The cashback will get paid directly into the PayPal account after 3 months of active trading. We had to put in some strict terms & conditions as we want to reward customers who are serious about selling online and not those that are only in it for the quick buck.

Terms apply.

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We have already started to see other web hosts biddng on our brand names, and through out other industries these adverts are starting to crop up. Check out lastminute.com, moneysupermarket.com, and iPod.

Important
In order to clarify our position regarding affiliates, I would like to emphasise that affiliates who have joined our programs through 123-reg itself, Commission Junction or TradeDoubler are prohibited by the terms and conditions from bidding on our brand names (123-reg, WebFusion, Donhost & SupaNames).

Any affiliate found to be bidding on our brand name or using our brand name to advertise on another company’s brand name will be removed from the program and no commission paid for any sales made from those adverts. This may seem a little strong but it is vital we maintain control of our brand and where we are seen to be advertising, as well as our relationship with fellow web hosting companies.

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My effort to catch up on all the interesting news and posts from my favourite sites is largely in vain (there’s too much to read and too many other important things to do), but here are a few domain-related items that caught my eye:

• America.com is up for sale. The reserve price is over $1m - if that doesn’t put you off, the auction starts on 22 May.
• An independent appeals panel has overturned the decision to award the domain myspace.co.uk to social networking website MySpace. This is the latest twist of events in the story we reported on previously.
• Nominet held its 2008 AGM. Two board members were elected. 
• 16 years after the end of the Soviet Union, the old .su domain extension just won’t die. Nostalgia for the Soviet empire and entrepreneurs who see value in the extension are apparently responsible for a 45 per cent increase in registrations this year.
• To coincide with St George’s Day, a campaign was launched for the creation of a .eng domain. Similar .cym and .sco campaigns for Wales and Scotland already exist.

So what other interesting stuff have I missed? Leave a comment to let me know.

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To celebrate this, we are now giving away a free .uk domain with selected hosting, InstantSite and ecommerce packages.

If you don’t have your hosting, ecommerce or InstantSite yet, get it now plus a free .uk domain.

Terms apply.

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• Encapsulate the theme of the website
• Easy to remember
• Easy to spell
• A brandable name e.g. not simply descriptive of the service
• .com & .co.uk both available to prevent traffic going to someone else

I’ll be honest I found it very hard. I started typing in quite generic words, combining them, mixing them around, but nothing hit the mark. For the first time I had to start doing some research into related words and phrases that I could use. If you find yourself in the same position where you are struggling to find a domain name you are happy with here are my tips:

Use a thesaurus for inspiration
Type in the core theme of your website in to a thesaurus and see if you can find any related keywords that you like. For example in you have an online shop you could type in “store” and you will be presented with words such as; backlog, cache, inventory, nest egg, reserve, reservoir, stock, stockpile, treasure, store, boutique, emporium, outlet

Go web 2.0
Web 2.0 style domain names are all the rage, and they are proven to be an effective method of branding and easy to remember. Good examples include flickr, wuffo, bliin and zoogmo. To create your web 2.0 simply remove a vowel (e.g. trackr), add a vowel or two (e.g. miiix), add two unrelated short words together (e.g. snapfrog) or use utter jibberish (e.g. boblr).

Use unrelated words
I know I have already used this, but this method isn’t limited to creating web 2.0 style names. Lets say you want to create a funky music review site and you find every obvious variation on music, gigs and reviews taken, simply add in a word that is not connected to music but still makes sense in the context of the site’s target audience. for example, you could try “gigblaster”, “musicpython”, “soundcastle”, “ticketstubwire” and so on.

Add ‘my’, ‘your’ or ‘the’ at the start
The risk with this approach is people forgetting to type in the xxx in to their browser and you losing the traffic to another site, however adding words such as “the”, “my” or “your” to the start can let you register a domain with keywords you feel you really must have. E.g. If “totalbbq” is taken you could register “thetotalbbq”.

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Search for your domain name as normal and if you find the extension you want has been taken, simply click on the link “Can’t find the domain you’re looking for? Try our domain suggestions tool.” and thanks to some fancy semantic software you will be given a list of related alternatives to choose from.

Even if you decide to search again it can be a great source for ideas on alternative words to try and different combinations to play with.

