.com is enough?

[commsskills]

It was only a short while ago that some say if you want to protect your brand, you register the .com, .net and .org versions.

I do not know if this logic still applies in this current day when domain extensions are a dime a dozen. Because if you cannot get .com, .net, .org, you can always try for .can, .be, .me, etc.

Besides, looking at McDonalds, they only have the .com and .org. The singular version, McDonald, is regged by others. I have seen quite well developed sites where the owner does not bother to reg the .net and .org versions.

May I have your opinion if regging .com, .net and .org as a triad still applies if you want to protect your brand? Thanks.

 

[commsskills]

Quite interesting points, guys. Appreciate your postings.

I have a question and i will use a domain name to illustrate. It was what i was thinking about except that there is truly no original idea under the sun - meaning someone else had already thought of it :-

pigsfly

nice name isn't it. One that is sure to raise a couple of giggles, perhaps even some adverse reactions.

The scenario is this: pigsfly.com, pigsfly.net, pigsfly.org are registered. Assume that pigs-fly.com is not registered (actually it is). So based on the opinions given above, I should reg pigs-fly.com, pigs-fly.net, pigs-fly.org, pigs-fly.us, pigs-fly.eu, pigs-fly.asia (effectively the three continents) - to protect the brand.

Now my question is this: have you ever come across a real life example where abc-def.com is far more prominent than abcdef.com? I have not.​

 

[Name Trader]

I've come across quite a few although the names escape me for the moment. I tried to sell them the non-hyphenated but they weren't interested. But I'm not recommending them. Also you cannot protect your brand if you don't own the non-hyphenated.

 

[commsskills]

I've come across quite a few although the names escape me for the moment. I tried to sell them the non-hyphenated but they weren't interested. But I'm not recommending them. Also you cannot protect your brand if you don't own the non-hyphenated.

Thanks Stub.

In my case, i don't really have a choice as someone already regged abcdef.com and maintained the registration for more than 10 years. I have the abcdef.com.sg and thus i cannot extend it to .com, .net, .sg.

Under this circumstance, i regged abc-def.com, .net and .org to be on standby but still retain my identity as abcdef.com.sg which my clients know me as. In the event that one day i move away from Singapore, i can always change it to a hypennated identity.

Stub, what will you do if you are in my shoes?

PS: abcdef.net and abcdef.org are available.

---------- Post added at 06:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 PM ----------

Going back to my own study on how singaporeair protects its online identity, i noticed that there are gaps in their protection. My guesses are that the extensions could have come after their online exercise.

I did another comparison using Citibank to see how they protected their brand. Citibank is very thorough. Almost all the extensions that i found using Dynadot were regged by them. The exception is .cc which was taken by someone else. Citibank.name cannot be registered.

I came to the conclusion in this very informal study, that even for global retailer brands, their approach towards internet branding can be very different.

I feel that what is more important is to trademark your name, register the .com, .net and .org (the three basic global extensions), a .tel, a .us or .eu or .asia, and the country's specific extensions. The trademark is to protect your identity. The extensions are to allow for easy searching by potential customers.

Preventive registration may be done. Cybersquatting is not a big issue (in my opinion). What is of issue is the selling of similar products using similar domain names. Or even products that degrade your brand by association (eg if you operate a bank and someone set up a sex toy shop using the same name in a different extension). For that reason some may prefer to reg the entire set of domains.

Registration of similar names is of a lower priority. Eg abcdef.com to register abc-def.com. This is especially true if you are building a bricks-and-mortar type of business as opposed to a ppc business. Because if a customer forgets and type in abcdef.com, they will know it is not what he is looking for, take a look at the business card once again and type in the correct url.

Thus in conclusion, for those building a brand, my understanding in term of priority is:
(1) protect your trademark and reg the major extensions to provide ease of search
(2) preventive registration
(3) registration of similar names.

Not all global brands do all three. But at least two did (1).

Anyone has anything to add?