.com domain gone - buying strategy ?

[MacAddict]

I was so happy recently when I found all TLD where available for a brand I am working on. I got distracted with the excitement of a new baby and not registered the domains straight away. Few days later I come around to do them and the .com is gone - grrr. I am so annoyed with myself.


I am not too worried about not having the .com, for now as the uk/european market is my main target. But a .com is very useful as a brand expands globally.

I see my options as:

1) Attempt to buy now
2) wait nearer to expiry (1 year away) and attempt to buy
2) Cross fingers that it will expire and pick it up


What are your thoughts ?
cheers

[wilfredw]

Attempt to buy now or
Change the name.

If your target market is the uk, .co.uk should work but you will loose traffic to the .com as many people instinctively type .com

PS: I always register a name I'm interested in. If I'm not sure I register for just 1 year. Better to spend the £8 than regret later.

[MacAddict]

Attempt to buy now or
Change the name.

If your target market is the uk, .co.uk should work but you will loose traffic to the .com as many people instinctively type .com

PS: I always register a name I'm interested in. If I'm not sure I register for just 1 year. Better to spend the £8 than regret later.

Hmm, my guess was not to try buying now, but to wait. Changing the name because the .com is not available is is extreme :eek:.

if you type comet.com and not get there. Surely one tries comet.co.uk or search engine.

I have now registered the <Name>online.com and all other major TLD (.org, .net, .info and .mobi)

[Lasting Designs]

Attempt to buy now or
Change the name.

If your target market is the uk, .co.uk should work but you will loose traffic to the .com as many people instinctively type .com

PS: I always register a name I'm interested in. If I'm not sure I register for just 1 year. Better to spend the £8 than regret later.

Funny that, I instictively type .co.uk as more often than not I want a UK company and not from any other country that .com frequently offers.

[RayB]

If you want to build a brand ideally you want both. I spent ages researching domains until I found one where both were available, and I registered a few "mispellings" as well - all of which redirect to the .com

Maybe have a rethink on the name rather than kick yourself later

[Masterfulmatt]

Funny that, I instictively type .co.uk as more often than not I want a UK company and not from any other country that .com frequently offers.

Indeed, but if you're selling globally especially to americans you need the .com

Based on my own experience that most Americans vagely know of the UK and some even know it's in Europe...I'd say less than 1% would key in .co.uk when trying to find a site...

[fenton]

It may come back. I went to register my .com and noticed it had gone. But a few days later when I was looking for another it was back for sale. This happens alot I have been informed.

Gary

[Wiggy]

Hmm, my guess was not to try buying now, but to wait. Changing the name because the .com is not available is is extreme :eek:.



I would say under no circumstances should you build a business without the .com.
I had been trading for 5 years ( www.afrocare.com (http://www.afrocare.com)) when somebody made a site very similar to mine and registered the afrocare.se URL. They did a lot of advertising in the Scandinavian countries and I was so angry. . .:mad:
Then the orders started to pour in, I now ship hundreds of orders to Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. . .:D
If you promote an internet brand, you are promoting the .com, whether you mean to or not. . .I think we tend to underrate the amount of 'word of mouth' advertising websites get. "bbc website" means bbc.com to most people in the UK. . . I still type www.aol.com (http://www.aol.com) and get the UK redirect service to take me to the right URL. . . The only other thing you may wish to do is protect your business with international trademarking/copyrighting to ensure that nobody else can cash in on your marketing. . .Probably easier to buy the .com or change the name. . .

[MacAddict]

I would say under no circumstances should you build a business without the .com.
I had been trading for 5 years ( www.afrocare.com (http://www.afrocare.com)) when somebody made a site very similar to mine and registered the afrocare.se URL. They did a lot of advertising in the Scandinavian countries and I was so angry. . .:mad:
Then the orders started to pour in, I now ship hundreds of orders to Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. . .:D
If you promote an internet brand, you are promoting the .com, whether you mean to or not. . .I think we tend to underrate the amount of 'word of mouth' advertising websites get. "bbc website" means bbc.com to most people in the UK. . . I still type www.aol.com (http://www.aol.com) and get the UK redirect service to take me to the right URL. . . The only other thing you may wish to do is protect your business with international trademarking/copyrighting to ensure that nobody else can cash in on your marketing. . .Probably easier to buy the .com or change the name. . .


I see what your saying, but I disagree that the .com is the protection you seek. Trade mark is the way forward and thats what I intend to do in the UK, EC and Usa.

[kulture]

I would agree in part with Wiggy. The ONLY circumstance you should consider going for a domain name where the .com is taken is where the .com is not a competitor. Nor likely to be sold to a competitor.

