Common Domain Registration Mistakes
August 6, 2009 by Web Hosting Watch
Filed under Domain Registrations
Registering a domain name is a very important part of building a website and can affect your search engine results so it’s important not to make certain mistake when registering domain names.
Below you’ll find some common mistakes that you can easily avoid if you just take the time to thoroughly search for the correct domain names.
Not Registering A .COM Domain
The reason that I think that this is a huge mistake is because people are accustomed to typing in a domain name with the .COM extension. If you register a .NET, .ORG, .US, etc you are just losing out on repeat traffic.
The reason is that people remember the domain name but often times don’t pay attention to the extension. When they attempt to go back to your site they type YourDomain.com which of course belongs to your competitor and thus you’ve lost out on return traffic.
Not Registering Every Extension
With domain prices being so affordable it just makes sense to register every extension during the domain name registration process. There’s no reason to let a competitor or domain squatter register the other extensions of your domain name and possibly put up a website of questionable content or even try to sell you the extension for many times more than you could have paid. http://www.websitespot.com has affordable domain names so registering every domain extension is by no means expensive.
Using Too Many Dashes
I understand the importance of keywords in a domain name for search engine optimization purposes but if you want to brand your website for people to return to the last thing you want to do is register Your-Main-Website-Keywords.com. It’s difficult to remember and I can’t think of anything that looks more unprofessional. As a matter of fact, if at all possible I wouldn’t recommend registering a domain name with dashes at all.
Not Registering A Domain Name For Multiple Years
The chance of losing a domain name due to it expiring isn’t great considering the number of reminders that are sent but I just don’t see how it’s worth chancing it. You may change your email address and not receive the notices or something like that.
It’s best to register your domains for multiple years so this doesn’t happen, plus you generally receive a discounted rate during domain name registration for registering for multiple years. Again, http://www.websitespot.com is too affordable to not consider registering your domain name for multiple years.
As you can see, the mistakes aren’t hard to avoid. It’s just a matter of taking your time and doing your due diligence before rushing into registering a domain name that you may regret down the road.



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