Online retailers 'can benefit from extra domain names'

Buying extra domain names could do much to improve e-commerce firms' presence on search engines, it has been suggested by one expert.

Speaking to Practical eCommerce, Andrew Hazen of Prime Visibility explained that additional domain names can offer extra "real estate" in search engine listings.

He added that investing in more domain names could also be beneficial if the online retailer's original domain name is not particularly search engine-friendly.

"If a URL doesn't really say much about your business and isn't ranking well on the search engines, getting an additional domain name is a way to gain that visibility," Mr Hazen went on to remark.

A recent VeriSign report revealed that domain name registrations rose by 16 per cent - 24 million in total - to reach 177 million in 2008.

Domain names ending in the .com, .cn, .de, .net and .org suffixes were particularly popular last year, the study showed.

Written by Debra Hastings-Henry