Let’s all applaud Dell for suing cybersquatters, and use this reminder to pay more attention to our own domain names. Microsoft won judgments against cybersquatters back in the spring.
Use this reminder to check your own domain names. If your domain lends itself to misspelling or mistyping, grab those names for yourself. While it’s unlikely someone will get rich selling advertising to your “almost” name, you want to make it as easy as possible for your customers and potential customers to find you.
Pretend my domain name is gaskinolkov, the name given to my English teacher wife by her students when they read Crime and Punishment and struggle with all those Russian names. I would then register gaskonolkov, gaskinalkov, gaskinolkof, and so on until the common misspellings were covered. Each of the misspelled domain names would automatically forward to the main site. I do that now when I automatically forward jamesgaskin.com to gaskin.com.
Isn’t it worth $10 or less per year for your spelling-challenged customers to find you? Each domain name will be less than $10, and sometimes much less if you buy multiple names at a time.
