Just about anybody that has been on the Internet and involved with affiliate marketing, network marketing or making money online has probably at one time or another ran across somebody promoting GDI or Global Domains International. Maybe you are looking for a business to start online and want to know exactly what this company is all about and how you make money with it. We will take a look at the Global Domains opportunity and product and show you how people earn a living from home with it.
A Brief History
It all started back in the mid 1990’s .com boom when CEO’s Michael Reed and Alan Ezeir where trying to come up with alternative domain extensions that businesses could use to brand themselves with. That researched many country codes and finally agreed that the best extension with that could be branded was from the tiny island of Western Samoa.
Out of all the country codes, the island had not yet developed this domain extension and they believed that it could be developed and branded worldwide as the “WebSite” or .ws top-level domain extension.
Fast forwarding to the year 2000 after much negotiating with the government and officials of Western Samoa and GDI opened its doors for business as the official registrar for the .ws domain extension along with providing services like web hosting, email and website builder software that allows people with no programming knowledge to easily build web pages from scratch for the affordable price of ten dollars a month.
After nine months in business Global Domains International announced that it had sold more then 100,000 .ws domains with customers in over 180 countries in addition to big fortune 500 customers like Yahoo!, Intel, Cisco, eBay and Dell Computers.
Is GDI A Scam?
There has been much talk going around the Internet as to weather or not the opportunity that GDI presents to customers is a scam or not. The company offers a multi-level compensation to affiliates for referring new customers. The reason why it has been thought of as a scam is because of the pyramid structure of the plan that is five levels deep.
Pyramid schemes and what is a legitimate business is a highly debated topic among people in the network marketing and MLM world and opposition to them, but basically what it comes down to is that if a company offers no real product or service then it is a pyramid or ponzi scheme. Global Domains Inc. offers a domain registration package that includes hosting, email and web building software. That is there product and that is what they charge ten dollars a month for.
A Breakdown Of The Service
1. The .ws Domain Extension
Everyday thousands of domains are being snatched up. With all the great .com’s taken, people are looking to alternative extensions to get the name they are looking for. The .ws name has great names still available for people to register such as your own name. It is projected that the domain industry is going to be the next real estate boom with many names selling for hundreds of times there purchase price with some investors making up to 400-500% returns on a single domain. Virtual real estate or VRE is going to make many millionaires in the next ten years and now is your chance to become a part of it.
You also get the option of URL forwarding that lets you take your .ws domain extension and send it to an already existing website that your might have. Lots of companies do this when they register every extension available to protect their brand and have it forwarded to the .com name.
2. The Hosting Plan
Global Domains International also comes with a premium shared web hosting plan which lets you upload your own business or personal site. The feature ultra fast dual 3.6 GHz CPU Pentium 4 servers with fully managed 24/7 site monitoring and 1 GIGAbit, multi-homed tier-1 carriers. Customers get over 100 megabytes of storage per account and 10 gigs of bandwidth for website traffic.
Although you can get web hosting for free these days, it does come with the burden of having to carry banners and advertisements on your website. Having your own web host provides you with security and control and GDI has an affordable plan that most Internet users can afford. It is also a good idea to have your own server because even free blogs and social network accounts can be closed at anytime with all your information and hard work lost forever.
3. Email Service
With each domain name customers get 10 email addresses that they can use. The email service features POP/IMAP access which allows you to check your email in applications like Outlook or Thunderbird and WebMail which you can access email from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection, or you can also forward your email to another email address that you already use.
4. WebSite Builder 2.0
WebSite Builder 2.0 is a simple point and click website building solution for people with no HTML skills or technical knowledge of computers. It features professionally designed website templates designed by graphic artists that allow you to fill in a couple of fields of information, click a couple of buttons and have a brand new website published online instantly.
For the price you are getting a good deal. Most people would have to register a domain through other companies that cost anywhere from $10-30 a year. GDI gets you a .ws domain extension for life and affordable web hosting that is reliable compared to other cheap hosting companies that provide slow service and lots of downtime for your website.
The Income Opportunity
GDI has an amazing uni-level compensation plan that pays affiliates five levels deep with the ability to build an unlimited team on your first level and 100% commissions on all levels underneath your first. Affiliates also get rewarded with a generous bonus for referring five or more active members in one week with $100 deposited directly into your bank account or Paypal account instantly. You also get an additional $100 for every five affiliates you bring in to the program.
The opportunity literally sells itself with the movie presentation people are presented with after they visit the corporate site and request the information. The website is filled with thousands of testimonials from all around the world of people who have found success with the GDI income opportunity.
What makes Global Domains International so lucrative is the fact that they have no competition in the industry. They are the only network marketing company that is in the business of selling domains. Sure you can affiliate with another domain company and make money off reselling, but that don’t give you the advantage of residual and leveraged income.
GDI shows no signs of slowing down. Every year millions of people sign on to the Internet for the very first time and will soon need a web hosting solution if they want to have there own website and domain name. Not only do Global Domains provide a cheap, reliable and affordable plan, but they also give all customers the chance to earn a possible living online for selling the plan to others.
From 1997 to GDI achieved a 3479% growth and ranked number 37 on the list of 500 fastest growing companies in the United States with sales increasing from $261,000 to $9,341,000 in 2001.
Final Thoughts
Global Domains International, Inc. is something that I would recommend to a complete newbie to web hosting and web design due to the user friendly interface and affordable plan that is appealing to the masses. For the more experienced webmaster, it might not have all the perks that one might need running a website, but can still be a lucrative opportunity by adding it to your arsenal of income streams online.
One of the things that GDI is lacking right now is a MySQL database on there servers which might turn off webmasters looking to expand there sites with blogging platforms and third party software, but for the average web user, it is a total bargain and full of basic features needed to run and maintain a personal or business website.
As far a the income opportunity is concerned, the compensation plan has the potential to make a lot of money, but the action is up to you. You will not get rich overnight, but if you make the decision to become a full time affiliate and teach others to do the same, you can definitely build a decent sized downline in a short period of time.
Those looking to make money online with GDI are given a variety of marketing materials and suggestions in the members area, but some marketers have come up with their own marketing systems to promote GDI to opportunity seekers and have been responsible for a recent surge of new customers to the company.
After almost ten years of business online, it is safe to assume that Global Domains International, Inc. has passed the credibility test and recent earnings growth have proven that there is money to be made with a simple product that appeals to all.
