It used to be easy. You had a business, or business idea, you needed a website for that business, so you registered a .COM domain name, and you were good to go. Boy, how times have changed…
Sure, there was .NET and .ORG .EDU and .GOV, but if you were setting up a business website, .com was really the only choice. But only a few years into the whole world wide web explosion, many more options became available. This was partly out of a need to have more possible domain names for the world, but also partly as a way for domain registrars to sell more domains.
There are the country code top-level domains (of which there are MANY). Most of these haven’t been used for their original intended purpose, but instead used in clever ways to tie the abbreviations to the type of site it is; such as .TV (from the country of Tuvalu) for a television station or show.
Then we have the “generic” English top-level domains… normal ones like .BIZ and .INFO. But then it gets a bit more esoteric, with domains like .AUTO .ACTOR .BEER .SEX… you get the idea. You’ll find much of the same thing with other languages as well, including French, Italian, Chinese, among many others. It’s a bit overwhelming, if you ask us. And this very well could have been included in our previous website annoyances or more website annoyances posts!
And it creates another problem for those registering a new name for a business. You have to take into account variations on your domain name, if you want to accurately protect your business. In addition to going for the obvious .COM .NET .BIZ and .CO, you’ll also want to including misspelled versions of your name. People make mistakes typing. If your business takes off, you don’t want some malware purveyor buying similar names to yours (maybe one letter out of place), and having potential customers mistyping your name, getting a virus, then blaming your company on social media!
And along those lines, you may want to consider buying up names with the word “SUCKS” after your business names. You don’t want a disgruntled customer or competitor buying those up to badmouth your company! It can get exhausting, but if you’re looking to protect your assets, it’s a necessary evil. So now it’s not longer just about getting a good domain name to start (although that’s still very important – as we wrote about it in a previous blog article.
We’ll have more on domains in a future post, but the takeaway from this is to do your research, buy up the domains you think you’ll need, then get that amazing business website up for the world to see. of course, we’re happy to help you wade through the domain name jungle if you need it. Just contact us and we’ll give you a hand.
Thanks for reading!