How to Create Your .Tel Domain Name
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
A quick guide to getting your .tel domain name online.
If you read Domain Name Wire frequently then you already know my opinion about .tel. But I know some people are getting into this, so I thought it would be worthwhile to register a .tel and share my experience.
I registered my last name, allemann.tel, at Moniker for $14.95. The registration process was a little different from other domains. I had to provide whois info for my .tel domain, and had a choice to keep it private.
After completing my registration I received a standard Moniker receipt and nothing else. Apparently each registrar is supposed to tell you how to set up your .tel. I logged back into my Moniker account, searched for allemann.tel, and saw this message at the very bottom of the page:
Note: To manage your .TEL name(s), please login at https://telhosting.moniker.com with your Moniker credentials. Your username is “MONIKER” plus your account id. (For example: Account 1000 at Moniker will login with “MONIKER1000″ username and your current Moniker password.)
I logged into the .tel system and it was fairly intuitive to “fill out” the profile. I only got stuck in a couple places. First was the phone number field. You have to enter your phone number in a specific format that includes the country code. Few people in the U.S. know what the U.S. country code is: 00. Telnic should include a link to a country code lookup or use the U.S. as an example.
Second, when completing your keyword and additional information, the save function isn’t as you’d expect. Here’s what it looks like:
Usually when you see a multi-tabbed pop up box like this, you can fill out more than one tab and click save once. That’s not the case here. You have to hit save on each tab, otherwise only the last tab you’re on will be saved and published.
Once you complete your .tel page it will go live within 15 minutes.
I ran into one other issue you should be aware of. After making several updates I noticed they didn’t appear on the live domain. I e-mailed Telnic about it, and they sent back a screenshot of what they saw on my page. It was different from what I could see. I cleared my cache and tried a different browser with the same result. Then it hit me: I’m making changes in the DNS, and DNS changes can take a while to propagate. It’s like changing the nameservers on a traditional domain and having to wait a little while before the site resolves to the new nameservers.
Now that I understand the .tel structure more I have formulated an opinion about the potential for search engine benefits of .tel domains. I’ll write about that in a later post.
Related posts:
Tags: .tel
I hate to be a .tel hater but what a waste of time.
It’s a crappy web page with phone numbers and text links. Whoopie!
More clutter to confuse people and yet another useless extension for noobies to waste money on.
Who would invest $35,000,000 to get this off the ground?
Maybe the good thing to come out of this will be extension overload and some backlash so ICANN doesn’t keep approving stupid domain extensions that no one ever develops.
I think it is going to have its place and will work out well.
Too much work already.
This all seems so 90’s…It just feels like walking backwards to me.
The launch of any TLD is a boom for domainers
as they have all the money to book premium domains and then sell it at a later stage at a premium rate.
As for the general public pray to God that your name doesn’t fall in the fancy list of domainers
.tel will definitely catch up as Johnny said and the registry i guess will bring in new templates, and with them allowing MX records I guess many would like it too.
It’s ironic that you’d be offered whois privacy on a .tel domain that’s main purpose is to make your contact info public. But then it’s not surprising considering how little margin registrars can make from .tel registrations.
BTW, according to http://www.countrycallingcodes.com the dialing code for the US is +1.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the comments – and the suggestion about the country code lookup is a good one. If other readers have constructive criticism or features to suggest once they have started to use their .tel domains, they can email us at community at telnic dot org (or of course find us at telnic.tel!)
Regards,
Justin Hayward
Telnic Limited
justin.tel
You registered almost twice the price I’ve got from Name.com $8.95 for .Tel. Well I registered 2 only for a small project, just to test the use of it.
I think better concept than .mobi or .ph extension. Well see if the end user will adapt using .tel for their personal or business use.
I have http://www.filipino.tel for this project.
Cheers,
EM @KING.NET
Funny that you write ” Few people in the U.S. know what the U.S. country code is: 00.”
Case in point — no, that’s not the US country code.
The US country code is 1.
