What the %$@k dot com

So, in addition to my own business aspirations, I’m also down in Orange County currently helping my parents’ business out. They have a printing business they’ve run for about 20 years, but no pun intended, it’s the definitive mom and pop shop. A few loyal customers, the potential to make some money, but stuck in the last millennium as far as operational practices and management. One of my objectives is to publish a decent website informing potential customers of their services. Well that project has given me a quick 101 into the seedy underworld of Domain name registration. It is unbelievable to me how much squatting of domain URLs is going on out there. Go on GoDaddy or Register.com and try and land any single English word as a URL and it’s taken, although many are non-functioning sites. Figure you can land a multi word phrase like “fineprint.com?” — nope most anything you can think of is gone. Okay, maybe I’ll succumb and use my parents’ rather cryptic business name(DWJC — it’s a combination of initials) — surely DWJC.com is available! No that one’s held by some company in Illinois named Nextnet(apparently no connection to the DWJC name) who politely informed me that I could have the URL for $1200. I somewhat less politely said, “no thank you.” So the website will be dwjcprinters.com. Not catchy, and lord help us if my parents decide to change the name of the company, but it’ll do for now. It’ll do.