If it is clearly not related to your advertised site then the people who mistakenly gone to the .com MAY jump to your site.

[Page]

It may come back. I went to register my .com and noticed it had gone. But a few days later when I was looking for another it was back for sale. This happens alot I have been informed.

Gary

It is a "scam" that some sites where you go to enquire about a name register it and then if they release it within 7 days or something they never have to pay for it. .coms only from memory. godaddy have been implicated with this - again from memory.

Anyway something like that.

[RayB]

I'm with Wiggy, as per my earlier post. If you are launching a 2 bob ecommerce site use whatever. If it is a brand you are after you MUST secure the variants - and the .com is VITAL

[fenton]

It is a "scam" that some sites where you go to enquire about a name register it and then if they release it within 7 days or something they never have to pay for it. .coms only from memory. godaddy have been implicated with this - again from memory.

Anyway something like that.

Not sure, have'nt heard about this one. Though I did remember querying it with my web guy and he said he's come across it before but with no problems. Give it a week and have another look. I'll keep mi fingers crossed for ya. :)

Gary

[MacAddict]

I have been giving this more thoughts and I am starting to agree with some of you about needing the .com domain.

Yep, I am building a brand and increasingly see your points about the .com. However I still think trademark is a must. Have you chaps trade marked your name/products ?

So what I have done this morning is tweaked the brand name, which is a made up word, by changing a "s" to a "z". All TLD available for this, so bought them all (not making that mistake again :D)

[MacAddict]

Not sure, have'nt heard about this one. Though I did remember querying it with my web guy and he said he's come across it before but with no problems. Give it a week and have another look. I'll keep mi fingers crossed for ya. :)

Gary


Hmm, not heard that before. I will keep a lookout in a week, cheers.

[RayB]

So what I have done this morning is tweaked the brand name, which is a made up word, by changing a "s" to a "z". All TLD available for this, so bought them all (not making that mistake again :D)

Great news - I think this will prove its worth in the long run.

[awebapart.com]

If you are focused on the UK market then also having the .com as well as the .co.uk is a 'nice to have' and is the ideal situation, but it is not a 'must have'.

If the .com is taken, it can depend on what the existing .com is being used for. If it is being used in anger by another UK company in a similar field to you then it is wise to look for another domain name.

Having just the .co.uk is good enough for these companies:

www.pcworld.co.uk - UK computer retailer
( www.pcworld.com - US PC magazine publisher )

www.comet.co.uk - UK electronics retailer
( www.comet.com - US engraving company )

www.thomson.co.uk - the UK holidays company
( www.thomson.com - US business information company )

[MacAddict]

Not sure, have'nt heard about this one. Though I did remember querying it with my web guy and he said he's come across it before but with no problems. Give it a week and have another look. I'll keep mi fingers crossed for ya. :)

Gary


What a bizarre turn of events, I checked today and the original .com domain was available again ! I snapped it up straight away of course.

Nice problem now with which name to go with :)

What the heck was that about ?

[fenton]

As I said not sure what goes on there, but im happy its returned it's great news. :D:D

Gary

[Page]

Who did you look with - so that I know to avoid them.

[ken_uk]

It is a "scam" that some sites where you go to enquire about a name register it and then if they release it within 7 days or something they never have to pay for it. .coms only from memory. godaddy have been implicated with this - again from memory.

Anyway something like that.

Domain kiting, as its called by 'Bob Parsons' the guy that owns godaddy is the scam where a firm registers a huge bulk load of domain names, puts parking pages with ads on them, then before the 5 days grace period is up, drops the domain names and gets a refund.

Godaddy is the one that has been talking about this scam, to let people know about it, as far as I am aware, they dont participate in it (they say they dont anyways)

You can read more here

http://www.bobparsons.com/DomainKiting.html

[Page]

I read about it on some other forum where all the people it had happened to had been to go - guess where - godaddy - in the states.

[ken_uk]

Its not something that has happened to me, been using godaddy for many years now.

Cant see how it would make sense for godaddy, who makes its money from registrations and hosting to actually stop people from registering domains by registering whatever a user searches for automatically, then dropping it a few days later - it would be counter productive to their entire business model.

Did the people on the forum offer any proof or facts?

[MacAddict]

Who did you look with - so that I know to avoid them.

I have been thinking that too and I can only remember using 123-reg. I also use whois unix command

[steve23]

Hi all,

This thing about someone taking your intended name for a week or so is fact.

Ive posted about it on this forum in the past.

