Jeanne of Devine-Designs has experienced her fair share of what I like to call scrupulous behavior. When she started Expat-Moms, she began it on a free web host server (like geocities, tripod, and like). Her reasoning was simple... test waters and see how successful business was before going all out, financially.

Once her cold feet turned warm, she went to purchase domain name http://expatmoms.com, but to her surprise, someone had bought it out from under her! Now, site sits unused, while her new domain with hyphen is doing extremely well.

Jeanne isn't only one this has happened to. "Harvesters" often snatch up domain names in hopes of re-selling them at a higher, if not outrageous price!

How do they know which domain names are going to be viable? Simple. They go to free web host servers, find business name chosen, then purchase domain name in hopes that owner will one day get so big that he or she goes looking for that domain name. Others simply go to a keyword program, like Overture and purchase domain names using top keywords.

TIPS:

Pick your company wisely. Try to find a company that sends out reminder notices. If company you use doesn't and you are happy with where you are at, please mark your calendars every year! I have a monthly bills to be paid sheet, and I list my domain names, web host, and other business related expenses as a monthly expense. That way, I know every month what is due out door, when.

If you must insist on using a free web host server, take precaution of ordering your domain name and have it redirected to your free web host server, for under $30 per year!

What kind of domain name should a business acquire?

The business name (of course) - The simplest thing to do is to simply get name of your business as a domain name. If you cannot get .COM version, check for .NET, .ORG, .BIZ or .INFO versions. This is domain name that would typically be used for marketing and branding purposes.

Hyphenated business name - You can also get hyphenated business name, if name is two or more words long. You should only get this if (a) name is not available in it's unhyphenated version or (b) you bought non-hyphenated version as well. It's not a good idea to get only hyphenated version, as this is not something customers normally type in URLs. It is, however, a good idea to purchase hyphenated version in addition to non-hyphenated version as sometimes people do type in hyphens.

Keyword domain names - Another option is to purchase domain names which are keywords which match search engine keywords. For example, if your site sells candy, you could get domain name candy-chocolate-lollipops.com, candychocolatelollipops.com or something like that. Some search engines do use keywords within domain names to boost ratings of a site. Some companies like these types of domain names - personally, I feel they are a little tacky and unprofessional.

Product Names - One possible strategy is to purchase domain names for each different product or product classification that you want. You could then set up separate, distinct sites for each of these.

Product Lines - If you company sells distinctly difference product lines, you might want to create different sites for each of them. In this case, you will want different domain names for each one.

Business Units - I've seen some companies which purchase a domain name for each of their different business units.

Other Reasons

There are other reasons to purchase a domain name.

Keeping others from getting name - Sometimes it's important to purchase a domain name just so someone else will not get it. In this case you might want to purchase "yourcompanysucks.com" and variations of same (AOL found out hard way about importance of this some years ago).

Search Engine Optimization - I've heard that some people purchase a lot of different keyword-style domain names with objective of linking them all together. This serves to convince search engines link Google that keywords in domain names should appear higher in listings. This is a gray area, as it may be considered search engine spamming.