If you have your own website, then you probably own a domain name for that website. But you should also consider owning additional, related domain names – especially if your website is for a business. The main reasons are:
- Protection from Competitors. A competitor could purchase a similar domain name and use it to steal potential traffic or slander your brand name.
- Protection from Squatters. A domain name squatter could purchase a similar domain name and try to sell it to you for a large sum of money. This is more common than you think. There are many people out there who do this for a living.
- Traffic Preservation. A potential visitor could mistype your URL in their web browser, get an error page, and never end up at your site.
The .com domain name extension is the most common. However, .net and .org are also fairly common, and .info is often seen as well. Those are the typical extensions for US-based businesses. There are other extensions, such as .us and .biz, but those are rarely used or seen for legitimate websites.
