Frequently Asked Questions

Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLDs)
A top-level domain containing a 2-character abbreviation for countries. Some examples are .us for the United States, .ca for Canada, .de for Germany, etc. ccTLDs are often contrasted to generic top level domains (gTLDs).

Cybersquatting:
Cybersquatting is registering, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. Examples are registering with bad faith intent, the trademarks of Microsoft, Disney, Verizon or its misspellings, also known as typosquatting.

Some domain names are difficult to determine whether they infringe on a trademark. This is usually determined whether or not there was bad faith intent and resolved through arbitration forums (UDRP), or courts. Examples would include LiquidNutrition.com (won in UDRP arbitration), Partypic.com (lost in UDRP arbitration).

Reinvent does not support cybersquatting and has been building such filters into our system and working with the ICA and other companies to control blatant trademark infringement.

Reinvent also prohibits the monetization of adult and gambling domains on its network.  If any such domains are found on our system, please fill out this form.

Direct Navigation Traffic or Type-in Traffic:
Direct navigation describes the method individuals use to navigate the Internet in order to arrive at specific websites. This involves an internet user navigating to a website directly through the browser address bar, bypassing any online search engines and navigating directly to the domain. For example, a user looking for information about wedding shoes would directly type into his browser, Weddingshoes.com.

A 2005 study of internet traffic revealed that direct navigation traffic converts into sales for advertisers at 4.23% of total visits compared to 2.3% for product and service related searches performed via the search box at search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

Domainers or domain name investors:
Domain name investors own domain names that are generally generic keyword domains such as Laptop.com, CheapTravel.com, and Mother.com.

Domain Monetization:
The monetization of domain names can be through various ways. The most widely used method is pay-per-click advertising, where a domain’s visitors are targeted to advertisers based on the domain name and the user’s intent. The domain landlords make money every time a paid ad is clicked on. These web pages are often referred to as “parked pages”. Other forms of domain monetization are through direct sales, affiliate marketing and ecommerce businesses.

Domain Name:
Domain names are an alias to a computer’s address, the Internet Protocol or I.P. address. Domain names are the virtual real estate equivalents of an address. They are registered through domain name Registrars and its records are all maintained by a Registry.

In the early 1990s, domain names were free to register. Since the commercialization of the Internet, they have become valuable assets and as of 2008, there are over 100 million domain names registered worldwide.

ICANN:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit organization which was formed to assume responsibility for IP address allocation, domain name system (DNS) management, and root server system (RNS) management functions, which were previously performed under US Government contract by IANA and other entities. For more information about ICANN, please visit the ICANN website.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising:
Search engines, such as Google and Yahoo have a large base of advertisers who will pay for every click on their advertisements, hence, pay-per-click advertising. Advertisers will bid on a keyword for their advertisement and when someone searches for that keyword, their advertisement will display based on its relevance and bid to a keyword search. These form of paid advertising is generally labeled as Sponsored Links in the search engines and websites.

Registrar:
A registrar is a company, which is able to assign domain names using certain top-level domains (TLDs) to applicants.

Registry:
Registries are organizations designated by ICANN to manage the distribution of domain names within a particular top-level domain (TLD).

• .uk Registry operated by – Nominet UK
• .com Registry operated by – VeriSign
• .net Registry operated by – VeriSign
• .org Registry operated by – Public Interest Registry
• .mobi Registry operated by – dotMobi
  

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
The process of optimizing a web page for high search engine rankings for a particular search term or set of search terms.

Semantic Web:
The Semantic Web, otherwise known as Web 3.0, is able to describe things in a way that computers can understand. The Semantic Web describes the relationships between things (like A is a part of B and Y is a member of Z) and the properties of things (like size, weight, age, and price). The Semantic Web = a Web with a meaning. Its visionary is the man who invented the world wide web.

Top Level Domain (TLD):
TLD is the last part of the domain name. For example, the .com in Reinvent.com is the top level domain. ‘Reinvent’ is the second-level domain. There are two types of Top Level Domains. The most common type is Generic or gTLDs, such as .COM, .NET, .ORG. The other type of TLD is the ccTLD (country code top level domains) which are assigned to all countries and their dependencies.

Trademark:
A word, phrase, graphic image, or other symbol used to represent a business, commercial, or other organization. Trademarks are used to identify the organization to the public and to consumers and are intended to identify the organization's products and services as well. To be recognized as a trademark, the word, phrase, graphic image, or symbol must be registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (in the United States) or, in the case of other countries, with the appropriate authority for that country.

UDRP:
The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names. In a UDRP proceeding, the panel will consider factors such as, whether the defendant registrant’s domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which the complainant has rights; whether the defendant has no rights or legitimate interests in a name; and whether the defendant registered and is using the name in bad faith.

WHOIS database:
Whois databases are the public databases containing information, such as registrant owner information, creation and expiry date, about each registered domain. There is a Whois database for each top-level domain, maintained by that TLD's registry.
VeriSign maintain a central registry WHOIS database for all .com & .net domains. Nominet maintain a central registry WHOIS database for all UK domains.

WHOIS Privacy Service:
A domain name registration add-on service offered by Registrars that shield the publicly available data published to the WHOIS database to reduce spam, protecting owners against those who would misuse that data for such marketing purposes.