How many domains must you buy before its branded?

[VV]

I have several ideas and domains I would like to buy for my network BUT... I don't want my idea stolen by some person who comes along finds a slightly different variation and poof there goes some of my traffic. The idea is mainly for my own personal single girl site. I have the .coms and .nets and a few infos but would i need to seriously buy about 75 sites before it is considered a brand?

[ristac]

Branding is a tricky area based on your selected names... For example, if your idea was "single mums Dating" then it would be impossible to brand as its a generic term. If however it was Veronica Vains Dating Agency it would be a lot easier.

[VV]

yeah its somethiing similiar to veronicavain(fillinblank) i would say outloud but its not quite ready to be released yet. so branding my stage name wouldnt be impossible?

[Head Boy]

A few years ago I decided I would be the Sex Elf, so I reg'd the .com and the .net with and without the hyphen. You can't cover everything, and those seemed to be enough to me. I went big on having super-clean sites, and I found that several of the freehost virus installers were using sexelf as a subdomain. You can't use the domain resolution services for sub-domains, so you have to resort to expensive legal options if you want to stop them.

If someone grabs a name and uses it, then you'll pick up some of their traffic if you've got the .com. Just make sure that you get onto the first page of the SERPs.

[hardcoreblogger]

i don't think you need 75 domains. i would just go with .com .net .org and depending on the name the most important variations.

[Varzi Network]

If the name means that much to you then get it trademarked.

It would cost you far less then maintaining dozens of names for eternity.

[Head Boy]

Why do you need to have a separate domain with VV in it? If you wanted (say) VeronicaVainDVDs.com, then you are into a whole load of extra typos. Just have a DVD shop on your main site, and feed it from another site - say DarkDVDs.com. You can list other products there as well as yours, and that gives you a chance for another bit of income.

[VV]

omg im sorry head boy that isn't waht i meant at all. I wanted about 2 domains doing slightly different things but i wantted to brand the name. I think trade marking would be the way to go because variations are truly endless.

[Head Boy]

I've never bothered with trade marking. It seems that you go to a lot of expense to end up with something that is unenforceable. The only advantage is that some dick can't come along and try to hijack your name with a fake trademark.

In England we have a law against "passing off", this means that if I went onto a site and said I was veronica Vain, you could sue me for pretending that I was something that I wasn't.

Mind, if you could get me to look as good as you, then you wouldn't need to mess with websites to make your money.

[VV]

AWW ty Head Boy but you can not get a peak into my pay site for free. Do amount of compliments will do that :P

[Head Boy]

Originally Posted by Veronica Vain

AWW ty Head Boy but you can not get a peak into my pay site for free. Do amount of compliments will do that :P

Oh - the pain of it.