So, the current registration on the domain you’ve been hoping to make yours just expired. Now, when, you may ask, can you register it for yourself? Well, there is no short answer to this, so please read on for a primer on this topic.

Usually, a domain name does NOT become available for re-registration as soon as it expires. In order to give registrants an extra chance to hold on to their recently-expired domains, most registrars allow a grace period that can be as short as one or two weeks or as long as a year for registrants to renew expired the domain name. The actual grace period can be different for each individual registrar and domain name extension. That is, the grace period for a .com domain name might be different from the grace period for a .us domain name, even at the same registrar.

After the registrar’s grace period, most domain names have a redemption period, which can last from two weeks to 30 days. During this time, the current registrant can renew the domain name by paying a redemption fee along with the domain name’s renewal fee.

If the current registrant does not renew or redeem the domain name, it might be auctioned. When a domain name is released to a public auction, you can participate and possibly capture the domain name by placing a bid on it.

If the domain name is not renewed, redeemed, or purchased through an auction, it is returned to its registry. The registry determines when the domain name is released again for registration. Once it’s released, you can register the domain name through a registrar like Go Daddy.

Go Daddy is a tremendously successful operation. The company currently is the world’s top domain registrar, hosting provider and provider of net new SSL certificates. They also develop and provide a large number of other essential products and services for Internet businesses of all kinds. So if you’re planning on setting up or boosting your Web presence, Go Daddy can certainly help you, but did you know that if you want to try your hand at making some $$$ selling Go Daddy products from your very own e-business, Go Daddy can help you get your venture under way, too?
Well, they do. And the way to take advantage of this service is to join Go Daddy’s reseller program. When you do that, you can sell any or all of Go Daddy’s products and services from your very own Internet storefront, and — within certain limits set by Go Daddy — you can even determine your own pricing. The best part is that Go Daddy helps you set up and get your store live in just a few minutes. And you don’t have to worry about customer service, because Go Daddy’s expert customer service and comprehensive help documentation are readily available to your customers so you won’t have to man the phones yourself.

Go Daddy’s reseller plans give you everything you need to start your own successful reseller business, including a pre-built Web site, shopping cart, integrated site traffic reporting and even credit card processing. And if you’re already running your won e-commerce site, their API plugs seamlessly into your site.

There are, of course, several reseller plans for you to choose from, so check out the Go Daddy Web site’s Reseller page and pick a plan that works for you.

They are here! The — for some, at least — much-anticipated .XXX domain names, which make adult Web content easily identifiable to the industry’s customers and, of course, anyone who prefers to steer clear of this kind of content. Of course, a .XXX will also be a powerful marketing tool for the industry.

.XXX domains will be available from top domain registrars, including GoDaddy.com.

So when can you register a .XXX domain? Well, the .xxx launch is divided into several phases: Sunrise AT, Sunrise AD, Sunrise B, Landrush, and General Availability. Each phase has specific application requirements, and you can pre-register for any of the phases for which you qualify. Submitting an application to reserve a .xxx domain name during a pre-registration phase does not guarantee availability or registration of that domain name.

.XXX domain names can be 3-63 characters in length. They can contain English-language letters A-Z, digits 0-9, and hyphens (except at the beginning, end, or in both the third and fourth position of the domain name). Internationalized domain names (IDNs), spaces, and special characters (such as !, $, and &) are not allowed.

Pre-registration for the Sunrise, Landrush, and General Availability phases began on Aug. 25, 2011. When you pre-register for a phase, Go Daddy submits your application as soon as the applicable phase begins, which gives you the best possible chance of securing your domain name.

 Here’s an overview of the registration phases:

 Sunrise AT — Adult Trademarks
From Sept. 7, 2011, at 16:00 UTC to Oct. 28, 2011, at 16:00 UTC, applicants within the sponsored adult entertainment community can apply for .xxx domain names if they have registered trademarks or intellectual property rights. During registration, you must provide the trademarked name, trademark registration number, nation code, trademark registration date, and your relation to the trademark (“Owner,” “Co-owner,” or “Assignee”).

Applicants with registered trademarks or intellectual property rights must have them prior to Sept. 1, 2011, and they must engage in genuine commerce with the registered trademarks or intellectual property rights.

