Generic domains and phonetically spelled names can be big business

[mandy]

Putting a value on a generic domain is a bit of a dark art. For every cash cow, there’s a mangy old nag, but even these can take traffic away from businesses because of the way some people use the internet – by entering a generic term into the address bar.

So, when it comes to registering domains, firms no longer just have to consider what suffix to use, but also what other terms might relate to their business. These could run into the thousands.

It won’t be long until firms turn to specialists to make sure that they are registering all they can, where they can. This may be an unwelcome complication, but if you want to be the master of your own domains, it’s a necessary one...

full article: http://www.activehome.co.uk/itweek/comme...lk-sex-com

[BellisimaJ.]

Thanks, Mandy--interesting article, as always!

Funny, I've been thinking about this particular can of worms for the last few days. If this is the trend, it does not bode well for small ecomm businesses, unfortunately. IMO, of course.

[accentnepal]

[quote author=BellisimaJ. link=topic=5847.msg31368#msg31368 date=1162994704]
... Funny, I've been thinking about this particular can of worms for the last few days. If this is the trend, it does not bode well for small ecomm businesses, unfortunately. IMO, of course.
[/quote]
I don't think it is a big problem for small businesses. If you owned diamond(dot)com - which recently sold for millions - then you would likely be concerned about type-in traffic being lost to diamonds(dot)com, daimond(dot)com and diamond(dot)net.

Us little guys and gals cannot afford domains that get a whole lot of type-ins.  We use search engines, pay-per-click, and other advertising to get customers to domains that do not have a lot of name recognition. If there is a common misspelling it may be a good idea to get it, but small businesses do not need thousands of names.

I have several variations of my central domain -  but I bought them for search engines. What little type-in there is in my niche goes to the guy who got there before me -- but all they see at his name is a parking page.