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Avoiding Domain Name Scams and Dead Ends

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Art
Art
Web Hosting Geek

One of the first thing that any new web master thinks of for their potential web site is its domain name.  The domain name is among your companies main forms of branding, and hence, focusing on the domain name is understandable.  What we have to remember is that along with it comes the people willing to milk these new users out of their cash with the lure of something “new” that will give them an edge. You can check the domain name availability on pcnames.com.

As of December 2009 more than 84 million .com domain names alone existed, meaning that those new to the game are finding all of the best words and phrases long since squeezed out.  The desire to find an work around this problem may seem tempting.  Here’s why, for the most part, you don’t want to fall for such tactics.

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Beware of new formats

Now and then you’ll get some exciting piece of spam mail or other advertisement talking about the new top level domains that exist and how you need to register. “Register www.oh.yes right now before someone else does!”  The businessman in you may want to beat other people to the punch, but hold your horses.  This is almost always a mirage.

If the exciting solicitation is over a new top-level domain, know that the adoption of these is a slow, agonizing process that often takes years to extend over the web.  Even if the new top-level domain does exist, often its zones are not picked up by everyone, meaning that not everyone will see your site even if the domain is otherwise operational.

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Even worse sometimes only alphanumerics and dashes (“-”) are allowed.  The reason this is worse than the top-level domain problem is that in addition to your domain not necessarily propagating, server software may not be setup to handle this new syntax, and with the potential security problems inherent to it no host would change this setting just for you.

Stay away from the reselling racket

You might instead get an offer to purchase a domain name.  These aren’t scams: they are domains which are valid, correctly registered, which work and which can be safely transferred to your name for operation.  That doesn’t, though, mean that it’s worth the price.  It’s now commonplace for domain names to be simple combinations of words and numbers that are easy and catchy to remember but which aren’t yet taken (example: westernsaturn.com).  Domains are cheap enough now that paying more for someone’s leftovers usually just isn’t worth it.

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Don’t even think at this point about trying to get into this market, either.  As stated, most good names are taken, and there are tons of people fighting for the expired ones.

If it becomes obvious that some top-level domain is well supported, such as .CO, and is being used by the business world in a serious capacity, only then should you consider jumping in.  If not, there’s no reason not to stick with what works for everyone else, and just go with modernmachomanlyman.com (indeed, that’s available too).
If you have number of domains think of choosing multiple domain hosting and host unlimited domains on one account.

Comments

1 Comment

  • Avatar Jane says:

    I think having an original domain name would be the difference for the future, as the market is totally saturated with links that look the same. Just an opinion of a web hosting expert.
    Jane

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