Choosing the Right Domain Name:

a Marketing Perspective

all you need to know about domain names

(and some you don't need to know, but is interesting anyway)

CHAPTER 1.10
ARE MULTIPLE REGISTRATIONS WORTHWHILE?
(1) Preventing misuse

Are multiple registrations worthwhile to prevent misuse by others?

Yes.

Read the previous section and see what might happen if you simply register yourcompanyname.com. And as well as those described who want be parasites on your brand, don't forget those folk who - for whatever reason - wish to do your brand or organization harm by putting malicious content on a domain name that is similar to yours.

So multiple registrations are worthwhile to prevent misuse by others? Well, no.

For the seriously paranoid, the list of names that might be a misrepresentation of your brand name is endless. Even taking into account the relatively low cost of domain names, this can become a serious financial - and resource-sapping - exercise. You can always register the most obvious examples - but beware, drawing the line between 'must register' and 'not worth it' can be extremely tricky.

My advice would be this:
* If you are an offline trader that uses a website for promotional purposes forget the whole thing beyond registering the local and/or .com suffixes.
* If you have an e-commerce site (ie you sell things online), consider registering any domain names on which a competitor might set up a site to 'steal' customers from you.
* If you are a global brand; register everything you can think of.

Note, however - before you run off and register dozens of duplicate names, check out the next chapter on the legal aspects of domain names.

DOMAIN NAMES IN PRACTICE : know where to draw the line
The major brands and brand owners often register not only multiple spellings of those brands, but all suffixes of those names as well. This might add up to hundreds of domain names, but in the great scheme of marketing budgets, the cost is not significant. Having said that, it can be difficult knowing when to stop. With a bit of imagination it is quite easy to come up with dozens of variations on just the textual element of the name without multiplying them all by the number of suffix variants. If you want to work on an example yourself, consider the Hilton hotel chain. To get you started, consider just the capital of the UK: londonhilton, hilton-london, london-hilton, hiltonlondon, thelondonhilton, thehilton-london, thelondon-hilton, thehiltonlondon. Did I mention there are three Hilton hotels in London? And according to their website, Hilton has three thousand hotels in 8o countries. Are you beginning to get the picture? And don't forget that you may want to register all of these on a number of suffixes.

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Copyright copyright 2009 Alan Charlesworth. All rights reserved.
International Standard Book Number: 978-1-4452-0538-0
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