I would like to touch on two points with regards to owning multiple domain names...

Domains for future use or deliberate non-use:

Many domains are being registered on a daily basis. This is true for .com domains as well as .co.za domains. Single word domains like hosting.co.za, beans.com etc has practically all been taken. Two word domains will become scarcer as time goes by.

According to BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7331042.stm)... "A US man has sold the domain name pizza.com for $2.6m - after maintaining the site for just $20 a year since 1994."

The point is... Buy your domain name now if you plan to host a website sometime in the future.

I strongly disapprove of domain hogging for the purposes of selling it later on. I believe this is unethical and unfair to the Internet community. However it is quite necessary if you plan to use a domain name for legitimate purposes.

Let's say you decided to buy a domain that could be used to negatively impact your company or product... like company-sucks.co.za. You definitely would not want to put your website on this domain, even though it would be beneficial owning it. You would basically want to own it, but not host a website or point it to anywhere. This is called domain parking. AOL, an American online service provider, in the USA should have done this long ago. Visit www.aolsucks.org and you will see why. ;-)

Domains for Existing Websites:

There are two ways for you to use additional domains. You can either host a website on it or you point it to an existing website.

Typically you would like to host a separate website on a separate domain that focuses on a specific advertising campaign or service. The South African crime line initiative sponsored by Primedia is a perfect example of this. You can visit www.crimeline.co.za and go to a dedicated crime line website. Alternatively you can visit www.primedia.co.za and go to the crime line website via a website banner. This separates the two entities and causes less clutter on your main website.

You could also make www.crimeline.co.za forward to www.primedia.co.za. This is called domain forwarding and there are two ways of doing this...

Host a page with a page redirect script... I would not advise this, because you would actually need to host a page on the relevant domain to do the redirection. It is unnecessary considering that you are only hosting a single page.

Domain forwarding... This is when you enter a domain name like www.dobroadband.co.za and it automatically (without a hosted script) forwards to www.do.co.za. I prefer this method of redirection as it is very inexpensive and has less of a chance not working due to scripting or browser problems.

In summary; there are many ways to skin a cat. My suggestion is that you consult with an IT services provider (like Improvate IT) for tailored advice on choosing your additional domain names.