How do i know if its worth redirecting "other versions" of my domain name?

[sonnas]

Hi,

i own various versions of my domain name (ie. .co.uk, .com, .co., mis-spellings etc). how, if there is a way can i tell if its worth the money to have these domains active and redirected (301?) to the main domain?

thanks

 

[crossdaz]

It isn't unless they are already established and have links pointing at them.

However, if you have a brandable domain name or a generic name that may be mis-typed it's worth having the variations just to protect yourself.

 

[That Guy]

I would just make sure the .co.uk and .com domains are active as they are the most common

 

[sonnas]

i currently only have the .com version active. you reckon if i activate the .co.uk and have 301 redirect i should have my bases covered? bear in mind i own most of the plural versions/ mispellings but they arent active..


also, is there a way to check "traffic volume" of these domant domains?

 

[crossdaz]

i currently only have the .com version active. you reckon if i activate the .co.uk and have 301 redirect i should have my bases covered? bear in mind i own most of the plural versions/ mispellings but they arent active..


also, is there a way to check "traffic volume" of these domant domains?

Sounds like a good plan to me

 

[MASSEY]

It must be some really good company name to go to this effort.

As far as im aware you cant tell traffic levels to dead urls.

 

[sonnas]

whilst i wont declare my company name to be the best invention since sliced bread, all my suppliers have commented on the name very positively.

which brings me to a related point. how much would you pay (if any) for buying a domain name (related to my current name) which someone owns but uses for one of those "waste-of-space" sites which are just full of adverts etc.

how wud i go about (if i did) to aquire it, and what is the protocol / haggling procedure for this?

 

[crossdaz]

depends how good the name is but generally you have two options:
1. try and contact the site owner and make an offer (mail@, webmaster@, contact@ if no address is visible) - which often alerts them to the fact they have something of value so not always a great idea.
2. Ignore it and hope they drop the domain when it comes up for renewal

 

[sonnas]

yes, i agree, lets keep it on the low down lol!

i reckon im good for the time now, but thanks all for the advice, esp for a friday night! cheers

 

[MASSEY]

If its just an average name you need to look at the reg date and work out how much they have spent on reg'ing it up to yet, but after that you just have to make an educated guess.

You would be suprised the amount of people that think they own a domain worth 1k when in reality its wort £50.

You will just have to hope the owner is not as insane as some of the guys i have come across.

 

[sonnas]

If its just an average name you need to look at the reg date and work out how much they have spent on reg'ing it up to yet, but after that you just have to make an educated guess.

You would be suprised the amount of people that think they own a domain worth 1k when in reality its wort £50.

You will just have to hope the owner is not as insane as some of the guys i have come across.

well yep i agree- was lucky lasttime and the domain i wanted just ran out.

not quite prepared to be paying £K's for a name. rather invest invest it in my business!

how much do people reckon these dormant domains they are parking (through the use of a dictionary!) ar worth!?!?

 

[ecenica]

If I've understood correctly, and you've already registered the domain names, I would setup the redirects. It doesn't take long and you never know, you might get a big-value customer via one of them.

^RM.

 

[Raw Rob]

If I've understood correctly, and you've already registered the domain names, I would setup the redirects. It doesn't take long and you never know, you might get a big-value customer via one of them.

^RM.

Agreed. And with most hosting accounts it will be free to set this up, if you can't do it yourself, contact your hosting provider and get them to do it for you.

Rob

 

[sonnas]

im doing that now in 123 reg

do i want web forwarding, but do i want Framed web-forwarding to a single page, Non-framed web-forwarding to a single page, Framed web-forwarding, Non-framed web-forwarding?

ive googled this but the answers are not as clear as i hoped...

 

[Raw Rob]

Framed web forwarding is where the site you are forwarding to is shown in a frame, so that the URL they entered stays the same. I would not recommend this, not good for several reasons.

So you want either Non-framed web-forwarding to a single page or Non-framed web-forwarding, at a guess Non-framed web-forwarding would do it, but I'm sure you can change it if it doesn't work as expected first time.

Rob

 

[sonnas]

done it!
non-framed web forwarding. works fine, unless theres some thing bad for SEO purposes i should be knowing about!

thanks

 

[ecenica]

I don't think 123-reg support 301 redirects.

Suggest you contact 123-reg Support and double-check.

 

[sonnas]

I don't think 123-reg support 301 redirects.

Suggest you contact 123-reg Support and double-check.

hhmmm...

when i posting here the other day, the setup was working (i tested it) and now it seems theyve all stopped forwarding them!

whats the procedure now? change who i manages my domains?

 

[sonnas]

ok, everythings working fine now.

so now when i type in the other variations of the web address in the address bar it redirects to the main one.

how how how (if poss) can i make it so when they type it in google search, it brings up my main domain?? as currently, if i type in the variation address into google it just says "did you mean XYZ"

 

[Astaroth]

Whilst you wont get any extra search engine benefits for redirecting miss spellings you should 301 redirect all of them rather than leaving them dead. The idea of buying miss spellings is to capture people who directly enter your URL into the address bar, at the moment they won't find you.

A previous client received more direct traffic from their miss spelt domain than the correctly spelt one.

Obviously if your going to do mini sites etc on the other domains then don't but miss spellings would be a strange choice for this.

 

[sonnas]

I don't think 123-reg support 301 redirects.

Suggest you contact 123-reg Support and double-check.

ive phoned them and they do, it was because pone of the domains was transfered from somewhere else.

 

[sonnas]

Whilst you wont get any extra search engine benefits for redirecting miss spellings you should 301 redirect all of them rather than leaving them dead. The idea of buying miss spellings is to capture people who directly enter your URL into the address bar, at the moment they won't find you.

A previous client received more direct traffic from their miss spelt domain than the correctly spelt one.

Obviously if your going to do mini sites etc on the other domains then don't but miss spellings would be a strange choice for this.

yep have re-directed all to the main domain.

how did you know (or find out they got more traffic from the mispelled domain?)

 

[Astaroth]

In this case the 301 redirection was being done on their own servers so easy to see the counts. With yours being done by 123Reg I suspect there isn't any way to.

 

[francsutherland]

Hi there,
I would suggest checking out how much traffic goes to those domains which are similar and decide then how much relative business you would lose.
Hope this helps,
Franc.