How To Get A Good Domain Name
Times Online:
When Stephen Phillips decided to buy a website address for his market-research firm, Spring Research, he made a big mistake. On the advice of his business partner he decided to buy only Springresearch.co.uk and did not bother to buy Springresearch.com, too, even though it was still available.
‘My business partner said I needed to advertise myself as a UK-based company so it was really important that I bought the .co.uk name. Which was fair enough, but I should have got the .com name as well. It was just sitting there,’ he said.
Within a month Phillips realized he had been foolish not to acquire the .com name, but by then the name had been snapped up by someone else. It took four years and much haggling to buy the name and it ended up costing £700 instead of the few pounds it would have cost in the first place.
With websites becoming an increasingly important part of modern commerce, small businesses such as Spring Research are learning – sometimes the hard way – that website addresses, or domain names, are not just an optional extra but an essential part of their business.
Most small-business owners understand the concept, but they are often unsure how to find and keep a domain name.
Susan Hallam is the founder of Hallam Communications, an internet-marketing consultancy. She said: ‘It’s very rare these days to find a business that doesn’t understand it needs the internet. What many have trouble with, is that they don’t know the first step they need to take.’
In many ways Phillips was extremely lucky to have got the .com name he wanted – and to have paid so little for it.
However, if the domain name you want has already gone, do not despair. A lot have been bought up speculatively with a view to selling them on at a higher price rather than to use them for a business, so you may still be able to buy the one you want provided you are prepared to pay.
Several websites act as brokers for domain names. If you go on to one of these sites, you can browse the domain names that are for sale or put in a request for the name you want if it ever comes up for sale. Brokers include Pool.com, Sedo.co.uk, Snapnames.com and Dotpound.com. Some will also give a free valuation of any unwanted domain names you own.
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