Domain Name Dictionary


PPC - Pay per click:

This generally referred to as an amount the domain/website owner receives when a viewer clicks on the advert or advertising link.

Escrow:

This is mechanism now favoured for exchanging contracts on domains. The escrow basis introduces an unassociated third party to hold the proceeds while the domain is transferred. Say you live in the US and you want to buy a domain off someone in the UK. Then you make an offer, and agree to an acceptable amount. You then pay the money to an escrow company and the seller transfers the domain to you. Once you have the domain (The whois is updated) then the Escrow Company releases the funds to the seller. If the domain does not get transferred, the funds are not released and consequently remitted back to you, the buyer (less some admin costs).

Larger scale domain brokerage outlets offer to act as escrow agents, or you can use completely independent companies like escrow.com (Especially for private transactions). Escrow.com is backed by Wells Fargo. (Also they have a great website automated transaction process, which is excellent - From my personal experience on numerous large private transactions!).

Traffic:

This is equivalent to foot count statistics used by retail stores. Essentially each view of your site/domain is a 1 count of traffic. Be careful when discussing hits/views/traffic as often they are used interchangeably even though they can and do mean completely different things to different people.

Unique visits:

A visitor who has not been tracked (via a cookie) to your domain/site before. It is ostensibly a new visitor and not a return shopper so to speak.

Number of visits:

This includes a count of new and return visitors. A viewer returning numerous times would have a count of all times visited in the measured period. This total number of visit will always obviously be larger than the number of unique visits.

Pages served:

If you own a site, then each page viewed will generate an additional 1 count for each page.

Hits:

If you own a website then the hits are measured by the number of images and text pieces served with each page viewed. If you had a page with text and 10 separate images, then the hits for that page would count 11 each time it was viewed.

Name Servers:

Name servers connect the IP addresses issued (like 100.156.86.9) to the names allocated (Such as XYZ.com). Remember that the IP address(es) are held by the ISP (Internet service provider - webspace/bandwidth provider) and you the registrant have the domain name.

Generally there are always a minimum of 2 name servers attached to the domain. This is to ensure if the first namesever defaults (or reaches operational capacity) then the second one can ensure the connection.

Let's say you buy a domain name from a registrar (With you being the registrant) then they will have their name servers attached to your domain name (normally) with a default landing page. Then if you go for hosting (Having a website/bandwidth) with them they generally allocate new name servers. However, you don't have to use the Registrar from where you purchased the name to provide the bandwidth. You can have another provider supply this and you simply change your name server settings allocate to your domain across to the provider nominated name servers. (They tell you the name of the servers to insert in your details with the domain registrar).

Because all the IP addresses and relating domain information is not kept in real time, but in a cached format (A copy is made that is refreshed every so often) it can take up to 24 hours to propogate (changes to be visible) across the net. (Information changes showing on the WhoIS registrant detail and so forth). (Your domain might not resolve (work) either on the net, as the name servers need to change over). However, 24 hours would seem the absolute maximum, and in some instances changes seem to occur instaneously!

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Please refer to your legal advisor where necessary - This does not constitute professional advice Copyright UFO.ORG^TM(c) 2005