Often, country codes are expressed with a “+” in front of them. This represents whatever
The “+” is there to stand for whatever digits must get dialled before the actual country code. In most cases that is “00″ but not all. For example to dial international from the US you don’t dial “00″ but rather “011″. So a “+” is used as the universal representation of whatever needs to be dialled in front of the country code.
For example, the UK’s country code is 44. This is expressed as “+44″, meaning that if you dial from the US you dial 011 44 … but if you dial from, say, Germany, you dial 00 44 ….
uh, strike “this represents whatever” from above comment.
“Case in point — no, that’s not the US country code.”
Touche.
“It’s ironic that you’d be offered whois privacy on a .tel domain that’s main purpose is to make your contact info public. But then it’s not surprising considering how little margin registrars can make from .tel registrations.”
whois privacy is free on .tel. Telnic worked out a deal with ICANN to make this available. You can set up a .tel domain but keep information private from the general public, such as your phone number. If you had to include it in whois then that would defeat the purpose.
One way to extend revenue… that’s all.
Em
If I can register a .tel domain for $10/year that has over 500,000 exact keyword searches month after month, it doesn’t make sense for me to continue an expensive text ad campaign where I can easily spend more than a dollar per click for a top ad position targeting the same keyword.
It seems to me that a .tel contact page can be set up similar in format to sponsored ad listings, but with only one website link: MINE!
I’ll take my chances that the type-in traffic for a premium .tel will generate more marketing bang for the buck than continuting with business as usual. Ten click-thrus in one year is all I need to break even!
If you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it.
@Dave “It seems to me that a .tel contact page can be set up similar in format to sponsored ad listings, but with only one website link: MINE!”
You can also set up several category folders dave, leading to more revenue for your keyword.tel.
The more I think carefully about .tel, the more sense it makes, however domainers should think carefully about what domains to purchase to extract value. I just bought the following:
Cheaplaptops.tel
CheapComputers.tel
KitchenDesign.tel
The point here is, I could potentially promote and brand one “telephone” contact number in the United States & the UK for instance and cut deals with suppliers, or I could have dealers list their contact details.
Either way, it looks like there could be serious money to be made with the right domains if done correctly.
“whois privacy is free on .tel. Telnic worked out a deal with ICANN to make this available. You can set up a .tel domain but keep information private from the general public, such as your phone number. If you had to include it in whois then that would defeat the purpose.”
That’s an interesting tidbit, thanks! Although, I’m not sure that including public data in whois would defeat the purpose as much as enhance the purpose (of making yourself reachable).
3 days ago I purchased two .tel and completed the setup with basic info but its not yet live which sucks.
i have just sent an email to website@telnic.org
am not sure if that is right one.
any one knows how much time do they take to respond?
The success of .tel completely depends on the features and flexibility in using it.
Actually, I bought .tel thinking that my customers/employees can have their contact info under one roof (.tel) to display by having their own sub-logins while I have the main login to .tel
but it looks like there is no such option.
Cheers
Many thanks. Disregard my comment on your other .tel article. I had no idea how to do this. They should make it a lot easier and systematic if they want this .tel movement to launch.
1) Register
2) Follow this link
3) Fill out info
Doemainer
“It’s ironic that you’d be offered whois privacy on a .tel domain that’s main purpose is to make your contact info public. But then it’s not surprising considering how little margin registrars can make from .tel registrations.”
Personal safety is very important. Not all countries are safe from criminals who can use your private data for making harm to you, your family or your property.
So the “Privacy” should be offered for .tel domain uses. I would like to show my bussiness contacts but I do not want anyone will know my home address and other personal data.
Yes, I am a .mobi fan also… I guess .tel does tie everything together. It lets the end user decide how to contact someone, whether it is a quick phone call or e:mail. The key is really getting a good short name. Imagine an attorney’s office Shuster, Smith, and whatever .com or FloridaLawyer.com, or .tel. or .info. It is the easy to remember domain name that is most important.