Resell.biz

Without domains we would be stuck using IP addresses to find your favorite brand, product or social network.

In fact, if the Stop Online Privacy Bill  (SOPA) ever passed Congress in it’s original form, people would still be able to bypass the legislation and retrieve illegal files by typing in the IP address of the offending site. But, who wants that!

Besides SOPA — which most of us are opposed to — there are some massive shifts taking place in the world of domains that affect cost and marketing. This includes the radical new gTLD program from ICANN, which will allow brands to market themselves in ways never seen before.

The introduction of .brand and .category represent some of the biggest changes to the Internet naming system — EVER!

Imagine a domain world of .coke and .Facebook.   It sounds great but it will be expensive perhaps costing as much as $185,000 to secure your brand. Of course, many wonder if the price will deter cyber squatters who always seem to find ways to muddy the waters.

In the interim, domain auction sites like Sedo.com are still squeezing value out of the traditional .com extension. For instance, a recent blog reported that some domains like Zimbabwe.com were selling for over $25,000 as part of their Great Domains Auction.

According to Domain Name Wire, “the owner is taking a 60% haircut from when it sold for $130,000 back in 2007 (also on Sedo).”

So, yes, it is possible for somebody to own a country (virtually) if you have some serious spare cash lying around!

If you are a small business, you are probably using domains in a much more practical manner, and probably also trying to maximize your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) capability.

SEOMOZ suggests that when purchasing a domain avoid using separators like hyphens which diminish credibility and may act as a spam indicator.

Also avoid domains that exceed 15 characters in length, which result in mistyped characters or are more difficult to remember.

It also suggests using keywords carefully in your domain name selection:

“The domain name itself is a key ranking factor that the engines consider when calculating ranking order,” said SEOMOZ.

“Having relevant keywords in a domain name is beneficial because the domain name is the text that other Internet users will use as anchor text when linking. Since keywords in anchor text are an important ranking factor, having these keywords in a domain name has a significantly positive impact on ranking.”

Interestingly, SEOMOZ shatters the myth that registration length matters in SEO.

Their conversation with Matt Cutts, Google, firmly establishes that length plays no role in Google’s famous algorithm.

Just bare in mind that all these so-called SEO experts don’t know exactly how Google programmed its algorithm, or how it will adapt over time.  So one day this fact may no longer be true. Welcome to domain name SEO!

“SOPA targets only foreign Web sites that are primarily dedicated to illegal and infringing activity. Domestic Web sites, like blogs, are not covered by this legislation” ~ Lamar Smith, Chairman of House Judiciary Committee, letter to New York Times.

The problem is not everyone believes him. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is picking up increasing counter-attacks from website designers, website administrators and business owners who rely on the Internet to display and share information.

According to Mr. Lamar there are more than 120 groups and associations, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, that now support the new pending bill.

“We need to examine the real motives of the ‘big Internet guys,’ like Google, that oppose SOPA,” said Mr. Lamar.

“Google made huge profits by directing consumers to illegal foreign Web sites, so its opposition is self-serving. In fact, Google recently paid half a billion dollars to settle a criminal investigation because of its promotion of foreign pharmacies that sold counterfeit and illegal drugs to American patients, possibly endangering their health. “

The goal of SOPA is to protect against the illegal theft of American intellectual property and the counterfeiting of goods, including the pharmacy drugs mentioned above.

To Libertarians, the act smacks of more, unnecessary regulation that will not only stifle the exponential power and value of the Internet but will ultimately hurt small business which have been identified as a critical driver in helping the United States emerge from the worst recession in decades.

The legislation is seen to have bipartisan support in the U.S. government, even as Democrats and Republicans engage in ‘class-warfare’ as the upcoming Presidential elections draw nearer. This means there is a strong possibility SOPA will become law.

Read the rest of this entry »

Employee incentive programs have long been the topic of much debate in terms of their effectiveness. Determining what drives your business and what you are hoping to achieve will weigh heavily on the type of incentive or recognition program you might be considering.

