="ltr"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiYuWHrnBb_Io0rAOyGuDGplgXQr9WlYZT7j-fg2cktNTVQSYg8edP_Rkc3Ke2IHYeYtzml3bgXHd6sOLq7oW3_Jiyrwbvk787MY-GBoQtXRXebL2H0q9z_EOjanB-u3x11PK36T6C-JnC/s1600/2016-10-05--14_19_24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiYuWHrnBb_Io0rAOyGuDGplgXQr9WlYZT7j-fg2cktNTVQSYg8edP_Rkc3Ke2IHYeYtzml3bgXHd6sOLq7oW3_Jiyrwbvk787MY-GBoQtXRXebL2H0q9z_EOjanB-u3x11PK36T6C-JnC/s320/2016-10-05--14_19_24.jpg" width="203"></a></div><br></div><div dir="ltr">11) Select method of payment. For this tutorial, i will be using Mastercard 💳. Fill in every details of payment and confirm by clicking PLACE ORDER. </div><div dir="ltr"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS6gvGV-Y-P5vw_pdjK7a6CNrfWIGEGJY45QB_twtNqE6C4wRGIZGXD-Y-SqS2HUOfcgnZM8Un84wAQkGbAkNdLR39EstcYHDdbrOJ_JA5NBSNxpH1QGruQy9xHxAqcY6mm1bbcbIIlVFh/s1600/2016-10-05--14_21_47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS6gvGV-Y-P5vw_pdjK7a6CNrfWIGEGJY45QB_twtNqE6C4wRGIZGXD-Y-SqS2HUOfcgnZM8Un84wAQkGbAkNdLR39EstcYHDdbrOJ_JA5NBSNxpH1QGruQy9xHxAqcY6mm1bbcbIIlVFh/s320/2016-10-05--14_21_47.jpg" width="203"></a></div><br></div><div dir="ltr">12) On the next redirected page, tick the "I accept to conditions" and PLACE ORDER.<br><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpxFdRaoSx4cscrp_ldvJ56tE8v70Z2RKcdTouukPUyelNnTpTJBhjPpaRMakFYWF6O6T4tsy9SvJgSo2bdObJq-u2n-mL9AA95ZEa85erh0afV698_yXTH7uB_CwUI-wmCaBHHrZyFGAi/s1600/2016-10-05--14_22_43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpxFdRaoSx4cscrp_ldvJ56tE8v70Z2RKcdTouukPUyelNnTpTJBhjPpaRMakFYWF6O6T4tsy9SvJgSo2bdObJq-u2n-mL9AA95ZEa85erh0afV698_yXTH7uB_CwUI-wmCaBHHrZyFGAi/s320/2016-10-05--14_22_43.jpg" width="262"></a></div></div><div dir="ltr">13) If card details were correctly entered without errors, domain will be purchased successfully and added to your "DOMAIN PANEL"  list. </div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color: red;">If any error was encountered, it could be due to;</span></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Invalid card type</li><li>Incorrect card details such as NAME ON CARD, EXPIRY DATE and CARD NUMBER. </li><li>Insufficient fund in your card or bank. </li></ul><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Thanks you for reading. Hope the article is self explanatory and you enjoyed it. If you encounter any error, kindly comment. </div></div></div></div>

Stop Blogger from Redirecting Blogspot to Country Specific URLs

<div><p dir="ltr"><b>Stop Blogger from Redirecting Blogspot to Country Specific URLs</b><br></p><p dir="ltr">Let's say you're from Nigeria and have set up - just for examples sake - a blog called http://www.247forumtech.blogspot.com where you share your thoughts and insights on Nigerian literature. </p><p dir="ltr">Now, with Google's country specific redirection in Blogger, you might be redirected to http://www.247forumtech.blogspot.com.ng when you try to access your site. The thing is, you perfectly liked the .com and didn't sign up for the .fr but you find yourself being directed there. Sure, your blog works and all but you also wonder why.<br></p><p dir="ltr">Why Did Google Do This?<br>Google has always supported the expression of views, and they stated as much on their official blog. In the post Free expression and controversial content on the web, which was published in 2007, it said "Our world would be a very boring place if we all agreed all the time. So, while people may strongly disagree with what someone says, or think that a particular newspaper is total nonsense, we recognize that each of us have the right to an opinion."</p><p dir="ltr">The post continued, "We also know that letting people express their views freely has real practical benefits. Allowing individuals to voice unpopular, inconvenient or controversial opinions is important. Not only might they be right (think Galileo) but debating difficult issues in the open often helps people come to better decisions".<br><br></p><p dir="ltr">While the company is clearly on the side of people freely expressing their opinions, they also believe that a line has to be drawn somewhere. Then again, for a company providing services in over 100 countries around the world and each with their own national laws and cultural norms, it's surely difficult for a company like Google to decide where to draw boundaries.</p><p dir="ltr">However, there are cases like child pornography which is illegal in just about any country where decisions are clear cut.</p><p dir="ltr">For a company whose products are "specifically designed to help people create and communicate, to find and share information and opinions across the world", how does Google deal with this challenge?</p><p dir="ltr">One of the most challenging areas where Google deals with issues regarding free expression is in Blogger, their content generation platform. Since Google can't check what you've written before you publish, they rely on active vocal users who are diligent in alerting the proper if a post borders on offensive. Then again, that in itself is a tricky issue as well because what one person may view as offensive, another might not.