It has happend to me on a number of occassions. Ive checked on the availability of a name, but gone no further. Next day, its taken by a company in the west indies or somewhere (cant recall exactly)

But it is available for sale.

Few days later - its free again!

This has all happend when i used:

register.com

So far not a major problem, I just wait a few days and buy it once its free again, but its very annoying!

All the best

Steve

[MacAddict]

Hi all,

This thing about someone taking your intended name for a week or so is fact.

Ive posted about it on this forum in the past.

It has happend to me on a number of occassions. Ive checked on the availability of a name, but gone no further. Next day, its taken by a company in the west indies or somewhere (cant recall exactly)

But it is available for sale.

Few days later - its free again!

This has all happend when i used:

register.com

So far not a major problem, I just wait a few days and buy it once its free again, but its very annoying!

All the best

Steve

Thats exactly what happened with me. It was down as registered to a company called Total Marketing S.A. in the west indies.

[awebapart.com]

Determined individuals, companies, spammers, fraudsters can get access to lists of newly registered domains if they try hard enough and if it is in their interest to do so. That's one of the reasons why anyone who buys any domain from any registrar soon starts getting spam to common email addresses at that domain, e.g. info@, mail@.

One way is via DNS, whenever domains are created their details are sent out to all the DNS servers around the world (e.g. ISP DNS servers), if this didn't happen people wouldn't be able to type in your domain name and get to your site. So anyone with the right knowledge and with access to a DNS server could see what domains have been newly added.

This isn't a problem specific to just registars. So to be on the safe side, register the .com at the same time as the .co.uk.

[John_Mac]

In the kiting 'scam' the dubious registrars put up ads on the domain holding page for a few days to gauge whether it will gain any type-in traffic - if it does, they see it as an indication of future traffic and will register it properly and keep it for the ad revenue / commission.

So its important NOT to ever visit the domain that has been swiped from under your nose during this period. If they see a visit, they are more likely to keep it. If no there are no visits before the 5-day refund/grace period ends, they usually allow the domain to revert back to being available.

hth

[multilingual]

I would say under no circumstances should you build a business without the .com.
I had been trading for 5 years ( www.afrocare.com (http://www.afrocare.com)) when somebody made a site very similar to mine and registered the afrocare.se URL. They did a lot of advertising in the Scandinavian countries and I was so angry. . .:mad:
Then the orders started to pour in, I now ship hundreds of orders to Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. . .:D
If you promote an internet brand, you are promoting the .com, whether you mean to or not. . .I think we tend to underrate the amount of 'word of mouth' advertising websites get. "bbc website" means bbc.com to most people in the UK. . . I still type www.aol.com (http://www.aol.com) and get the UK redirect service to take me to the right URL. . . The only other thing you may wish to do is protect your business with international trademarking/copyrighting to ensure that nobody else can cash in on your marketing. . .Probably easier to buy the .com or change the name. . .

Sorry, but I could not disagree more.

People will only search for you using a URL if they know who you are and you have brand recognition. No one is ever going to type in afrocare.com unless they know who you are in the first place.

Most people will search the internet for a product or a service, so they will look for 'hair care products' or 'afro hair care products', etc.

The principle is to be ranked highly for those search queries and drive traffic to your site.

If you are looking at the UK and Europe then you need local country domains or you will never be found on the local search engines.

So forget about the .com and buy .co.uk, .fr, .de, .it. .es, etc.

Build different sites in different languages and see the results for yourself. It shows people that you are taking the market seriously, that you show commitment and that you respect their culture enough to make it relevant to them.

International web marketing is about addressing the local need from a local viewpoint. You will not get into Europe with a .com, unless you have an offline marketing strategy that creates global brand awareness.

www.aspect7.co.uk

JB

[maruby]

Few months ago Godaddy offered me a domain nmae I already own - what was that all about?
(I bought it anyway and was then informed it was not available!)

[JustOneUK]

Few months ago Godaddy offered me a domain nmae I already own - what was that all about?
(I bought it anyway and was then informed it was not available!)
Was your domain originally registered with Godaddy?

I get letters all the time asking me to buy domains I already own, AFAIK it's just a scam to get you to change registrars when a domain is due to expire.
James.

[MacAddict]

what do you guys do to buy some of the European domains eg .fr and .de - really silly setup that !

[jelly3]

If your worried about a page be held for a week after your query, why not just query it with whois domain tools, in the first place.

[multilingual]

what do you guys do to buy some of the European domains eg .fr and .de - really silly setup that !

Just buy them through us ;)

We remove all the silliness.

JB