How to Buy Available Domain Names

Your domain name is the first thing that drives traffic to your business. It's the first thing your customers see, and it's getting harder and harder to get a good one.

Available domain names that actually work are hard to come by, and if you have an idea, you need to get yours locked in as well as take some precautionary steps.Things You'll Need:

• Internet

1. Check availability of your domain name on a web hosting site.

   To see if your domain name is among the list of available domain names, go to GoDaddy.com or any other web hosting service you might know. They all have search boxes which allow you very easily to check the availability of your domain names.

   Some, if not all, now offer alternate suggestions if your domain is not available. Not necessarily good ones, mind you, but at least they're trying.

2. If your domain names are available, consider buying the complementary and negative sites as well.

   If your domain names are available, you'd better snatch them up quickly. If you are planning a serious website, you should also get the .net and .org to keep competitors or random people from creating confusing websites.

   If your site gets really popular, you might have to also buy "negative" sites before flamers can get ahold of it -- for instance, if your site is buystuff.com, you might want to also buy the domain ihatebuystuff.com.

3. Change elements of your domain name to get a similar name available.

   If your domain names are not available, try shortening the name, or changing letters to numbers, or using a recognizable colloquialism in place of a word. Don't get too informal, though. For instance --

   hollywoodforuglypeople.com becomes
   hollywood4uglypeople.com

   Yes, I wanted that site to do a political blog, but some jerk already took it. Fortunately, in step 3...

4. Last resort: Call the jerk who stole the domain name from you and get him/her to sell.

   ...you can see the information about who has the website. It's public knowledge and can be found on your webhosting site with name and address.

   If you really, really want that domain name, call them and make an offer. Also, keep in mind that there are laws against bad faith buyups of domain names, to keep people from extorting outrageous fees in just this way, but you usually have to have a foothold in that market before you can prove something like that. Otherwise, just be prepared to fork over the cash to invest in your business. Good luck.