Imagine you are preparing a show about widgets. So as the marketing director of spiffingevents.com and being thoroughly internet aware, you rush off to register …

“thewidgetshow.com”

…but then you find someone beat you to it in July 2005.

However, you can be guaranteed all these fine sub-domain addresses that not only describe the event, but also retain your “uber-brand” in the process:-

• widgetshow.spiffingevents.com
• thewidgetshow.spiffingevents.com
• widgets2007.spiffingevents.com

And they can all point web traffic to the same site if you want. Moreover, should you ever sell the widget show to globalextravaganzas.com for a fat wedge, then you can also sell the address with it – without it affecting the rest of the spiffingevents.com empire. Although, it should really be phased over to…

• widgetshow.globalextravaganzas.com
• widgets2007.globalextravaganzas.com
• thewidgetshow.globalextravaganzas.com

And during the phase-over transition, ALL of these addresses can be set up to direct web traffic to the same site.

• widgetshow.spiffingevents.com
• thewidgetshow.spiffingevents.com
• widgets2007.spiffingevents.com
• widgetshow.globalextravaganzas.com
• widgets2007.globalextravaganzas.com
• thewidgetshow.globalextravaganzas.com

If you don’t believe me, try this address which should prove that just about anything is possible where domain names are concerned…

http://themagicofdns.totalcockup.co.uk

The bottom line here is that domain names and addresses are extremely versatile and highly configurable in the hands of a specialist DNS service provider – which is almost certainly not possible with the sort of "one size fits all" service that dominates the mass production hosting market.

In our next gripping instalment: the realities of email ...