So, you’re all set to start with your own website… Finally, it is the time! Time to begin a journey of business growth – full of new discoveries! You have done all your calculations and redone them in succession, and have decided on what your website will be called, you go with one of the domain registrars to register your idea for your website domain that is just yours…
But while buying the domain for your website, you are advised to buy a hoard of extensions along with it.
“Wait what is the point?… Do I really need all these extensions?”, you ask yourself.
To add to your pile of confusion, you also get a lot of advice to buy a bunch of domain names that are misspelled versions of your primary domain name. Now, what’s that all about?
Let us help you get a bit more clarity on the reasons why businesses buy more than one set of
domain name and extension, and whether or not you should buy more…
ALSO READ: Understanding Domain Names – A Complete Guide
Why Buy Multiple Domain Names?
➢User errors while typing your web domain address
“It is only human to make mistakes”
No kidding, people are bad at spelling! And the exponential growth in cell phones with touch function also has led to the steep incline in public typos.
“But what can I do about other people’s mistakes?”
Simple, you own their mistakes!
Try searching for “amzon.com” or just “amzn.com” on your browser. You will be redirected to Amazon’s website. They simply own all the “typos” that could drive their traffic away and use those domain pages to redirect [301 redirects] their users to their main website!
ALSO READ: Top 13 Techniques To Find Creative Domain Names For Your Business.
➢ There could be other domain names that resemble yours
You could lose a lot of traffic if there exist other domains that sound like yours, and with so…so many registered websites that exist on the internet, this could be highly likely.
So, you should consider buying more domain names to fix that.
➢ To protect your traffic
The world of business is a brutal place, and brand-poaching is a real problem. Competitors may set up websites with similar-sounding domain names to trick your customers into visiting their site. Purchasing domain names that sound alike will help you avoid losing your customers to such trickery.
Why Buy Multiple Domain Extensions For The Same Domain?
To protect your primary domain name although we do not suggest you actually buy all the extensions for your primary domain, doing that is a sure-shot way to ensure that that domain name can never be used by someone else to create confusion.
ALSO READ: Domains – Facts, Concepts And Myths
➢ To drive sales
You can use a URL, that’s easy to remember, to direct your customers to a particular page on your website an effective tactic is to use a descriptive domain with an easy to-remember URL to point to a particular page on your site that Calls to Purchase or offers deals or promotions.
➢ Search Engine Results Page Domination
Website domains with multiple extensions to their names will receive a higher position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Further, the different extensions will be displayed as separate result links on the SERP, which will lead to a higher click-through for you.
➢ While launching grand new Campaigns
A domain that is easier to remember is easier to promote! Say you own a fashion brand that primarily deals in women’s fashion, and you just came up with a clothing range for kids. Say your primary domain is “fashionistas.com”; a dedicated domain like “fashionistas.kids” would draw much more traffic than something like “fashionistas.com/shop/kids-range. This would also make it much easier to track the campaign performance.
ALSO READ: WHY DOES YOUR BUSINESS NEED A DOMAIN EMAIL ADDRESS?
Cons To Buying All The Domain Extensions And Useless Domain Names
To some degree, it is essential to own more than just one set of domains and extensions. In fact, the sure-shot way to ensure that your domain name is never used by someone else, and always remains your own little baby, is to purchase all extensions that come on the offer.
But does that mean that you should purchase them all?
Hell No!
There are some obvious cons to buying all domains and extensions. Let’s look at them…
➢ Utter waste of your valuable finances!
You will be wasting your money if you buy all domain extensions with your domains.Especially while starting out, businesses tend to be on a tight budget, and all that money spent on buying all extensions will not be hay!
And even in case, you have a lot of money to spare, purchasing them all would still be quite pointless. Say you run a business that is confined to the States, you do not need a Djiboutian ccTLD (“.dj” extension)!
➢ SEO rankings – Caution!
Although multiple domains are good for SEO, you need to ensure that there is no duplicate content on your sister-sites, as Search Engines have a very good nose for sniffing out content plagiarism.
So, you will always need to be super careful about duplicate content.
ALSO READ: HOW DOES SERVER LOCATION HAVE AN IMPACT ON YOUR WEBSITE SEO?
➢ User Confusion:
If you do not set up 301 redirects to connect your pages well, your visitors will be confused about which domain name they should use, and that will lead to traffic Loss. Make sure to redirect your visitors from dummy/extra domains to your primary Website.
How Many Domains Should I Buy?
Okay so you need more than just one, but how to decide which ones to buy? The answer to that is very much subjective and depends a lot on how much you’d like to Spend.
Firstly, get your primary domain along with “.com” and your target country extensions (“.in”, “.ca”, “.us”, etc.).
You also should get “.org” and “.net” extensions which will pretty much secure your domain name to your business in its target geography. Then you may secure the common misspellings and possible typos associated with your primary domain name.
You may even want the “.co” extension with your primary domain name as that is a very common typo that results from an incomplete “.com”. Beyond that, if you need, you may get the “.biz” and “.sales” extensions and campaign-specific extensions if you don’t mind spending more.
Conclusion
So, to conclude, it is good to buy a few similar sounding and close-match domain names, but you do not need all the extensions that your registrar provides you. Nevertheless, it is certainly beneficial to secure a few important extensions.
After you make your choices, it is recommended to get them all from a single registrar, as that would make management and renewal easier for you.
Wishing you fair web winds!
