.com .co.uk

[MASSEY]

hi people.

if a .com is registered (not a brand name more a slogan) is the .co.uk still worth registering.

i registered buybulkandsave.co.uk. wickes the diy company similar to b&q actually use this as a slogan on ther ads "buybulkandsave"

buybulkandsave.com was taken by some car parts firm.

does the .com registration affect the co.uk?

im new to domains just testing the water as they say :cool:

[FireFleur]

If the .com is taken then you can take the .co.uk, but it is normally seen as bad form.

And because the .com is taken, then it reduces the value of .co.uk, as there will normally be a battle on there for brand.

But, .co.uk can outrank for UK searches. Google does have a way to assign .coms to countries if someone chooses to, with .co.uk it is assigned to the uk. Other search engines vary.

The domain name game, is an odd one, the whole of it can be changed literally over night, if someone wants to set up a root server to supply DNS records to systems and they elect to use that then it is all moot.

You use to be able to do quite a lot of deals on domains, but they were classics, nowadays the search engines dominate and domain is just a small part, as it should be, the actual content of the site is what matters.

You can buy domains quite cheaply, but a better game to play is investing in businesses, I only say this before you sink a few k into domains, because the chance of return on just the domain name is really low. Sure you may be able to sell to other domain name dealers but most are wising up, and that market is not self sustaining.

So, not wanting to rain on a parade here, but it may not be the best thing to bet the farm on.

For example buy bulk and save is unlikely to be typed into an address bar, and B&Q can easily out rank you for buy bulk and save if someone were to type that into a search engine, just by using it across their pages, in various ways.

So to even hold onto that search phrase you will have to create a site that explains all the ins and outs of buy bulk and save, which is going to be costly in time.

[DougDesigns]

Sounds, like some great advice. I would try and build a business rather than building and selling domain names.

I thought there was some good ones still out there and they would be worth alot of money. But a domain is only worth the traffic its got coming to it.

Just check out some sales pages on webmasters forums.

That will give you some insight into domain name selling and buying.

[scothost]

Spend some time on places like dnforum.com and namepros.com, that will show you what domains are changing hands and at what price. Sedo.com and Pool.com can help you too in that respect.

[bdw]

Unless I am mistaken I don't think Massey was buying these to resell but for their value to his own business?

Regarding the value of domains, I bought several a few years ago and managed to get some real peaches. I have sold none! It's just not a good way to make money now.

[FireFleur]

Well if you want to grow your own business and already have a domain, then this approach is useful:

http://buybulkandsave.example.com

just change the host, it will normally take less time.

I should say I do have a number of domains, all for different projects, and some of it experimentation so I can get a feel for what is actually happening. And on one domain, I may let it expire and just move it to a host on another domain.

But, this is another nail in the coffin of domain name buying. If someone wants, fast cars in their domain name, then it is fast-cars.example.com ahoy. This is why, if you brand on a made up name you can then associate quite easily what you like with the domain. And you can even have fast.cars.example.com.

[scothost]

Always do an IPO check as well, if the like of wickes use the term in their literature then you need to make sure its not a term they have copyright/trade mark on, same applies to images, you would be surprised the images people protect these days!

[eastmids2007]

I always go for .co.uk. All the good .coms have gone. British people trust .co.uk more. Actually, many foreigners do too.

[scothost]

Ultimately though the need for a good name has diminished considerably over the years. Placement in the search engines is more important to getting traffic in terms of having a website. So there is less demand for good keyword domains compared to the past.

[cardinal]

If its keyword rich and it's not over competitive, you could make a bit of pocket money out of it with affiliiate, but needs to have Page rank and visitors to convert. niche domains are ok for one off products before xmas. this has worked for me