Don't think it can happen to you? It has already happened to many small and large businesses. They waited until last minute, business got so busy that they forgot altogether, or an error occurred with registrar company and before these businesses knew it, someone had come along and snatched up their domain name, right out from under them.

One business man had close to two weeks to re-register his domain name, so he went online to make a payment and renew domain for a few more years. However, something happened with his domain host that prevented him from making a payment online, so he called company and asked them to take care of it. He gave them all necessary information and paid with his credit card, by phone. Thinking problem was solved, he went about his daily business. A week later, his domain name "officially" expired and someone purchased it right out from under him! All that work, gone!

A work at home mom had a fairly successful online business, but for whatever reason, didn't get her domain registered before deadline. Know what happened to her site? A porn site snatched it up.

Others have lost their domain names due to harvesting software programs that now let others know second your domain name is vulnerable.

Talk about a WAKE UP CALL! If you have a domain name, register it at least a few months in advance of it's expiration date. That way, if anything does go hay wire, you have time to fix it before you lose your domain name.

Personal Domain Names

There are many reasons to get a personal domain name. Sometimes it's vanity, sometimes it's a hobby and occasionally purpose is more serious and purposeful. No matter what reason, it's important to get just right domain name to portray exactly desired image. Remember, domain name is one of first things seen by your visitors, and it tells a lot about you.

Many people like to purchase their name as a .COM address. My friend James Huggins (http://www.jameshuggins.com) has done this, as have my wife (http://www.claudialowe.com) and myself (http://www.richard-lowe.com). This is a a fantastic way to get people who know you (or know of you) to your site. They simply know your name.

If .COM version is not available, you can check for other domains: .NET, .INFO, .BIZ, .ORG, .US (for US citizens) or .WS. There are also many country codes available (.TO for Tonga, for example), and occasionally these are available to anyone without restriction. Other times, they are only to citizens of those countries.

In my case, I tried to get .COM version of my name, but some scum domain name scavenger had purchased it. He would happily sell it to me, he said, for small sum of $350. Yeah, right. I went ahead and purchased hyphenated version instead.

A new option which is pretty cool is .NAME domain name. These are intended for names only, in format first.last.name or last.first.name. I went ahead and purchased names of myself (http://richard.lowe.name) and my wife (http://claudia.lowe.name). This makes it very easy to find our personal web sites.

You can also purchase domain names which describe your interests or hobbies. For example, we purchased http://www.lowefamilychristmas.com to describe our Christmas experiences, and http://www.claudiasrecipes.com to show off Claudia's recipe collection.

I had an idea last year to get something special for my wife on our anniversary (in addition to jewelry, of course - I am not stupid). I decided to purchase some domain names for her - http://www.iloveclaudia.com and .NET, and .ORG versions as well. I loaded site with other pages and things that had been made for her over years. A very unique present.

Business Names

So you've been working hard on your web site making it perfect. You've surveyed your market, analyzed their requirements, designed and coded a killer site, and now it's time to cut it loose on world. It's time to do some promotion. After all, it does not matter how good a site is if no one visits.