</p><p dir="ltr">In other words, it's always a work in progress with Google.</p><p dir="ltr">Fast forward to January 9, 2012 when Google announced it was making changes to the Blogger platform with regards to censorship. That said change would make use of a country specific domain to the Blogger platform. Doing this would allow Google to censor and remove content specific to a certain country.</p><p dir="ltr">In their announcement, Google said: "Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers."</p><p dir="ltr">The move by Google come after pressure from countries like India that are working on hunting down content on social media sites which are considered inappropriate. Also, the move followed closely on the heels of Twitter's new censorship policies.</p><p dir="ltr">Since Google aims to "help people create and communicate, to find and share information and opinions across the world", it would be strange to take down a post that was just banned in a certain area. In essence, with country specific redirection, a piece of content can still be accessible by the world save for the country where it was blocked.</p><p dir="ltr">How Would Country Specific Redirection Affect Your Site?</p><p dir="ltr">Of course, not all site owners greeted the country specific URL change with open arms. A few of the issues brought up in regard to the change include:</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">1. A reduction in social stats. These are your Facebook Likes, Google +1s and so on from your blog posts. They might be reduced because the URLs from one blog post will be different depending on where your readers are from.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">2. A problem with external commenting platforms. If you use Disqus - for example - for your comments section, then you might run into trouble because blog URLs will be different even if essentially the page being accessed is just the same.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">3. A slight problem with AdSense earnings. Some users have complained about seeing a dip in their earnings when their pages are served through country specific domains.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">4. An issue with link juice. You want external sites to link to you and not your country specific URL. But the issue here is that you can't control how others link to your page. They might use the top level domain or they might use the country code top-level domain.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">Stop Blogger from Redirecting to Country-Specific Domains</p><p dir="ltr">If country specific redirection affects important factors such as traffic and link juice, and you need those in order to rank well, what can you possibly do? Well, thankfully, Google has provided a way to get around this. All you have to do is add an ncr/ to the end of the URL - ncr here stands for No Country Redirect. So basically, it goes frenchlitgeek.blogspot.com/ncr/.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">That solution is great but do you want your users to always have to do that every time they visit your blog? To eliminate that hassle, and for the good of your site statistics, a simple redirection script will do the trick. Here's how:</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">1. Log in to your Blogger account.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">2. Click on Template → Edit HTML.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">3. Find the <head> tag in the HTML editor by opening the search box using Ctrl + F.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">4. Copy the redirection code seen below after the <head> tag.</p><p dir="ltr"><script type="text/javascript"></p><p dir="ltr">var blog = document.location.href.toLowerCase();</p><p dir="ltr">if (!blog.match(/\.blogspot\.com/)) {</p><p dir="ltr">blog = blog.replace(/\.blogspot\..*?\//, ".blogspot.com/ncr/");</p><p dir="ltr">window.location.replace(blog);</p><p dir="ltr">}</p><p dir="ltr"></script></p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">5. Click on "Save Template".</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">And that's it! Whenever someone accesses your Blogger, they'll be taken to the top level domain rather than the country specific one.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwFnuh8hw1s4ZkJ-by4BDz7dQ7ryp1aFavyGGYZzzDqmdH7T6DwEBoYwIvN-ncf4_MScpEIDzZpJj7j3e4QGTVaZuTmj95BDW4p1UpNPEeXnppOcWcwsxnB82-ANpsX0zO1sTgkonDWxn/s1600/20160911165814.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwFnuh8hw1s4ZkJ-by4BDz7dQ7ryp1aFavyGGYZzzDqmdH7T6DwEBoYwIvN-ncf4_MScpEIDzZpJj7j3e4QGTVaZuTmj95BDW4p1UpNPEeXnppOcWcwsxnB82-ANpsX0zO1sTgkonDWxn/s640/20160911165814.png"> </a> </div></div>