|
Question: What do Panasonic, Hertz and Avon have in common?
Answer: They were all the victims of cybersquatters.
Cybersquatters are individuals who buy domain names that use the
names of existing businesses or trademarks. The intention is to
resell the domain name for a handsome profit.
WARNING: You should seek specialist legal advice if you think
you may be the victim of cybersquatting.
Cybersquatting is now quite rare. Most businesses know the
importance of registering multiple versions of their domain
name.
Multiple domain name registration is an excellent and affordable
way of driving additional traffic to your Web site.
If your company or organisation is easily misspelled you should
consider registering the common misspellings.
If your domain is a .com you should consider registering other
extensions such as .co.uk, .info, .net, etc. Each variation can
be pointed to the same Web site - this service is provided FREE
OF CHARGE by mickwood.com and is known as 'parking a domain'.
You should also consider registering at least one additional
generic domain name to use in your advertising. This makes it
easy to track how successful your marketing strategy is.
You can easily check site statistics for multiple domains via
your personal control panel.
As an example check out http://www.christian-webhosting.org.uk.
Notice how the domain name is visible in the address bar? This
site is identical to my main mickwood.com site but it is
automatically generated by the Web server.
People who visit my site via christian-webhosting.org.uk will
know the type of site they are visiting, almost like
pre-qualifying a sales lead. Visitors to mickwood.com may not
actually know the type of site I host.
Finally, think about the future. If you have an idea for a
project, perhaps you are working on a project that is almost
complete, it is well worth acquiring a domain name now rather
than later. Thousands of domain names are registered on a daily
basis and there is no guarantee that a currently available domain
name will still be available in the future.
|
