Tucows is an online company that can enable you to do this.  Its a little more involved than regular affiliate sales, but it can be worthwhile in both savings as well as in possible margin earnings (a buck or two).  Regardless, it is something to consider and might make for a good addition to your business line up.  If nothing else, it can remove a middle man from the picture when it comes to domain transfers and managing your domain name through Icann.

For non domainer types, I’d offer an example of another perspective.   I worked with a client a while back on a site focusing on bodybuilding supplements.  Working with domains directly, it can save your budget a little money that might be used to register additional domains to prevent your hard work and effort from being picked up by domain squatters. 

Often times these companies will show you 10 other alternate or similar spellings for the same domain encouraging you to pick something or pick lots of related ’somethings’.

A few times I have looked at a domain like this with a name that was unlikely to mean anything to anyone else in the world, and when I came back to purchase or register the domain name a week later, it was no longer available!

Originally, I chalked this up to chance, but it happened a few too many times.  I eventually came to the conclusion that something was up.

• maybe someone hacked the hosting companies registration tool
• maybe someone hacked my computer
• maybe an employee at the hosting company was sifting through aborted registrations looking for the next hot thing like Paris-In-Prison.com

I never thought (originally) that the hosting company might be buying up these domains themselves.

Well it was revealed about a year ago that Dotster a company that functions as a registrar, a place you can go to register a domain, also registered domains for themselves.  They were a domain registrant and their own registrar.

Neiman Marucs litigated against Dotster for registering more than a dozen domain names that were similar to trademarks that Neiman Marcus owned.  Plus they provided evidence that Dotster had done the same thing with hundreds of other domains for unrelated companies.

They brought complaints that Dotster would taste a domain by registering it through themselves and testing the traffic.  If there was no traffic, they would cancel the registration within a 5 day grace period and not pay anything for the registration.  (anyone can do this, but I do not advise it.  Dotster had an advantage because they were a registrar themselves and could hit the registration pipeline easier and not have to sit on hold for an hour to cancel early.

What does this Mean for Average Webmasters?

Do Not test the waters of a domain name through a registrar’s site. 

How to avoid having your future domain name stolen by your Registrar

1. Type the domain name into Google and see if it works. 
2. If it doesn’t (no page and no ads load up) then go to your registrar and register the domain on the spot.  Do not pass go, do not delay, do not abort the checkout.
3. Just Buy it!
4. If you change your mind about the purchase, you have 5 days to abort your purchase after the fact.  Use it.

Example

Let’s say that you want to sell swiss army watches online.  You want your site to have an e-commerce name so you decide eWatches.com would be perfect. 

You type http://www.ewatches.com into your browser and if nothing comes up you go to your registrar and register the site right away.  (It will only cost between $1 – $7 depending on who you register with and what types of incentives they offer).

You get the account setup, buy a bunch of product, hire a crack web designers to put together a hot and efficient shopping cart and you sell swiss army watches like there is no tomorrow.

But watch out for your registrar or hosting company.  They may purchase a domain name that is similar, like ewatchs.com.  They will taste the domain and see if anyone is trying to find your site and mis-spelling the domain.  They’ll park the site with ads and try and get your would have been customers to click on ads that might even take them to some other site that sells swiss army watches.  (Could be anyone on the net too, The Dotster litigation showed the Dotster engaged in this activity, but they are definitely not the only ones.  Thousands of people do this every day.)

Conclusion

Buy your domain right away when you visit a registrar.

Consider (very carefully) buying up all the alternate spellings for your domain name as well.  You can establish a 301 redirect and send any potential customers to the right address if they mis-spell your URL.  That’s more business for you and your registrar or host won’t be taking some of your traffic.

Subscribers May Request a copy of the Complaint from Neiman Marcus against Dotster via email at

info@top-5-hosting.com