Domain Name Scam

There are so many scams on the Internet anymore, it’s hard to keep track. But one of the latest ones I’ve had people ask about is the Domain Name Scam.  With this one, you get an email from someplace in Asia or somewhere telling you they are a domain registration company. They are writing to notify you that some other person or company wants to buy domain names similar to yours, but with alternate endings. They are then giving you the opportunity to buy those domains first, before they are sold to someone else…seemingly as some sort of favor to you.

This is a scam, people.

The sole point of this is to get you to buy domain names that you do not need, and in all likelihood, at very high prices. If you own the GreatStore.com domain, and if someone else wants to buy GreatStore.cn or GreatStore.asia domains, does it really matter? Do you really need those domains? Is it going to hurt your business to lose them? No. No.  And No.

Anyone around the world can buy a variation of your domain name at any time if it is available.  If you don’t want them to, in order to protect your brand or business name, you can purchase every single variant of your domain name that you’d like at any time.  And many business owners do purchase the more common variations of their domain name (.net, .biz, .org etc) in order to protect their brand. But this is not something you must do, and certainly not as a result of an email that uses scare tactics to get you to buy obscure (and worthless) variations of your domain. Stick to the common variations if you’re going to do this.

Don’t be fooled by emails like this. Think about it: did you even know there was a domain ending with .cn or .Asia? Most people don’t, because the .coms and .nets and .orgs are the most common. And even if you did know it, how often do you visit domains with those endings? Not very often, I’m sure.  And if your site is already on the .com, it’s highly unlikely that the obscure domain variation would ever be a threat to your domain.

But if you are truly worried and somehow convinced you should buy every conceivable domain possible related to yours, then at least go through GoDaddy or somewhere reliable and affordable. Don’t let a scammer or spammer trick you into buying anything they have for sale.

You can protect your domain just by understanding when  and why it’s necessary, and then take the correct measures to do so.