Ringfencing my site with additional domain names

Worth the outlay?

[ronin]

I was chatting with a friend of a friend last night who used to work as a patent application officer. He knows a little of the web, has one or two websites etc.

We got on to the topic of domain name variations and he expressed surprise that since I was using mysite.com I hadn't also bought mysite.net, mysite.org, mysite.co.uk etc.

My view was that buying lots of domain names for one site smacked of circa-2000, shortsighted "new economy" extravagance and that (it seems) it was precisely the premise on which the (relatively unpopular) .biz TLD registrar was founded (to make money from all those .com companies who felt the need to ringfence themselves). I didn't think you ought to have to buy all the other variations in order to protect your original online presence.

Anyway, he was adamant that I should cover my bases. What do you all think? Is it worth the annual outlay from now on for (possible) damage prevention in the future? And... where should I stop - if I buy mysite.co.uk, surely I would need mysite.co.au, mysite.co.nz, mysite.co.ca, mysite.co.us, mysite.co.za as well...? And then... mysite.co.hk, mysite.co.sg...?

Or should I just get mysite.net and mysite.org and be done?

[beckie]

I have a .ws as my main domain name.... I have been waiting for my .com to become available next week and I'm going to buy it. Most of my clients are confused on what .ws is... BUT I did just buy .net today (it was not the regular registration amount). I also have .org. I don't know what good it will do, but I figure that no one will get confused if I buy them all. ;)

But since you already have a .com, the above wouldn't apply to you. Does it matter to you that much? The reason why I bought the .org and .net is because I can have them all!

[Marcia]

If the site's lucrative or in a lucrative market it's probably worth it since domain names are so cheap, as long as they're not "pointed" with 302's.

[ronin]

If I could buy the domain names outright, I wouldn't be so concerned. It's having to pay the rent every year from now until eternity that bothers me.

I think I might leave it for now. It's not as if people generally type in ".net" when they mean ".com" is it?