A name can make of break a web site. I am of course talking about a Domain name.

You may think there is nothing to it. Pick a catchy domain name that rolls off the tongue, check that it is available and if it is go ahead and buy it. It couldn't be any harder that that can it?

Well, yes it can. Just stop and think for a minute. You have bought the domain name, designed and built a great looking website, and launched it out onto that great world wide web. You have got a great Reciprocal Link Exchange on your site and you have reached a reasonable Google Page Rank.

Then you decide to get an Auto responder to have a mailing list, and that is when your troubles start! Let me tell you my story

I don't know if you have heard of Stone Evans - the Home Biz Guy? He runs the Plug in Profit Site. Well I bought into his business. I had to decide on a domain name before he built my website. I chose the name martinsoffers.com. I though that was quite cool as my name is Martin and my site would be advertising offers.

Part of the Plug in Profit Site is you get your own Auto Responder, filled with a 360 day newsletter ready for when you sign up subscribers. I went ahead and bought a good quality leads package and loaded them into my auto responder.

All was going well. Or so I thought.

After a while, I noticed I was not getting any response from my good quality leads (on average you should expect around 1% sign up at the very least). I did some searching around, mainly in the Warrior Forum which is part of the membership package of the Plug in Profit Site. There I saw a series of posts on the American Anti Spam Laws and the effects it was having on the newsletters.

With the Auto responder, there was a spam check program. I'd never used that before, but I ran a few sample newsletters through the spam check. Boy, was I in for a shock. Every single one failed to pass the test. My auto responder is probably like most others, it has a scoring system and once it passes 5 it flags up that your newsletter would trigger the spam filters.

What I found most disturbing was that it was my domain name of martinsoffers.com that was scoring the most, 4.3 points each time it was mentioned. And 2.3 points because my email address was @martinsoffers.com.

Even a single word newsletter with just www.martinsoffers.com scored 6.6. Way above the threshold.

The cost to me, as a result of this has not just been to register a new domain name. I have had to completely redesign my website with my new name on it. Cancel and reopen a new account with my auto responder. And start again with my Reciprocal Links Exchange.

I have also had to start again from scratch with the Google Ranking. And I have a domain name that is next to useless to me or to anyone for that matter. I only use it now to direct traffic meant for martinsoffers.com to my new website.

So, that's my story, and my warning to you.

Before you go and register a new domain name, run it through a spam check. If you are going to use your web site for marketing the last thing you want is for the spam filters to stop your email getting through.

Martin Wood