In the past few days, a news item was published about the President of the Republic’s official website. A website that was very similar to the President’s official one redirected users to the former President’s personal website! This domain is registered in Papaki so we wanted to share some tips that will help both businesses and individuals to preserve their digital presence. An important first step towards that direction is to register multiple domain names.
Why is it important to purchase the right domain names? How can this contribute to protecting your website, eShop and brand?
First, we need to get into the potential user’s shoes: what will a user search in order to find and visit our website? There are several possibilities. Our domain name may be original or difficult to spell. Also, the user may not be very familiar with the English language. Thus, it is possible to type in the wrong address and visit a different – and probably competitive – website.
For this reason, in addition to the domain name we must also take care of our company’s official brand name. Α good way to protect our brand is to register all the possible domain names that resemble or may be confused with our official name. These can be anagrams, different spellings, similar or double letters and so on. By registering these domains we protect our website while redirecting users from the “wrong” domain to our official page.
An example
Let’s say our business is called “Peacock Cosmetics”. A domain like “peacockcosmetics.gr” could be fine. However, it is not unlikely that a user will search for “peacokcosmetics.gr” or “pecockcosmetics.gr”. In order to reduce the possibility of losing this customer / website visitor we should secure these variations as well. In Papaki.com by registering a domain, you can also check all the available basic extensions to register. This way you can empower and protect your digital presence and brand.
The role of multiple extensions
Extensions (.gr, .com, .site, etc.) are equally important. By securing the most common domain extensions for our website, we eliminate the possibility of a competitor having a really similar domain name to ours. It is good to register for our domain some of the basic extensions such as .gr, .com, .com.gr, .eu, .net, .ελ. and if it is an eShop .store and .shop. It is also important to secure country extensions (eg .com.cy for Cyprus, .co.uk for the UK, etc.) if the company does business abroad.
Some more reasons
Another thing is the “black market” of domain names. There are people who invest into buying several domain names and then sell them in order to make a big profit. In case your brand gains reputation and you haven’t registered multiple domains for its protection, someone else may have done so before you! Eventually, when you will need to get a specific domain back you will buy it at a much higher price.
Finally, in case of renaming or rebranding a company, purchasing multiple domains becomes focal. It is really important to keep the previous domain name and redirect to the new website. This ensures the flow of mainly old users who haven’t noticed the change or from habit they continue typing the old domain.
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