As businesses struggle to find ways to keep employees happy, the emphasis on retaining talent has become more important than ever before especially if you are within the technology industry. One such company, SIB Development and Consulting offers a hefty $50,000 bonus to any full-time employee who stays with the company for five years. This is a bold move by founder and CEO Dan Schnieder throwing down the gauntlet and setting a new bar in driving employee retention. While this approach is admirable let’s face it, in these tough economic times huge cash bonuses are more of a rarity than commonplace.

Here at Resell.biz we do a blended approach of empowerment, advancement opportunity, pay increases, and recognition to motivate our employees. We provide regular training to our employees so they are well equipped to deal with complex issues and then empower them to make the best decision. Each month we do an employee of the month award that all Resell.biz employees are eligible for. Past employees have been recognized with American Express gift cards, extra PTO, or other various prizes. In addition, we hold annual company award ceremonies where we recognize top achievers throughout the company in specific areas. Recipients of these awards not only receive the accolades and support of their peers but are also eligible for various prizes. A new award we added this year is the “employee choice award” chosen by none other than employees. We are always on the lookout for new ways to recognize our employees and reward talent.

Many of our clients with Resell.biz are entrepreneurs, new start-ups, or mid-sized businesses that employ a single person or perhaps dozens. In the spirit of sharing best business practices we want to hear your input! What is your business approach to incentivize and recognize your employees?

Hello All,

It has been quite some time since I sat down to post to the blog.  With the impending landrush and general availability of the .XXX coming up, I thought it would be a good time post.

I have spent some time with our development team and providers and am pleased to announce that we will soon have our .XXX solution available.  It looks like the TLD will be deployed just prior to the launch of the landrush phase.  It took me a bit of effort to understand all of the different phases being offered by ICM, the registry responsible for the TLD.  Check out the video below for a good explanation.

Pricing and more details are soon to come.

Cheers,

Dan

It has been a busy couple of weeks. We’ve got just a couple of weeks before Hosting Con and we are working to make it one of the most entertaining industry events ever. We’ve partnered with cPanel and SoftLayer and will be sponsoring a party on the night of August 9th. Its going to be an insane party with outstanding entertainment.

I’ve also been busy working on our putt to win booth activity. We are working on a amusement park style miniature golf competition. Putters will be given the chance to win several outstanding prizes. I have been focusing on making our putting green a uniquely challenging game. It has been a hot and dusty project but who new working with fiberglass and foam could be so fun. Here is an image of the green in its infancy.

It doesn’t look it in this picture but this green is going to be challenging. For those of you closet golfers funding your habits by running a hosting business, you are going to want to stop by our booth and check out the competition. Sinking a putt will be worth your time!

If you’re going to be in the San Diego area, register for the conference and come see us at the party! Hit up the support team for a coupon code for free party registration.

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. We just pushed our first large revision of functionality within the hosting platform. Here are a couple of items we have drastically improved:

Overall, the Control panel is coming along nicely. The aesthetic changes that have happened recently have been outstanding. We’d like to hear what you would like to see though, drop us an e-mail or leave a comment to this post.

We’ve also been hard at work preparing for Hosting Con! We have been fabricating a custom putting green, who knew it was so much fun to work with foam and fiberglass . It is going to be quite challenging, but a hole-in-one will earn our visitors the chance to win one of several apple products we’ll be giving away at the conference. Are you an Apple fan boy? Would you enjoy a new iPod or Mac? You should stop by our booth and put your putting skills to the test. We’ve also worked out a great relationship with our friends at cPanel. We are sponsoring a large portion of the cPanel party. Check it out!

Its been a while since I made up a post. The launch of the new Classic Reseller product has been quite a success and has brought us some appreciated interest. It has also produced some valuable feedback. Some of you commenters have even chimed in. One of the most common questions has been “why two control panels?” The answer is relatively simple; time, focus and our road-map and there is no way for the existing control panel to support our intended product lines. I can see the point though, managing two disparate control panels can be cumbersome.

So here is the skinny, we’ve heard the feedback and we tend to agree. We are working towards a single sign on interface that is modern, powerful and smooth. The domain management control panel is relatively powerful and completely capable of the tasks it was developed for. It has years of development and use behind it and is quite stable not to mention we aren’t in the business of fixing something that isn’t broken . The amount of data is tremendous and the complex/interrelated nature of functionality therein is quite high. It made sense to work to launch our other product lines and once complete, revisit the Domain Management integration piece. In the mean time, there are going to be two products to manage.

