Domain Registration Searches

Domain name registration is similar to registering the name of your newly established business?the name needs to be unique. Unlike a business name, however, you are not legally required to register a domain name that actually describes your website; although it would serve your cause to have a name that somehow relates to your company.

Whenever you register for a domain name, your choice is subjected to a countercheck against existing registered domain names. This process is usually free, whether or not you actually intend to purchase the name. You have to understand, though, that if you type the URL address in your browser and no site loads, it does not necessarily mean that the domain name is available. It is possible that the domain name has already been registered to an owner but no website has been set up yet. It is also possible that there are people or organizations who have purchased the name because it a name that companies will most likely take interest in.

Domain names accept alphanumeric characters and hyphens, and consist of a suffix that uniquely identifies the site. A domain name such as yoursite.com is different from yoursite.org. It is not impossible that you will see a site yoursite.com and yoursite.org representing two kinds of content that are different from and unrelated to each other. However, it is possible for a company to purchase all the possible variations of a domain name and configure them to point to only one site. You can use hyphens to distinguish your site from another similarly named site. So, instead of having yoursite.com, your domain name could be your-site.org instead.

Even after thorough research, there is still a risk that you will encounter certain difficulties regarding your chosen domain name. There have been incidents of disputes over a domain name due to trademark clashes. An example of such is the well-publicized lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation, filed by the World Wildlife Foundation. The latter demanded that the former drop the URL address www.wwf.com, because of the conflict of interests between the two organizations.