In the past few days, a news story about the official website of the President of the Republic came to light: a website that looked very similar to the official website of the President redirected users to the personal website of the former President of the Republic. Since this website is registered in Papaki, we would like to share some tips that will help both businesses and individuals to safeguard their digital presence. A first important step is to register multiple domain names.
So why is it so important to buy the right domain names and how can you protect your website, your eShop and ultimately your brand?
First, we need to get into the mind of the potential user who does a search to find and visit our website. There are several possibilities. First, perhaps our domain name is original or difficult to spell. Also, the user may not have much familiarity with the English language. So it is possible that he/she will mistyped the address and visit a different - and possibly competing - website.
For this reason, apart from the domain name, we should pay attention to the official trade name of our company. So a good way to shield our brand is to register all other possible domain names that resemble or may be confused with our official name. These can be anagrams, different spelling, similar letters, double letters and so on. By registering these domains we protect our website and can redirect to our official website any user who visits one of the different domains.
An example
Let's say that our business is called "Cosmetic Matrix Cosmetics". A domain like "kallyntikamitrou.gr" could cover us. However, it is not unlikely that a user would write "kalintikamitrou.gr" ή "kallintikamitrou.gr". If we want to limit the possibility of losing this customer/visitor to our site, it is advisable to register these variants as well. At Papaki.com, registering a domain gives the possibility to register all the basic extensions in order to fortify the digital presence and the brand.
The role of different occupations
Equally important are the extensions (.gr, .com, .site, etc.). By registering the most basic extensions for the domain name of our website, we secure our digital presence and eliminate the possibility of a competitor having a similar domain name to ours. Some of the key extensions that are good to register with our business domain name are: .gr, .com, .com.gr, .eu, .net, .ελ. and if it is an eShop, .store, and .shop. It is also important to register extensions in other countries (e.g. .com.cy for Cyprus, .co.uk for the UK, etc.) if the company is active in these countries.
Some more reasons
A phenomenon that is also observed is the "black market" of domain names. There are people who invest in the purchase of certain domain names that may become popular in the future and then sell them for a big profit. In case your brand gets a reputation and you have not registered the multiple domains to protect it, someone may have done it before you and when you need it, you may buy it from them at a much higher price.
Finally, another case where the purchase and maintenance of multiple domains is important is in the case of renaming or rebranding a business. If customers know the old brand name, then it is particularly important to maintain the previous domain name and redirect to the new website through it. This ensures the flow especially of old users who have not realized the change or force of habit pushes them to keep typing the old domain.
