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Register Multiple Domain Names Ian McKenzie I have always advised clients and potential clients who may be considering the purchase of domain names, that they should purchase not one, but multiple names. One reason is that if you don’t purchase other domain names similar to the one you have purchased or are considering purchasing, someone else may. International domain name extensions like .com, .name, .net, .biz and several others are available for anyone anywhere in the world to purchase. No one has world wide proprietary rights over any name unless they have gone through the process of registering an International Trade Name, a lengthy process which takes some time and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s OK for firms like Coca Cola™ of course to do this, they have the financial resources to so so. But, for most firms this would be out of the question. People who purchase a domain name extension belonging to a particular country, who don’t also purchase the generic extension when it is available are particularly foolish.
This scenario highlights the importance for anyone in business to not only have a web site, but to register multiple domains. Food is one of my passions in life, so lets take it as an example. I am an Aussie, and the meat pie is about as Australian as a pavlova or a lamington. Lets also suppose that your name is Joe, and you have sent up a business making and distributing meat pies. You have done a search and have found that the name “JoesPies” is available to you. You are an Aussie with an Australian business, so you are entitled to add the extension “.com.au” after the “JoesPies” part. You have your web site designed and published, and over a period of time you are getting increased traffic to your web site resulting in sales of Joe's Pies. Life is good! However, some time down the track there happens to be another Joe who wants a web site or sites. Or, it may even be a Fred or a Mary. They do a search and find that “JoesPies” with each of the extensions .com, .net, .name, . biz, .info, are available. A dilemma for Joe, Fred or Mary is which one to choose? Well, my advise for what it is worth would be to register the lot. It is exactly the same advise I would have given the first Joe if he had asked me to protect his business. The cost of registering them all, (with a competitively priced Registrant), is less than a hundred dollars for a couple of years protection. I would strongly suggest that you do exactly the same, regardless of the type of business in which you are involved. Because you have registered one domain name only, it does not give you proprietary rights over all of the other extensions. You may not want six or more web sites, perhaps you want one only. That's OK, you can park the others free of charge with reputable Domain name registrants, or even better still you could arrange to have all the Domain names apart from your web site domain name forwarded to your web site URL. Once again, there should not be any extra cost involved in this process. There is another alternative that is available to you to protect your trading name. You could arrange to have International Trade Marks patented. However, my understanding is that this process takes quite some time and costs are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, it is hardly an option for a relatively small firm like “Joe's Pies”. Surely spending fifty or so dollars is a far better alternative. Now, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever, if a firm called “Joe's Pies” exists anywhere. Nor, do I know if Joe has any web sites with any of the extensions I have mentioned above. If there is, then rest assured Joe, I have used the name “Joe's Pies” here for exemplification purposes only.
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[100 Million] [Multiple Names] [History] [Care Choosing] [WWW publish] [Whose back?] |
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