How long does it take to transfer my domain?

A domain transfer will generally take a few days, but the timing depends on your current registrar (the company with which you manage your domain today) and the status of your domain.

Tip: No matter how long it takes to transfer your domain, we'll provide a temporary web address that you can use to start working with your plan while you're waiting.

Transfers from most registrars usually take at least five days. If your registrar is Melbourne IT or one of its other partners, however, you may be able to transfer your domain name in minutes, if your domain is ready to transfer right away.

When is a domain ready to transfer? Before you can transfer your domain, you'll need to make sure the domain is unlocked. You'll also need to ask your registrar for your authorization code or registry key (we'll let you know which one you need when you start the transfer process), and may need to check a few other settings. Don't worry — we'll guide you through the process.

Why would I want to transfer my domain to Yahoo!?

When you sign up for a Yahoo! Small Business plan, you can transfer a domain you already own to Yahoo! (through Melbourne IT) to use with your service. After you transfer your domain, you'll be able to manage your entire plan through Yahoo! Small Business — and with a single bill. (Your domain name registration is included free with your Small Business plan, so you'll likely even save a few bucks every year by managing your domain and plan together.)

Even better, after you transfer your domain, we'll renew your registration for you automatically every year, you don't ever have to worry about losing your domain.

What is a registrar transfer?

Registrar transfer means moving your domain name registration from one organization to another, such as from Network Solutions to our domain registration partner, Melbourne IT. When you transfer your domain to a different registrar, the new registrar becomes responsible for managing your domain renewal and registration records, and you'll pay that provider any associated renewal fees.

If you already own a domain name, you can transfer that domain (through a registrar transfer) to Yahoo! to use with your Small Business plan. Learn more about the benefits of a registrar transfer.

How do I get my domain listed in search engines?

Search engines change their page ranking and relevancy formulas frequently to keep sites from artificially boosting their rankings above where they would normally be based on their content. The trick that works to boost your ranking today may actually hurt your ranking in the future based on changes that are made.

One example of this is the keywords meta tag. Some web sites stuffed popular keywords into their keywords meta tag to boost their rankings, even though the site contents had nothing to do with the keywords entered. Search engines did rank such sites higher for a period of time. However, search engines gain users by providing quality results when visitors enter search terms, and thus search engines use all means possible to identify, track, and prevent sites from manipulating search results. Today most major search engines no longer use the keywords field, since it is prone to abuse. (See "Death of a Meta Tag.")

With constantly changing methods of ranking, we cannot provide you with a set of steps to ensure that your site will appear in the first page of search results. We can however provide a series of guidelines that, in general, search engine experts agree should help to boost your rankings:

• Build a quality site: This may seem obvious, but a site that looks professional and offers a good experience for visitors will get more traffic, more referrals, and, in the end, higher rankings. Don't submit a work in progress or publish your site before it is truly ready to be seen.
• Get big: Sites with more than 100 pages will attract more attention from search engines looking for sites with quality content. A hundred pages is not a magic number that you have to hit, but you should build unique pages for each product or article on your site.
• Say something: Sites with frequently updated and new content rank higher in search engines typically. If, for example, your store sells aromatherapy bath soaps and candles, you could have an article about the benefits of various scents and the influence they have on well-being and attitude. You could also publish testimonials from your customers on the use of your products as you receive them. As such, your site will become a destination for readers who may then become buyers.
• Use keywords not only as a tag: Choose noncompetitive keywords and include them in your page titles, descriptions, headings, and content. Search engines like when your keywords appear more than once on a page, but if they appear too many times, you could be penalized for trying to spam the search rankings. Try adding page titles to each of your pages.
• Exchange links: Include links to sites similar (but not necessarily competitive) to your own. Send an email asking for a link exchange. Some sites may say yes, some may say no, but the more you get (as long as they are quality sites), the better off you will be.
• Get involved and get your name out there: Read and participate in popular forums that match your site's focus or interests. Many will let you include links to a web site in your forum signature. When the forum gets crawled by search engines, your link should get picked up as well. Don't put your link in postings on noncommercial message boards, however, if this is against the policy of the owner. You could do more harm than good. However, if you have a wealth of knowledge to share, you can become a leader that others will look to for answers and possibly referrals for products or services.

To learn more about submitting your store to search engines, we recommend Search Engine Watch, an unbiased, up-to-date resource for search engine news, submission tips, and strategies.

How do I renew my domain name?

If you registered a domain through Yahoo!, we'll automatically rewew your domain each year. If your billing information is up-to-date, there's no need to do a thing.

You can double-check your billing information by visiting https://billing.yahoo.com. To update your credit card, click the "Update Payment Method" link next to the plan you'd like to edit. Learn more.

Important: If you're using a domain that you registered with another company, that company will continue to renew your domain, and you'll pay any associated fees to that provider. Yahoo! will not renew your domain.

What do you do with my domain name registration info?

Public domain name databases (also known as WHOIS databases) contain contact information domain names. Domain name registries and registrars maintain maintain these WHOIS databases.

Yahoo! registers your domain name through Melbourne IT*, a registrar accredited by the Internet's governing organization, called ICANN.

The personal contact information you provided when you originally placed your order was used to designate the registrant and administrative contacts for your domain name. As required by ICANN, this information is publicly available. For more information, refer to Yahoo's Privacy Center and yourTerms of Service.

Records of all domain names registered by our registrar, Melbourne IT, are maintained in Melbourne IT's public WHOIS database. The information includes registrant, administrator, technical contact, and name server information as well as record creation, update, and expiration dates. You can view and edit your whois data through your Domain Control Panel.

All domain registration information is available to the public through many publicly accessible WHOIS interfaces. You'll find a list of Whois resources in Yahoo!'s directory.

What is a web address?

A web address identifies the location of a specific web page on the Internet, such ashttp://www.learn2yoga.com.

A domain name is the component of a web address that identifies and locates an entity (such as a person, business, or organization) presence on the Internet. In tech speak, the domain name is the representation of the numeric IP Addresses assigned to individual computers.

For example, the domain name in our sample web address is learn2yoga.com.

A domain extension is the suffix at the end of a domain name, such as .com, .net., or .edu. If your domain name is learn2yoga.com, for example, your domain extension is .com. Most extensions represent a web site category or a country. The extension .org, for example, stands for organization and is typically used by noncommercial web sites; while extensions like .uk are used in domain names registered in the United Kingdom.

Yahoo! Domains currently offers the domain extensions .com, .net, .org, .us, .biz, and .info.