Don’t be like Rod Blagojevich.

You’re probably wondering why I am suggesting this, to not be like the impeached and shamed former governor of Illinois. But I am not talking about the corrupt way he ran the Land of Lincoln, rather I am warning about the missed opportunity when the domain name for his new Web site was registered.

It was announced over this past weekend that Blago had a new Web site at GovernorRod.com. Note I provide the link but I also advise caution in clicking over to it, especially for those whose morals are on the high end, but I digress. When I heard the Web site URL, the first thing that popped into my mind, as a domain name consultant and someone who thinks about domain names more than I should, is if he – or his PR people – bought the common misspelling of the domain name, governorod.com, which only has one “r” in it. As I am writing this, you can guess they did not.

Many domain names are the combination of words or names. When you have one of those words ending with the same letter as the next word begins with, it is common for someone manually typing the domain name to type that letter only once. For example, if the world’s largest software company got into the business of making salt-water candy, they may register the domain name microsofttaffy.com. It is recommended they also register microsoftaffy.com, and it can be also taken further to account for the double “f” in taffy as well.

What often happens is if you don’t register the domain name, someone else may. It is one thing if your name contains trademarked words or names, but if it contains generic names or words and is not trademarkable, a competitor may jump on it and potentially take some of your business. As I have said many times, in the grand scheme of things, domain names are cheap – register them all and monitor traffic to them.

In the case of the narcissistic former governor, I checked to see if governorod.com was registered the morning after the announcement, and it was not. This meant I had the opportunity to register it myself, but as I am glad he is out of office, I was not interested in going there! I was not alone in my thinking though, as several hours later someone else registered the domain name, and it is now pointing to a parked domain Web page. There may be a case here for the indicted former politician and his handlers to win this domain name in a UDRP filing, but that will surely cost a heck of a lot more than registering the domain name new. As Blago is rumored to already be in debt for his legal issues to date, he may not be afford to file for the domain name as well as maintain his hair-do.

Registering misspellings of domain names is almost as important as registering the actual domain name, especially if it is prone to errors. And in case it isn’t blatantly obvious to you, I am proud to say I never, ever thought for a moment of voting for this guy to lead the state where I live.

Did you enjoy reading this? You are welcome to subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS feed or by email.

Domain Names • Technology • (4) Comments • Permalink