Do you 'own' a domain name?

[Torsten]

Have you ever thought about registering a domain name? Or maybe you already 'own' a domain name. If so, why did you register it? I'm asking because I used to register quite a number of different domain names some of which I sold through auctions. I'm curious to hear your opinion on this....
Torsten
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Jamie (K)]

I "own" the domain names used by a couple of religious organizations in my hometown, because I run their websites.

I don't see anything wrong with auctioning off domain names you already happen to own, but in the early days of the web, when I was still working in advertising, some of our client companies had problems with forward-thinking people registering their company names or brand names as domains and then demanding huge sums of money for them. If the company didn't pay the desired amount, the domain name speculator would sometimes bring it to the level of extortion by putting porno sites at domains based on the company's trademarks.

I don't see anything wrong with a guy who had the brains to register, say, Chevrolet or Ford as a domain asking the company for $20,000 or even $200,000 for the domain name, but I do have a problem with someone trying to ruin a company's reputation for the purpose of extortion.

[Aereal]

[Torsten]

Can't recall all of them but here are some:
english-test.de
englischtest.de
englischtests.de
english-tests.de
englischteam.de
english-team.de

Why do you ask, Aereal?
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Torsten]

[Aereal]

[Torsten]

First, I thought I had to grab any .de domain that contains the words 'english test', 'englischtest' or 'english team' in different versions. Then I realized, a domain name is only of the many components of a website -- usually it's not the most important one. So I decided to make some room for healthy competition and creativity and got rid of those names. I don't know how define 'exotic' when it comes to domain names?
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Aereal]

[Stew.t.]

Hi

At present I own three: www.trans-lingo.com, www.trans-ship.de (co-owned) and www.lelta.de (inactive at the moment).

I have never auctioned domain names but was suprised to find trans-lingo as a .com still available. I agree that the domain name is not that important just the website content and marketing.
_________________
Please meet Stewart Tunncilff

[Torsten]

Hi Stew,

Have you ever thought of trying to obtain translingo.com? I couple of years ago I started www.english-team.com and was very surprised to see it was still available. However, a hyphenated domain name is far from ideal when it comes to marketing, especially when you want to promote the name on the phone or in another conversation.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Stew.t.]

Hi

Not considered obtaining the name until the red tape is finished in Germany and I can get my funding from he EU.
As for phone promotion I think saying minus and clarifying it as opposite of add or a cross does the trick.
Hyphen is not so gloabally recognisable or known by my German students.
_________________
Please meet Stewart Tunncilff