Citrus Skies

Domain Registration Frustration

17 August 2006

We’ve all been there. Hours of searching for a domain name for the latest project only to find that everything suitable seems to have been registered already. Sometimes you just feel like banging your head off the keyboard.

Generally, I don’t mind if someone has already registered the domain and put it to a good use. However, what I find really frustrating is the increasing number of “good” domains that are registered and then simply parked, waiting to be sold.

Judging by the number of web sites dedicated to the practice, domain selling is a big business. Registering a domain name to sell it for a profit has never really been a risky business given the low cost of registration, but now even this cost can be offset by hosting adverts at your parked domain. Some companies even offer free hosting and advert placement services as part of the package when you list your domain for sale with them.

So who exactly pays $5,000, $50,000, $500,000 or even more for a domain name? Is any domain really worth that amount of money? Generic names and misspellings seem to be the highest earners in the domain reselling market, suggesting that the buyers are hoping for a reasonable amount of their traffic to come from the search engines. The question is whether or not that domain name fee would have been better spent on a decent advertising campaign.

In over ten years of dealing with the big ol’ internet, I’ve had my fair share of good domain name ideas, but I’ve only ever registered those that I’ve needed or had a purpose for. As tempting as it may seem to register domains and use them to generate advertising revenue or sell on for a profit, its always seemed somehow wrong to me. Don’t ask me why, but it feels like you’re stealing something from the internet community.

Anyway, my strange hippy beliefs aside, if you’re still searching for a domain name, don’t abandon all hope just yet. It’s not true that all suitable domains are registered, just the ones that we first think of. To help with your search, I recommend the following:

• Brainstorm – get as many ideas as possible down on paper beofre you begin searching and don’t rule anything out initially.
• Be patient – your initial searches may only lead to frustration but hang in there.
• Be prepared to compromise – Maybe you really wanted a .com that’s already taken but the .net version is available or maybe a simple hyphen could get you the name you want, so be flexible.

Good Luck!

Article Tags: advertising, adverts, domain registration, domains, money, internet