Comments on: Why The Fuss Over Domain Names? http://www.scotlandseoblog.co.uk/2008/03/18/why-the-fuss-over-domain-names/ SEO Tips & Tools Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:21:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: The Big Man http://www.scotlandseoblog.co.uk/2008/03/18/why-the-fuss-over-domain-names/#comment-43326 The Big Man Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:08:27 +0000 http://www.scotlandseoblog.co.uk/2008/03/18/why-the-fuss-over-domain-names/#comment-43326 You ask the question as to how far you need to go to protect your brand name, but don't give any advice as to which TLDs Scotish companies should buy. I'd personally advise any Scottish or UK based company to own the .co.uk and .com versions of their domain names, and if possible, with and without dashes. For example if you are Branding your site as Green Gerbil you should buy greengerbil.com, greengerbil.co.uk, and to secure the branding, green-gerbil.co.uk and green-gerbil.com. The dashed domains can be dropped after the main site is established on the front pages of the search engines for it's main search terms, as the site will then be established and google don't like to allow different versions of the domain name to share the front page of their SERPs. As domain names are so cheap, you are are well owning all four, but you don't need to worry about the .org, .net, .eu or .info versions of the domain name, as once your .com, or .co.uk version of the site is established, the others won't get a look in. Finally, if someone has an established domain name, don't be tempted to but a sub domain version of it such as .ltd.com, or .uk.com, as if the TLD version of the domain name is firing, the sub-domain version will never get a look in. You ask the question as to how far you need to go to protect your brand name, but don’t give any advice as to which TLDs Scotish companies should buy. I’d personally advise any Scottish or UK based company to own the .co.uk and .com versions of their domain names, and if possible, with and without dashes. For example if you are Branding your site as Green Gerbil you should buy greengerbil.com, greengerbil.co.uk, and to secure the branding, green-gerbil.co.uk and green-gerbil.com.

The dashed domains can be dropped after the main site is established on the front pages of the search engines for it’s main search terms, as the site will then be established and google don’t like to allow different versions of the domain name to share the front page of their SERPs.

As domain names are so cheap, you are are well owning all four, but you don’t need to worry about the .org, .net, .eu or .info versions of the domain name, as once your .com, or .co.uk version of the site is established, the others won’t get a look in.

Finally, if someone has an established domain name, don’t be tempted to but a sub domain version of it such as .ltd.com, or .uk.com, as if the TLD version of the domain name is firing, the sub-domain version will never get a look in.

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