With that said, rest assured that we have developed our new control panel to be very modular. As new products and functionality are introduced, they will plug in seamlessly. This couldn’t be more true than with the plans we have for our Domain Management module that we’ll be introducing later this year.

It has come time to complete some necessary maintenance within our datacenter. The Maintenance is scheduled for Saturday, May 28th at 14:30 GMT and will impact domain management clients. It will have absolutely no impact to reseller hosting.

The maintenance window is scheduled to last 1.5 hours and thus will end at 16:00 GMT. Not all Domain Management services will be impact but the table below will help you identify which services will be unavailable.

It has been quite some time since I took a moment to post about our progress. I am happy to announce, if you haven’t already noticed, the release of our new Classic Reseller Hosting product! I am quite proud of it.

The journey from concept to launch has been rather complex but that has made it interesting. At times we found ourselves stuck in a tug-of-war battle between a delivery timeline, necessary functionality, handy (desired) features and pricing. We have worked hard to ensure the core functionality is up to our expectations and at the same time, we have built out a list of features we want to add in short order. There were a couple of times we had to go back to the drawing board to ensure we lived up to our standards. Our development team demonstrated quick thinking and quicker coding, hats off to them!

Now on to a little explanation and maybe a bit of road-mapping. From the outset, we were determined to start shaping Resell.biz into a one stop Reseller shop. We wanted to develop a platform with a line of products that would be easy to buy, configure and re-sell and we wanted to do it in a way that is cost effective and all from a single location. The new control panel and the cheap reseller hosting available therein are just the first steps of many towards our end goal. By years end, we’ll be offering Reseller in/of the Cloud, Reseller of Dedicated Servers and we’ll have introduced a new Domain Management module for our new control panel for you Domain Managers .

So lets get into some of the existing features of the control panel. First of all, the control panel operates more like an operating system with a tab or task bar. You can interact with the control panel in several ways at the same time and updates in one open window will impact the others. It has been segmented into logical operating areas. Resources to be resold can be scaled as desired and client control panels are only a click away (no password or URL to remember). We have also been able to squeeze in an unlimited sub-reseller model; thats right, resellers can host unlimited resellers!

So whats on the docket for polishing and refinement, you ask. We’ve got some work to do on our password management utilities and some additional resource consumption warning and tracking functionality including a “smart” growth notification system. We will add a full client communication module including a full-function dashboard and e-mail communication with full mailing list management capabilities. Easy SSH access for Resellers to each of their end-user accounts. We’ll also build out a server farm and network status page and a full reporting platform. Custom name-server and reverse DNS management is on the horizon as well. My actual list of refinements is quite long and I am sure I’ve missed something of interest in my summary but we are excited to get this up and running. As always, we are interested what you think so far.

We are so interested in your feedback that we are making it impossible for you to turn down your chance to experience our new product. For the next month, each new reseller will receive 10 GB of disk space and 50 GB bandwidth free for their first month! Thats right, an easy way to start your hosting business with no strings attached and no payment necessary. Don’t pass go, head right over to our sign up form and fill it out. If you’re only interested in the free stuff(who can resist free stuff ), elect to configure your resources later. Don’t worry, we assume you want the free stuff an include it anyway!

Earlier this year, PIR, the registry for .ORG domain names, announced an increase in registration fees for the tld. Said increase will be on the order of $.46 per domain year and is set to go into effect tomorrow. As a result our pricing will be follow suit and there will be a slight but unavoidable increase. We sent out notices in our March Newsletter on March 3rd. A copy can be found here. If you haven’t read it, you are likely asking how much. Here’s the skinny:

Now, the question becomes what do you get in return for the pricing increases. That part is relatively easy, we have launched a full line of live support options. Free Live Chat and Phone Support are available Monday through Friday from 7am through 7pm. Chats are generally answered within 15 seconds and thus far today our average hold time in our phone queue is less that 6 seconds, the weekly average is less than 10 seconds. Contact details are readily accessible on the site; go on, click that “Contact Resell.biz” envelope to the right, we know you are dieing to talk to us!

Dan