Each domain name potentially serves a dual purpose, that of fence and banner.\u00a0 By registering your brand name as a domain name, you can mitigate the risk of third party infringement by staking a claim to your brand\u2019s rightful virtual property.\u00a0 At the same time, this registration also serves to improve your brand promotion efforts through recognition, goodwill, and greater ease of customer conversion via the Web.<\/p>\n
The domain name world, replete with colorful industry terms such as \u201cland rush,\u201d \u201ccybersquatting,\u201d and \u201ctyposquatting,\u201d has come to be associated with speculative and in many cases dishonest practices, behavior that tests the very limits of trademark law.\u00a0 It is not surprising that these terms are reminiscent of the language used during the early days of the California Gold Rush.\u00a0 After gold was discovered in January of 1848, \u00a0a flood of fortune seekers arrived hoping to exploit the golden hills, streams, and rivers of the newly acquired state. Struck by gold fever, these \u201cland grabbers\u201d created camps on every available piece of land that was thought to contain the precious metal, essentially \u201csquatting\u201d on the valuable land.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s fast forward 150 years.\u00a0 By 1998, computers had become as standard in people\u2019s homes as television and running water, the Internet had become a major medium for communication, and a new gold miner had arrived in the form of the domainer.\u00a0 Some individuals began buying many of the more market friendly and therefore potentially valuable words in the English language as domain names, contributing to the explosive 3,000 percent growth in the number of .com\u2019s between 1993 and 1998.\u00a0 This speculative behavior soon began to incorporate trademark filings as a method of identifying potentially high value\/high traffic domain names.\u00a0 This behavior bears resemblance to the speculative land grabs during the Gold Rush period. Just as miners sought land that likely possessed gold, domainers wanted domain names with the potential for high traffic.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s gold-laden hills are the high traffic domain names that result from popular consumer Web searches.\u00a0 As brand Web sites generate more commerce and as consumers become ever more Web-savvy, it is critically important for a brand owner to control the potential customer\u2019s experience before they\u2019ve even arrived at the brand Web site. To ease a potential customer\u2019s navigation to their site, a brand owner should own the most important domain names that contain their brand\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
With the variety of methods for monetizing high traffic Web sites, cybersquatters are able to capitalize more than ever on your brand\u2019s \u00a0popularity and hard-won customer loyalty.\u00a0 It is the brand owner\u2019s duty to ensure that they are staking claim to their valuable online property for two important reasons: to defend their trademark and to promote their brand.\u00a0 Someone will be \u201cpulling gold out of the hills.\u201d It is up to the brand owner to ensure that they are building a solid fence around their virtual claim so they can best promote their brand to those who seek it.<\/p>\n