Sunrise AD — Existing Domain Names
From Sept. 7, 2011, at 16:00 UTC to Oct. 28, 2011, at 16:00 UTC, applicants within the sponsored adult entertainment community can apply for .xxx domain names if they have existing (“grandfathered”) domain names with other TLD extensions. During registration, you must provide your current domain name, its registration date, and your relation to it (“Owner” or “Assignee”).

Applicants with existing domain names must have registered them on or before Feb. 1, 2010, and they must have active Web sites for the domain names. The ICM Registry excludes domain names that customers primarily use for parking, link farming, or forwarding to a site operated by a third party (such as blogspot.com).

 Sunrise B — Non-Community Trademarks
From Sept. 7, 2011, at 16:00 UTC to Oct. 28, 2011, at 16:00 UTC, applicants outside the sponsored adult entertainment community can apply to block their registered trademarks or intellectual property rights from becoming .xxx domain names. During registration, you must provide the trademarked name, trademark registration number, nation code, trademark registration date, and your relation to the trademark (owner, co-owner, or assignee).

Applicants must have registered trademarks or intellectual property rights prior to Sept. 1, 2011, and they must engage in genuine commerce with them.

If no Sunrise AT/AD applicants apply for the same domain name as a Sunrise B applicant, then the ICM Registry will block the domain name from registration at the end of the Sunrise phase.

Landrush
From Nov. 8, 2011, at 16:00 UTC to Nov. 25, 2011, at 16:00 UTC, applicants within the sponsored adult entertainment community can apply for .xxx domain names. This phase does not require applicants to have registered trademarks, intellectual property rights, or existing domain names.

General Availability
Beginning Dec. 6, 2011, at 16:00 UTC, applicants in the sponsored adult entertainment community can register .xxx domain names on a first-come, first-served basis. General Availability applicants must complete the ICM Registry’s free membership application process before their domain names can resolve. When customers submit applications, the registry emails them within 24 hours and provides information on completing this process. The registry might request additional documentation to validate the membership. After the registry validates the membership, customers must submit their membership credentials (ID) to us.

Once you have a membership ID, you can use it for all .xxx domain names you register. You do not need a separate membership ID for each .xxx domain name.

Applicants outside the sponsored adult entertainment community can apply for defensive registrations to block domain names from becoming .xxx domain names on a first-come, first-served basis. Applicants with defensive registrations must pay to register the domain names but are not required to complete the ICM Registry’s membership application process. Instead, the registry places those domain names on non-resolving name servers.

If you’re running an e-business or if you operate a Web site that requires your visitors/customers to enter any type of sensitive information to log in, perform transactions, et cetera, you need an SSL Certificate to protect that information from prying eyes. An SSL Certificate, which you purchase and install on your Web site, communicates with your visitors’ browsers and protect transactions with virtually unbreakable encryption. Indeed, at up 256 bit, the encryption enabled by SSL Certificates from GoDaddy.com and other providers, is pretty much unbreakable for even the most determined crook’s brute-force attack.
Aside from the practical aspect of actually protecting sensitive data from hackers and other bad guys, the presence of an SSL Certificate on your site also lends instant credibility to your business as a Go Daddy SSL Certificate is only issued to businesses and individuals whose credentials have been verified according to industry standards. Basically, an SSL Certificate on your site shows your visitors that they can trust you and your business.

However, as Certification Authorities usually offer more than one type of certificate — with fancy names like Deluxe or Premium –, the question is: Which one should you choose for your business?

Go Daddy currently offers two SSL Certificate types: Standard and Premium. They both encrypt and protect customer data and transactions on your site, but there are some key differences that you must consider when you decide which one to get:

Verification Process

Both Standard and Premium SSL Certificates require that the Certification Authority (i.e., Go Daddy) verifies that the requestor controls the domain for which the certificate is being issued. But Premium SSL further requires a thorough (and slightly more time-consuming) vetting of the requesting business’ existence and credentials.

Green Bar

Once your installed Go Daddy SSL Certificate has established a secure connection, the visitor will notice a padlock icon in his or her browser along with a “https” prefix in the URL. But if you get a Premium SSL, the browser’s address bar also turns green, thus providing an instantly recognizable indicator that the connection is secure and that your business can be trusted. Only businesses that have been vetted according to the industry’s most stringent standards receive Premium SSL Certificates, so the green bar sends a powerful signal.

