The internet is often compared to the Wild West, but the real gold rush is about to begin. Starting June 25th, the biggest internet lottery will kick off, with the potential for anyone to secure a million-dollar domain name. It's predicted that over 5 million new .BIZ and .INFO domain names will be registered within the first few hours. This is your chance to join the savvy businesses and entrepreneurs who are already pre-registering for this digital land grab.
For the first time in over a decade, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved new domain extensions. These new extensions, .BIZ and .INFO, are set to become the preferred choices for internet users, right next to the reigning .COM.
In the past, developers and domain squatters had a head start on securing the best .COM domain names. This was also the case with .CC, .TV, .WS, and other domain extensions. However, this time around, everyone has an equal chance to secure those million-dollar domain names.
The only exception is for trademark owners, who can register their domain trademark names now for a filing fee of $199.75, which includes five years of registration. This advantage for trademark owners ends on June 24th.
On June 25th, the .BIZ registration lottery will open, followed by the .INFO public lottery on July 25th. All domain names pre-registered at that time (not registered by trademark owners) will go into the "hopper". The new domain database holders, NeuLevel (.BIZ) and Afilias (.INFO), will then randomly select domain names from each of the different domain name registrars in a round-robin fashion. This will indeed be a real lottery.
The random lottery drawings will continue until August 22nd for .INFO domains and September 29th for .BIZ domains. After these dates, the remaining domain names will be sold by standard registration methods.
The most crucial step is to pre-register before the starting day. Once the land rush begins, the whole world will be aware of it.
You can significantly increase your chances by pre-registering the same .INFO names with several domain name registration companies.
Just like a lottery, you can buy several "tickets" for the same .BIZ domain name from the same registration company.
The cost of pre-registering for a new .BIZ or .INFO domain can range from free to $27,250.00 per name.
Network Solutions (Internic) has been collecting .BIZ and .INFO domain names for pre-registration for months. They likely have over a million new .info and .biz names pre-registered. The good news is you can add your selection to this list for free.
Due to the large numbers of Internic free pre-registered .BIZ and .INFO domains, your odds for getting a hit are low. The odds increase when you go to a domain name registration company whose queue has smaller numbers, i.e., a paid pre-register.
Yes, you read that right. Bidding starts at $7,560.00 per domain at eNom.com. You must bid against others desiring the same name, and the highest bidder will get the domain name.
Trademark owners can keep squatters away by registering .BIZ, .INFO names during the Sunrise Period. This is your cheapest insurance to protect your trademark. Special advance registration will end on June 24th, after that all new .BIZ domain names are up for grabs.
You can also protect your current ".COM" domain by registering .BIZ - .INFO backups. This is cheap insurance to protect your web future.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Choose wisely and register only as many domains as you can afford to pay if you actually get the name(s). If you secure one of these million-dollar names and decide not to use it, you can always resell the name for a significant profit.
For more information on the .BIZ and .INFO domain name lottery, visit DomainNameVault and eNom.
