In the physical world of shops and stores, location is everything. It’s not that folks won’t go out of their way for a really great product or service, they will. Rather, location is about walk-in traffic, customer convenience and competition. If Joe Traffic passes a centrally located shop everyday on the way home from work, odds are he’ll eventually step inside. If Jane Busylady can find your product at a venue closer to her home, during hours when she’s free, she’s going to opt for convenience. If Charley Competitor can open a store closer to Joe Traffic and better suited to Jane Busylady’s free hours, he will. If your business is the only game in town, you either live in a very small town or you’ve got one hell of a business.

"In the physical world of shops and stores, location can make or break you. On the Internet, your domain name is your location."

The World Wide Web is certainly not a small town. Internet porn is not a one-person game. There are hundreds of thousands of free and paid porn sites on the web. No matter how unique your content or how clever your design, odds are there is another webmaster offering virtually the same goods as you and making more money simply because his site has a catchier domain name.

This is not an article about catchy domain names. Too many webmasters will tell you that a domain means nothing without a great site. This is true. However, you can’t host a site without a domain name. You can’t optimize search engine position or build traffic and brand recognition without a domain. If you want to run an adult site, you need a domain name. In fact, if you keep at this, you’re probably going to own many sites and you’re going to need many domain names.

Here’s the scary thing about a domain name. Even though you are the one that thought up your ingenious domain name and registered it, YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR DOMAIN NAME. Let me repeat. YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR DOMAIN NAME. You may own your brand. You may have even registered your trademark. Doesn’t matter. From the moment you clicked the REGISTER button that very first time, your domain became the property of your registrar.

This is the way it works: When you pay to register a domain name, you are actually leasing that domain name from your registrar. Whether your lease is for one year, two years or ten, when your lease is up, you must pay your registrar again for a new one. If you do not pay, your domain becomes the property of your registrar. Is this fair? Is this ethical? Who can say? It is what it is. You can sell your domain but you never truly own your domain.

Then again, your registrar can lose it’s right to confiscate your domain if you transfer to another registrar. If you are unsatisfied with the way your current registrar handles your account, you can switch. If your present registrar charges too much per year or fails to render promised services, you are under no legal obligation to continue leasing from them. All you have to do is find a registrar that offers the prices and services you want and transfer your domain to them. The process is easy and ICANN recently instituted new rules to protect domain registrants from unscrupulous registrars.

Why switch registrars? The answers are many and an important one is price. If you own ten domains and you’re currently leasing from a registrar that forces you to a $35.00 per two-year agreement, you’re probably paying too much. If your registrar is charging you more than ICANN’s obligatory initial (like, $2.50) fee, you’re paying too much. If you’re paying for some mandatory bundle of services when all you need is a stand- domain name, you’re paying too much.

Domain prices have dropped dramatically since 1996. Back then, a one-year domain lease cost $70.00 and that was without initial fees and reseller markups. In 1998, a certain domain registrar was charging $49.00 per year for a .com domain. In 1999, that same registrar cut the price to $35.00 per year. In 2004 this once powerful registrar leased .com domains at $35.00 per year without a paid hosting account yet graciously slashed the price to $8.95 for registrants willing to pay for their hosting services. At one time, this registrar was the only dot com registrar and what do they charge for a one-year commitment in 2006? $34.99.

Were you aware that there are registrars offering domains for less than ten dollars per year? Did you know that some registrars have better services and feature better protections than others do? Are you sure your domain registrar is giving you the most value for your money?

In the physical world of shops and stores, location can make or break you. On the Internet, your domain name is your location. A domain name might not mean much -six months or a year from now, but what about in three years? By then your domain name will be your brand name and it would be awful to risk losing it to a lousy registrar. In three years, you could be leasing a hundred domains and at $34.99 per year, you could be wasting thousands of dollars with an over-priced registrar. These costs add up and you have to ask yourself if your present registrar is working in your best interests.

Do yourself a favor and compare domain registrars. Chances are, you will find one that not only costs less but will transfer your domain for free. Take the time because it’s worth it. Your domain may not be Park Place or Pennsylvania Avenue, but as a webmaster, it’s the closest thing you have to a physical location.