Issuance Time

Because Premium SSL Certificates requires a considerably more wide-ranging authentication process before issuance, it also takes longer for Go Daddy to process a Premium SSL request and issue a signed certificate. Go Daddy claims to be able to issue a Standard SSL Certificates in 10 minutes or less, whereas the issuance time for Premium SSL depends on how long it takes for you, the requestor, to provide and submit the required documentation.

There’s is also a significant price difference to consider, of course.

Overall, most individuals and minor businesses will do just fine with Standard SSL, but larger operations with recognizable brands should consider stepping up to Premium SSL.

Ultimately, of course, the choice is yours.

Country- and region-specific domain names can be very useful for businesses whose activities are directed at markets in specific locations. For example, if your e-business is targeting the European Union, it’ll lend credibility to your site if it sits on a .eu domain. Likewise, if you’re doing business in, say, Brazil or South Africa, you should consider registering, respectively, a .br or .sa domain for your site.

And if your business is located in Asia, there’s a domain extension for that, too. It’s called .asia, and here’s a primer on its details and requirements and how to register it with GoDaddy.com.

The .asia top-level domain name (TLD) is an ICANN-sponsored domain name extension that represents the Asia-Pacific region. A .asia domain name gives you exposure to the region as a whole, as opposed to individual countries, such as a .jp or .cn extension.

In order to register a .asia domain with Go Daddy, you must be directly affiliated with Asia: That is: Your business, organization, or community group must be located in the Asia-Pacific region, or at least one of your domain name contacts must reside there.

To register a .asia domain name

•  Go to the Go Daddy Web site and enter the domain you want to register in the Domain Search field.
• Select the .asia extension from the list.
• Click Go, and then proceed through the checkout screens.

If the domain you’re looking for is already taken, you can either choose one of the alternatives Go Daddy suggests or start a new search.

It’s safe to say that spam is the scourge of the Internet era. EVERYBODY LOATHES SPAM. And even the toughest spam filter inevitably fails to keep your inbox entirely clean of the this unsolicited garbage. So when it comes to email marketing, businesses must tread extremely carefully when they  seek to promote their wares via email — Just a single case of sending out an email promotion without obtaining the recipient’s consent can have catastrophic consequences as you’ll be a labeled a “spammer.” And even if you have, indeed, obtained permission to send your email beforehand — some people may have forgotten what they signed up for, so you must always let the addressees know that they’re on your mailing list because they OPTED TO. And they must be able to leave your mailing list instantly and any time they want to.

Clearly, email marketing is treacherous terrain, so how do you make absolutely certain to steer clear of spam accusations and other problems when you undertake your email marketing campaign? The best way solution is to use an email marketing program that already has all the necessary safeguards built in. One of the best ones out there is Express Email Marketing from GoDaddy.com.

So what is Go Daddy’s Express Email Marketing exactly?
In short, it’s an online service that connects you with your customers, members, and contacts exclusively through permission-based email marketing. Express Email Marketing from Go Daddy helps you build and maintain a 100% permission-based subscriber list, nurture customer relationships, and increase your business through scheduled delivery of email newsletters, announcements, promotions, and other targeted email campaigns. And because your email campaign is entirely permission-based — that is: all addressees have opted to receive your mailings — spam simply is not an issue. Ever.

Furthermore, Go Daddy’s email marketing solution includes a variety of beautiful templates that you can use to make your campaigns look attractive. And you can, of course, track and analyze the results and effectiveness of every one of your campaigns.

You can certainly do this without the help of a program like Go Daddy’s. But using Express Email Marketing definitely makes it easier to plan and carry out all of your email promotions.

If you’ve got a dedicated or virtual dedicated server, you probably have huge amounts of bandwidth to play with. Nevertheless, many a user has exceeded his or her allotted bandwidth on occasion — and that can turn out to be a rather costly experience as hosting providers’ overage fees can be quite steep.

The best way to cover yourself, of course, is to ensure that your plan offers more bandwidth than you could possibly use within any given billing cycle. But if there’s ANY risk that you might exceed your current bandwidth limit, you can also look for some kind of protection against unexpected fees. Over at Go Daddy, the new 4GH shared hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth, but they do charge you if you exceed your dedicated or virtual dedicated server account’s bandwidth — hosting providers always do. But they’re offering a pretty neat little emergency-brake-sort of system that helps protect you and your wallet against such unexpected overages charges. They call it Bandwidth Overage Protection.

