Domain Names: Snatch Up or Pay Up

24 July 2007 Ken Yeung View Comments

I’ve noticed that there seems to be an issue with how many domain names do you need to buy when you want to promote your website. If you have a company called AlphaXYZ, you’ll need a website…and with a website, you’ll need a domain, or two or three. Why multiple domains? Well because in the world today, people are always searching in different extensions. There are a plethora of extensions, all with their own subtle meaning…

.com – most common extension on the web today
.net
.org – for organizations, probably suited for non-profits
.info
.tv
.travel
.biz

A complete listing of domain name extensions can be found by clicking here.

But we’re getting a little bit off topic. The point of this posting is to illustrate the need for you to snatch up all relevant domains before someone else does to help satisfy their need for evil doing. Going back to our fictitious company AlphaXYZ, the first instinct would be to purchase AlphaXYZ.com if that was available. If it wasn’t, then there’s nothing you can do but to find a deviation of that name that best suits your company.

However, if the domain is available, then you better snatch it up as more often than not, when you mention your company has a website, users will typically type in (without hearing your URL) AlphaXYZ.com and if you don’t have anything there, then they need to start searching…which isn’t a deal breaker, but it is an inconvenince.

Nevertheless, in an article on CNN, they discussed how domain names have become a hot commodity in the World Wide Web. If you have a popular name in mind, be sure to snatch it up at bargain prices before a reseller purchases it and you’ll be forced to pay thousands of dollars just to get it back. Sure, there are probably some small legal claims you can make, but by the time you finish in court, you probably were better off paying the reseller the money first – not that I’m advocating either option…this is just food for thought.

So be sure that squatters aren’t sitting on all the relevant domain extensions and snatch up all you are able to (and can afford) and hopefully no squatters will take your domain and hold it hostage…or worse…make your domain synonymous with a porn site (i.e. WhiteHouse.org and WhiteHouse.com)…