Granted Patent B2

US 8,413,043 · App. 12/267,016 · Granted Apr 2, 2013

Abstract

Claims (43)

1. A method for managing domain names, comprising:

storing a plurality of user accounts in a computer-readable data store, each of the plurality of user accounts being associated with a plurality of domain names belonging to the user;

storing a plurality of forwarding address records in the data store, each forwarding address record indicating a forwarding address for one of the plurality of domain names;

electronically receiving account information from a customer;

authenticating the customer as an owner of one of the plurality of user accounts;

presenting the list of domain names associated with the customer's user account, the domain names being owned by the customer;

receiving, from the customer, a selection of one of the plurality of domain names;

receiving, from the customer, a specification of a forwarding address to which the selected domain name is to be forwarded;

updating the data store to associate the selected domain name with the forwarding address;

receiving, from a user other than the customer, a request for a requested web address, the requested web address including the selected domain name;

retrieving the specified forwarding address from the data store based on at least a portion of the requested web address; and

forwarding the request to the specified forwarding address.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the forwarding address comprises a domain name and a uniform resource indicator (URI).

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the forwarding address consists of a domain name.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the requested web address comprises the selected domain name and a uniform resource indicator (URI).

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising periodically updating a remote host with the forwarding address specified by the customer.

6. A method for managing a plurality of domain names owned by a user, the method comprising:

electronically presenting a list of domain names owned by the user;

receiving, from the user, a selection of one of the domain names;

receiving, from the user, a first uniform resource locator (URL) to which the selected domain name is to be forwarded in response to a request from any of a plurality of users, the plurality of users including at least one user that is not the owner of the selected domain name; and

modifying a customer database to associate the first URL with the selected domain name.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

receiving a request including a second URL, the second URL comprising the selected domain name;

retrieving the first URL from the database;

constructing a third URL based on the first URL; and

forwarding the request to the to the third URL.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the first URL is a domain name.

9. The method of claim 6 wherein the first URL comprises a domain name and a URI.

10. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

receiving, from a second user, a request for a requested web address, the requested web address including the selected domain name;

retrieving the first URL to which the selected domain name is to be forwarded based on at least a portion of the requested web address from the customer database; and

forwarding the request to the first URL.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

receiving, from a third user different from the second user, a request for a second requested web address, the second requested web address including the selected domain name;

retrieving the first URL to which the selected domain name is to be forwarded based on at least a portion of the second requested web address from the customer database; and

forwarding the request to the first URL.

12. A system comprising:

a customer server comprising a processor and configured to communicate with at least one customer over a network;

a customer database in communication with the customer server, the customer database comprising a processor and storing:

a plurality of customer records associating customers with domain names owned by the respective customers; and

a plurality of forwarding address records, each forwarding address record associating a domain name owned by a customer with a forwarding address specified by the customer to which a request from a user other than the customer that includes the associated domain name should be forwarded; and

a data generator to update domain name data stored on at least one host based on the forwarding address records stored by the customer database.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein each of the forwarding addresses listed in the forwarding address records is specified by a customer that owns the domain name associated with the forwarding address.

Assignments (16)