Once added to your dedicated/virtual dedicated server account, Go Daddy’s Bandwidth Overage Protection system shields you from bandwidth overage charges by automatically suspending your account when its allotted bandwidth is exceeded. The account is reinstated at the start of your next billing cycle — or when you’ve purchased some additional bandwidth.

So how do you add this to your Go Daddy server? Pretty easy, really. This is what you do:
First, go to the GoDaddy.com Web site and log in to your account. Go to the My Products section and select Servers.Find the one you want to apply the protection to and click Launch.In the Support section, click Bandwidth Options, select the Change Status checkbox, then click Continue.Confirm your Bandwidth Overage Protection change, and then click Submit.

And that’s all there is to it!

Keep in mind that Bandwidth Overage Protection cannot be added to you Go Daddy account when it is already over its allotted bandwidth. When an overage occurs, you can suspend your account manually or purchase additional bandwidth.

One of the really cool things about registering a domain with Go Daddy is that they throw in a free InstantPage one-page Web site with each new domain registration. This means that, with a minimum of effort, you can have a sweet single-page site up and running on your new domain in a matter of minutes.

You can use the InstantPage site as a placeholder while you figure out what you want to do with the domain, or while you’re building a full-scale Web site. You can also use the InstantPage to display your contact information and a few lines about yourself or your business and use it as a very cool virtual business card on the Web!

An InstantPage includes a background image – you can either upload your own or pick on of the many hi-res ones Go Daddy makes available at no cost –, your choice of template colors and theme, as well as contact and text widgets to tell the world about yourself and how to reach you. InstantPage even includes the tools you need to spread the word on your new site on Facebook, Twitter and other social media hangouts. As soon as you’re done, you can publish the site to the Web – any subsequent edits are immediately visible to your visitors.

One very cool thing is that, once you’re ready to step it up a notch and build a full-scale Web site for your domain, Go Daddy makes it extremely easy to upgrade your InstantPage to a WebSite Tonight account. WebSite Tonight is Go Daddy’s easy-to-use Web site builder, which will help you put together and awesome multi-page site in a few easy steps.

Pretty neat, huh?

Here’s a quick primer on how to set up your InstantPage:

Once you’ve bought your domain, simply activate your InstantPage account, pick your page layout; then choose your background image – they have some cool ones to choose from, but if you want your InstantPage to really stand out, go ahead and use one of your own. Next, use the available text and contact widgets to tell the world about yourself, your business, or whatever is on your mind. You can use up to four such widgets on your InstantPage.

And that’s all there is to it! Don’t forget to let the Twitter and Facebook crowds know that your site is up and running!

Go Daddy recently launched a revolutionary new hosting platform, which they call 4GH — meaning “4th Generation Hosting.” It’s a significant improvement over their traditional shared hosting services, and it’s definitely worth checking out!

The new hosting format is built around Go Daddy’s innovative Dynamic Server, Traffic and Defense Management technologies, which means it delivers unrivaled reliability, scalability, security, speed, and ease-of-use.

Go Daddy’s 4GH uses a cluster of servers instead of a single server. This means that there is no single point of failure — and if traffic spikes, the capacity increases so Web site performance doesn’t suffer. In other words: With 4GH, your site won’t be crippled or slowed down if a server crashes or traffic spikes; it will stay online and accessible, preventing costly outages.

So let’s take a closer look at this new technology of Go Daddy’s:

Dynamic Server Management

4GH’s server clusters deliver performance and reliability, and the real-time performance management system ensures that your cluster will grow dynamically when you need it.

Dynamic Traffic Management

Go Daddy’s dynamic traffic management system relies on Cisco load balancing to keep your site running smoothly regardless of traffic spikes, while auto-adjusting bandwidth eliminates overage fees. 4GH responds to traffic spikes by adding additional resources to your site, keeping your site live regardless of traffic.

Dynamic Defense Management.

Every 4GH site is protected by Go Daddy’s round-the-clock security. They claim that their dedicated Site Defenders team blocks an average of 3.3 million malicious attacks everyday – BEFORE they get to your Web site.

Go Daddy also changed its support model so that they are now fully supporting all the applications that run on their servers. And if you’re having a WordPress issue, they will do their best to resolve it for you – at least they’ll try to get you in the right direction.

Sound pretty cool? It is.