If you come to a fork in the road, take it. - Yogi Berra

A friend of mine called me the other day asking advice about setting up a web site for his business. His is a long-existing and successful business; but he's never had a web site. He was wondering whether he should create one.

Now, you probably know what my answer to that was. And that's not what I want to tell you about anyway. The real story here was what happened when he did go try to register his domain name. He found it wasn't available. It had been when he'd checked it before, but not now.

Someone else, or more accurately someone else's computer program, had taken note of his having considered the name. When he didn't follow through the program had snapped it up.

They're out there and they're watching.

These programs run at lightening speed, buying up domain names people consider but don't buy. They do this in order to profit from whatever commercial value a domain name might have. The owners want to turn a quick and easy profit from the domain name. They might use the name as an advertising vehicle. Worse, they might simply have bought the name knowing they might be able to resell it (at a hefty profit) to the person who had considered it but decided to wait and think about it.

Luckily for my friend the name he'd chosen was his own trademark. The name was unique and specific to his business. In other words, it had little or no value to anyone not associated with his business. The "domainer" as they're called, had no business owning that name and therefore wisely decided to let it go.

The lesson here is to be both stealthy and decisive when considering a web property. Thinking about a site but not sure which of the 2 (or 3 or 5) names to go with? Reserve them all. Once it's taken the cost goes up tremendously; and the more you want it the more it will cost.