Every election cycle, and even months or years prior to an election, thousands of domain names are registered by people hoping to cash in on registering the “right” domain names. This is especially the case with the US Presidential election, where people attempt to register domains related to the presumptive candidates.
There are three cons to registering political domain names that I want to share with you. I know that there are many readers who read this blog that are fairly new to the business of domain names, and I want to share some of the reasons I think it is unwise to register political candidate domain names.
If you disagree with any of these reasons, or if you have other reasons, you are welcome to share them in the comment section.
Bad publicity – I don’t know about you, but I would be a bit embarrassed if CNN or Fox News wanted to interview me about a candidate domain name I owned. Perhaps this is because I don’t really like politics, but it’s something that I would consider a negative, especially if the interview poked fun at the registration!
Legal trouble – I would imagine there are ways to use domain names containing the names of famous people, but selling them could be problematic, depending on how litigious the candidate is.
Most “good” ones already gone. Let’s face it, regardless of the negative implications, most of the “good” candidate domain names and speculative domain names have been owned for years. I am sure there are many Hillary Clinton domain names registered, and there are many names that speculate on a potential Vice Presidential candidate as well.
Some people, such as Kerry Edwards, conveniently owned a coveted domain name without election considerations. However, it seems that the majority of registered domain names are from speculators. There’s certainly nothing wrong with speculating, and there are ways to use these domain names, but I think the cons outweigh any pros.
As always, your thoughts are welcome!
I’m a big advocate on defensive registrations with your own name if the case may be where you might be a public figure. This is one that you just don’t know, and $10 a year doesn’t hurt. It can also be used for multiple purposes such as networking or for personalized email addresses. Just register it.
In addition to that, if you’re a new company, grab the “sucks” suffix as well. A registrar does it (GoDaddy) and a large corporation can’t beat a gripe site in court (PayPal).
Always have the attitude that your business will succeed; don’t let someone with the -sucks domain name possibly derail your dreams or make it harder on you. Of course a product or service should sell on its own, but there may be one or two that you can’t capture because of the website lurking over your shoulders.
As far your “bad publicity” advice goes, I agree. However, this reminds me of a 2000 CNN-UK article with an investor. So, some don’t have the same mentality as you and I.
Just ran the online campaign for Hawaii’s Speaker of the House. He’s 82 years old but was excited about how we pulled in 20% more votes this last election cycle using Facebook ads and AdWords.
His is a well-seasoned domain name but thanks David Walker for reminding us about the “sucks” aspect. The more power a politician has the greater the opposition.