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I have Excel 2007 on my personal lap top and I downloaded this keyword research add-in recently and I have been really impressed. I haven’t come across another free tool that gives you this amount of actionable data for free. I’ll be amazed if Google don’t offer somnething similar with their spreadsheet software some time this this year.

If anyone has used this already or is in fact aware of another tool that does all this for free, let us know!

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For those that are not sure what St. George’s day is all about, take a look here

On the right is an example of a shiny knight (guarding some cake) who was one of the winners of the costume competition.

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HTML editor
If you are ready to upgrade from WYSIWYG template software and you are frustrated with notepad, a great free HTML editor with built in FTP is coffeecup.com’s HTML editor 9.http://www.coffeecup.com/free-editor/.

Free images
Creating an interesting site with no pictures can be a pain, but it is not always worth shelling out for the license to use a picture. A great source of free pictures can be found through Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources

CSS templates
Just because I know how to use a paint brush doesn’t mean I can paint, and that’s true of graphical web design tools. Rather than hacking away for hours to make your website look presentable, leave it to the pro’s and download a free template that is ready to go.
http://www.opendesigns.org/
http://www.freecsstemplates.org/

Click on “Read the rest of this entry »” for links to:

Video
Adding video to your site is easy and free (as long as you already own a camera to record the video!). Simply record your sales pitch, tutorial, discussion… etc, upload it to YouTube, and then embed the link in to your site’s HTML. There are no hosting, streaming, support or maintenance costs and you get to add a new dimension to your site.
http://www.youtube.com/youtubeonyoursite

Jazz up how you display your pictures
This is a little more advanced than the tools above and requires you to use CSS as part of your site’s HTML. Lightbox2 allows you to put pictures on your site that that then expand when someone clicks on them. The site explains step by step how to install the code in to your site and it is a really glossy and slick tool.
An explanation of the tool is here: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/
The installation guide is here: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/#how

Share your presentations online
Acting in very much the same way as YouTube, SlideShare.net allows you to upload your PowerPoint et al presentations and them embed a link in your website’s HTML for users to view.
http://www.slideshare.net/

authorstream.com takes it one step further and lets people view the slidehow as a video so they don’t have to click a button to move the slides along.

Turn your web page into PDF
This tool allows your site visitors to covert one of your site’s pages in to PDF which is ideal if they want to print it off, save it for later or email it to a friend.
http://web2.pdfonline.com/

Misc:
http://www.textureking.com/: Some really nice textures for helping create cool graphics for your website.
http://www.kollermedia.at/pattern4u/: Free patterns for website backgrounds

If you have come across any free tools you use on your website leave a comment below and share the wealth!

Note: We have no affiliation with any of these websites and they are meant as a reference only. We can not accept any liability for any problems that may occur as a result of you using any of them.

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When you have to put a password into multiple systems many times a day, it can be tempting to choose a really simple one, then never change it. Worse, you might write it down on a piece of paper. I’ll put my hands up - I used to be guilty of this.

However, when these passwords can be all that’s protecting your email or your bank account, it’s worth taking the effort to make them hard to break. I’ve learnt there are a few tips that will help you make your passwords stronger and foil those pesky password hacking criminals.

It can be very tempting to use a word or number that’s easy to remember as your password. However, these are very easy to crack, putting your private information at risk from. Here are some tips on how to make a strong, hacking-resistant password that will help improve your security on the internet.

(Some of this may just sound like commonsense, but you might be surprised how many people are putting themselves at risk of identity theft just because they have weak passwords.)

• Use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers.
• Try to make your passwords as meaningless and random as possible.
• Make sure your passwords are at least eight characters long. The more characters they contain, the more difficult they are to guess.
• Change your passwords regularly. Set up a routine, changing your passwords the first day of each month or every other pay day.
• Use different passwords for each account.
• Never write your passwords down, and never give them out to anyone.

You should also make sure that your passwords are not easy to guess. To avoid creating an easily-guessed password have a look at my tips for things not to do:

• Don’t use your username or login in any form.
• Don’t use names or numbers associated with you, like you birthday or a nickname.
• Don’t use a derivative of your name, the name of a family member, or the name of a pet.
• Don’t use the word ‘password’.
• Don’t use dictionary words - in any language.
• Don’t use easily-obtained personal information. This includes car registration numbers, phone numbers, your car’s make or model, your street address and so on.

I think those are all my main tips for avoiding password hacking. What are yours? Leave a comment to let us know.

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