How many times have you had a great idea late at night, sketched down some notes, wake up in the morning and look up some information and realize that someone has already done that? I know I’ve done it a few times.
Now take that scenario and put it on purchasing a domain for your business, or your latest idea. The problem is – You are out of luck. Now what?
If your domain is owned and there is a site developed on it, you might want to start thinking about other options. But here are some things you can do if your domain is being held hostage by a “domain poacher.”
- You can see who owns it by searching the WHOIS data. (I’ve linked GoDaddy’s WHOIS search, but there are many that do the job) You can try contacting the owner to see their interest in selling the domain. By doing this, though, you run the risk of them thinking that the domain is more valuable to you, therefor upping their price.
- By looking at the WHOIS data, you can see when the domain is up for renewal. If the date is close, you can pray that the owner doesn’t see value in renewing and buy it. There are many services you can use to ‘get in line’ to get first dibs on the domain when it expires. GoDaddy, for example, has one.
Past that, you’ll have to start getting creative. You’ll want to do your research. There are plenty of good articles on how to choose a proper domain for your business, so I won’t go into boring you with those details. There are a ton of extensions (.co, .ca, .me, etc) that you can use to be creative with your domain name. The risk you run is that the internet public is programmed to look for .com addresses – so be careful on what you choose.
After all other attempts are used up, come up with a different way to describe your idea. Try to use at least one keyword in your domain, that will help with your SEO in the long run. Network Solutions offers a really cool iPhone app for coming up with unique domain names and Domainr is a great website for doing the same thing.
I may have another couple of good ideas here and there, so give me a call and get some free advice.
