Here's some recent news concerning domains and domain names…

Using Domain Name Registrations to Find Out Who the American Idol Semi-Finalists Are

Although the cross-country auditions for the reality television show American Idol took place a couple of months ago, they're being aired (and watched by millions) only now. Those who pass these auditions are then sent to Hollywood, where their numbers will be pared down to about 40 semi-finalists who will then compete in the regular Tuesday/Wednesday night series.

Reality TV fans are an inquisitive and impatient bunch and like to get as much inside information about the people on their shows as possible. Reality TV Magazine is doing a good job catering to their readership by doing some sleuthing; they've come up with a list of American Idol contestants who are likely to be in the semi-finalist pool by watching registrations of contestant names as domain names that were made in mid-November, right around the end of the Hollywood elimination round.

I'm not going to give away the likely semi-finalists' names, but if you're an insatiably curious American Idol follower, they're listed in this article titled American Idol Spoiler – More Semi-Finalists Revealed By Domain Names.

Seth Finkelstein: “Why the .xxx would anyone want a top-level domain for porn?”

Computer programmer and activist Seth Finkelstein has an article in today's edition of in which he asks why anyone would want the .xxx top-level domain.

His answer is that there's no good reason for .xxx to exist. Seth argues that it's yet another chapter in “the long history of rating and labelling”, in which already tried ideas [such as the .sex domain -- see the IETF memo titled .sex Considered Danegrous] are being reinvented, badly.” He also argues that the people who would rush to buy .xxx domains would be either defensive purchasers who want to protect their trademarks and domain name speculators.

“.um” Dumped

ICANN voted unanimously to remove the .um top-level domain — for U.S. minor outlying islands. There are still separate domain names for the larger ofthese islands such as .gu for Guam and .vi for the U.S. Virgin Islands. This deletion reduces the number of TLDs to 264.

Domain Name Changes and Search Engine Ranking

“If I change domain names and keep the identical website on the new domain,” writes one of Kalena Jordan's readers, “how will search engine ranking be affected?”

Kalena's answer:

Technically, your new domain is treated as a brand new site, regardless of whether the content you use on it has been published on another domain and therefore, Google will subject it to the aging delay for new sites.

Her advice:

• Use 302 “temporarily moved” redirects on your old domain pages until your new domain has aged the required time in Google.
• Change them to 301 “permanently moved” redirects once the Google aging period has passed.
• Read Switching to a New Domain Without Losing Your Google Rankings for more details on this technique.

Posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 7:42 pm by Tucows.
Filed under: General.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.