• What is a domain name?
  • How does the post office find your house, to deliver you mail? They can do it because you have an address. The internet works the same way. Every website has a unique address. Whereas your home's address is something like: 111 Main Street, addresses on the web are much less interesting. An internet address consists of four numbers, seperated by periods, such as: 111.222.333.444 Every website on the web has an address like this.

Actually, to be completely accurate, internet addresses point at the server, on which a website resides. There are times, and Talkspot is one of them, when multiple websites reside on the same server. Thing of this particular address as pointing at an apartment building.

Most of us find numbers hard to remember, so the internet does something very convenient. There are servers, scattered around the internet, that associate names with addresses. For instance, our talkspot website has the name (called a domain name) of www.talkspot.com, and the server it is on has the address 206.196.19.86

A domain name is the last two parts of a website address. For instance, in www.talkspot.com, the domain name is: talkspot.com.

A website address is different from an IP address (which is the four numbers we discussed previously). When someone refers to a website address, the are usually referring to the full name used to access a website via the browser, such as www.talkspot.com.

A URL (Universal Resource Locator) is the full name used to access something on the web, such as a webpage, a website, a picture, a song, etc. For instance www.talkspot.com/pictures/picture1.jpg

Also, check out:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dns1.htm

• Why would I want a domain name?
  • Build Trust with Customers
    • When visitors arrive at your site, they want to know that your website is legitimate and that it is there to stay. With your own domain name you reveal that you are in it for the long haul.
  • Help Maximize Your Promotion Efforts
    • When you secure your own domain name, you have complete freedom in your promotions. Many search engines, directories and other promotional sites will frown at "free" hosted sites with another site's address and marketing materials. When you use a free web page hosting service, your site pages are placed on a website along with many other types of businesses. The search engines will not recognize your site as being a unique entity. They might even lump your site into categories with other sites that are using the free service. This can hurt your promotional efforts tremendously, and you end up wasting time and money. You'll actually save money in the long run with your own domain name.

By securing a domain name and taking advantage of TalkSpot's tools, you can promote your site to the fullest.

• What do I do if I already own my own domain name?  Can I use it and will I be charged?
  • Yes you can and no you won’t!
  • You can use an existing name and swap it to your TalkSpot system.  However, this will involve a manual process.  Aside from the initial fee for establishing your upgraded membership, you will not incur any additional charges for a single instance of a domain name swap, per site.

To make the change, you will need to set your DNS servers to:

• ns1.maximumasp.com
• ns2.maximumasp.com

You may need to contact the company that you originally purchased the domain name from to learn how to do this.  The process is different for each company.

Once you have made the change on your end, send an email to admin@talkspot.com with the domain name, and within 24 to 48 hours, your change will have been made.  Make sure to include the name of your existing TalkSpot site.

For more information check out:

http://rshweb.com/dns.html
http://www.mydiscountdomains.com/dns.htm

• Can I have more than one domain name pointed at a single site?
  • Yes!  To do so, email admin@talkspot.com
    
  
  
• Can I cancel my upgraded account status?
  • For the most part, yes!  At any point in time, you can cancel your membership.  At that point, you will maintain the same account status until the end of the existing billing cycle.  Once this occurs, your website will return to its “Free” status, and you will not be billed again.  We do not offer refunds or partial returns for the time between cancelling and the end of the previously paid period of time.

All this said, we recommend you start with a month-to-month subscription model and when you’re certain that you will be with TalkSpot.com for a long time, then we recommend moving to the annual model.

• Will more account types be offered in the future?
  • Maybe?

TalkSpot.com really listens to our audience, and this relationship has brought us to this point.  As time moves forward, TalkSpot will change and evolve for the better.  We take comments and recommendations to heart and if a strong set of tools begins to materialize from this relationship, that takes a lot of work, yes, it’s completely possible that we will introduce new packages in the future!  At the moment, there are no concrete plans, but anything is possible!

• When will I be billed?
  • You will be billed 7 days prior to the end of your billing cycle, in all cases.
  • Monthly subscriber example:
    • If you signed up on February 8th, 2007, you will be billed on the first of the month (March 1st, 2007, etc.), for each successive month, until you cancel or switch to an annual account status.
  • Annual subscriber example:
    • If you signed up on February 8th, 2007, you will be billed on the first of the February for each successive year, until you cancel or switch to a monthly account status.

IMPORTANT NOTE: TalkSpot purchases your domain for a year at a time. If you know that you are up for credit card renewal -- CHECK YOUR CARD NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE -- if you don't your account could lapse, and you will lose your domain name. There is nothing we can do about this.  We cannot fix this.

• What if I get a new credit card?
  • Once you are an upgraded member, you will see “Account Status and Billing” in your toolkit.  Select this option, change your credit card information and submit it. 

That’s it!

IMPORTANT NOTE: We suggest you do it immediately SO YOUR ACCOUNT DOES NOT EXPIRE.

• What happens if my account expires, through credit card expiration, cancellation, or other unforeseen issues on my end?
  • Talkspot has control over most elements of a TalkSpot website.  We save everything in a database and in a case where an account lapses or is cancelled, we will save that information for a year.  Re-subscribing will unlock all the tools and return things to normal.

HOWEVER, we cannot control your email accounts or domain name.  These are controlled by a third party.  If you cancel or let your account lapse, you run a VERY good risk that you will lose your domain name forever, and all email addresses, the email account and any email saved within it.  That said, take precautionary measures to ensure that your account never lapses, or that you’re prepared for the results of a cancellation.

• What if I want to take my domain name elsewhere?
  • Email us at admin@talkspot.com and we will transfer your domain name to anywhere you’d like for a one time transfer fee of $35.00.
    
• What if I want more than 100 email addresses?
  • At present, the limit is 100.  If there becomes a pressing need for more than 100 email addresses, email us at admin@talkspot.com and something can likely be worked out.
    
• How long is my domain name mine?
  • Your domain name is yours as long as you are an upgraded account holder.  If your account lapses (see above), there is a good possibility that you will lose your domain name.  This is beyond TalkSpot’s control.

If you would like to transfer your domain name to another website or service, there is a one-time $35.00 transfer fee.

• What about price increases?
  • At this time, we have no plans for price increases.  However, in time we may offer new additional services that will require another upgrade fee in order to gain access to these tools and features.
    
• What about new features?
  • TalkSpot takes great pride in listening to its audience.  As comments, recommendations and requests come in, we weigh them, prioritize them, put our heads down and make them! 

As time moves forward, you can assume that the tools will only get better, more refined and gain additional power.  We don’t know what these tools and features will be at this time, but feel free to email us at admin@talkspot.com to request features or just to see what we might have in the hopper!

• How do I convert my subscription to annual from monthly billing?
  • Currently, there is no way for you to do this yourself. Email us at: admin@talkspot.com and we will do it for you. Just include your website domain name in your email to us, and state that you would like to make the change. We'll take it from there.

Note: At this point, you will be charged the annual rate.