The ease by which domain names may be registered and pass out of registration has led to the presence of everything from so-called “Cyber Squatters” to companies and software dedicated to nothing but the monitoring of which domains are in use, and why, and by whom. The reasoning behind this is obvious: a good domain name is necessary to attract and retain customers, and there are only so many memorable domain names out there.
Additionally, many people with similar domain names often end up with unwanted cross traffic. The most famous instance of this was when a pipe fitting company received many more visits than their servers could handle due to the fact that their web site was at utube.com, which many people visited by mistake when heading towards youtube.com.
Many of these near-misses are, not so benign, however, and many popular sites are surrounded by copycats using different domains such as example.org or example.net instead of example.com or example.co.uk in order to snare unwary visitors and install malware or steal credit card numbers.
This, combined with the expense and difficulty of purchasing domain names from cyber squatters and nefarious copycats, makes domain name monitoring an easy sell. As it is expensive to maintain ownership of a domain name, lesser used or less desirable domain names constantly pass in and out of usage.
Domain name monitoring keeps track of who owns a domain name, when it is likely to expire, and how long it has been in service. This allows new users who want to use the name for their business to keep an eye on the domain name and snap it up as soon as it becomes available, should they want it. It also allows them to know if they should seek to purchase near misses to their own name in order to steer traffic back to their site.
Many users may type in example.com or example.net or example.biz instead of example.co.uk when typing in a web address, and so it may be necessary to purchase several domain names instead of just the one around which the site is based. This way, customers will not be distracted, deterred or tricked just because they made a typo.
Additionally, it allows users to know when a domain becomes available, so they do not need to purchase it from a squatter, but instead can go for the low prices offered by cheap domain hosts.
Dominic Munroe.
Most of these domain name monitoring services use a simple series of programs and algorithms to keep an eye on a list of domain names entered by the user. This will not only allow a user to keep track of their most wanted domains, but to also see if similar domains may already be available at low cost. This is a great boon to those who are on a limited budget and can stand to have a domain that is less than perfect. It is also vital for big businesses that want to make sure that their customers aren’t mistakenly going to the wrong web site.
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