Domains and traffic hijacking

[johnn]

Hi,

If I need to avoid traffic hijacking in the future, which extensions do you recommend me to register in order of importance (except .com and .net)?

Thanks,
John

[CHC]

The first stop besides the obvious .com and .net is one's cctld.

Depending on how good your domain name is I would also go for .info and also .org. I know that .org is a horrible looking tld but it can rank well on search engines and for the pennies a day extra it is silly not to lock it in.

For high profile domains I also lock in .tv .cc .biz and .bz

[digitalbrain]

I give more preference to plural of domain names for example if your site www.yoursite.com , you register the domain name www.yoursites.com , and the similar sounding domain names. ending in .com , the percentage of hits in such domains are usually high then the main tld's ending in non .com domains.

[Hawkgirl]

Also wise to register misspellings ... just yesterday I found a hijacker with a domain that is my name misspeeled.

[buckworks]

Depending on your domain, you might also want to register the hyphenated your-site.com and your-sites.com

If your domain has a numeral in it, also consider registering the "spelled out" version, or vice versa.

Also consider registering "companynamesucks" types of domains -- might head off some potential public relations difficulties.

[CHC]

Very good advice.

One of the largest traffic adult sites in the World today is <snip>
A big mistype traffic company, Netster have registered <edit> a misspelling </edit> and apparently get thousands of uniques PER DAY from mistypes looking for The <edit> site.

[edited by: NFFC at 8:38 pm (utc) on Aug. 23, 2002]
[edit reason] removed adult site [/edit]

[amhitvl]

.net .org .us if you in usa

[johnn]

Thanks, what .bz stands for? Doesn't .biz already mean 'business'?

[edited by: johnn at 8:10 pm (utc) on Aug. 24, 2002]

[CHC]

.biz is a "generic top level" domain, i.e. gtld. It was recently sanctioned by ICANN and is available for any business Worldwide and is not tied or allied to any one particular country.

.bz is the "country code" top level domain, i.e. cctld, of Belize. However, because of it's similarity to .biz those enterprising folks at enic (those of the bogus $1 million beauty.cc "sale") have begin to market it as an alternative "business" domain. It's nice and short and does look similar to .biz. Quite good if you did want a .biz domain and someone else bagged it first.

I personally hate the .biz domain. It always reminds me of some horrible MLM spam; "Go to www.MonsterWhoppingMLM.biz and make 3 billion dollars in 4 minutes, guaranteed!"