While looking for some info on a few domains I came across this:
http://www.betterwhois.com/cybersquatters.htm

It recommends you register variations of your domain name in order to stop people from attempting to damage your reputation by either pretending to be you or just hosting sites with false claims against you, that users may accidently access via a typo. Although it seems that they recommend you register as many variations as you can think of if you have the money, they seem to heavily emphasize the following:
.com, .net, .biz, "YourCompany/Name"Sucks.com

They also mentioned .org and "-" variations inbetween multi-word names.

I am personally on a budget (until I make a million dollars through my web business a couple of days after it opens :P ) so I can't be registering every single variation I can think of (especially with all the newer domain extensions). I was especially surprised that they mentioned .biz since i see many people on these forums say anything but .com, .net, and .org are normally worthless.

I would just like to ask WHT for your opinions on this. Is this really significantly important? If so, what variations do you personally think are the most important and absolutely necessary for someone wanting to develop a name with a reputation?

Thanks.

You're actually the only one who can really answer that question, especially since
you mentioned you're on a budget. You can secure the .com (if it's available) for
now.

Once you've acquired the money to afford it, you can register versions people are
likely to type in, or be prepared to use any legal options at your disposal.

You really can't stop others from registering typos of your domain names. But they
might not even keep those typos if they don't get the results they want. :D

BTW, the link you posted isn't working for me. ;)

It recommends you register variations of your domain name in order to stop people from attempting to damage your reputation by either pretending to be you or just hosting sites with false claims against you, that users may accidently access via a typo. Although it seems that they recommend you register as many variations as you can think of if you have the money, they seem to heavily emphasize the following:
.com, .net, .biz, "YourCompany/Name"Sucks.com
I've been saying that for ages now. :)

For my main hosting brand, I have about 53 domains registered now, that are various other extensions, misspellings etc etc etc. It's still cheap money, compared to expensive legal action.

53 domains costs me around $600/yr, and that's nothing for my brand. If you can't invest $600/yr to better protect your brand, then you're probably not super serious about it anyways.

. . . BTW, the link you posted isn't working for me. ;)
That link works for me. :)

How tight is your budget? If it's miniscule, then just register the .com. Once you are starting to get some revenue register the .net .org .biz and depending on the name, then maybe also .info. Before I buy the info, I'd buy the singular/plurals of the other extensions on the same order as you just did for the plural/singular. After that, if your domain has two words, I'd swap the words and buy the same tlds in the same order of preference both singular/plural. After that I'd look at common typos and register those. After that I'd start registering my competitors unregistered domains and typos :)

Thanks everyone for your opinions/advice. I have decided to transfer my .com to Moniker.com (I researched on WHT and a bit on Google and it seems they are #1 in security/service and among the best in everything else) and register a few of the most significant variations with NameCheap. Thanks again everyone, you have been very helpful.

Moniker is a good choice. You're welcome SuperFreeza.

I think .com is the king. You dont need to register all possible variations since traffic to them will be really minimal, 0.2% at best. But register most obvious typos and singular/plural variations. For example: besttoys, bestoys, toysbest, toybest, bestoy, besttoy. I doubt you can gain much buy registering all possible variations. If someone wants to damage your brand, there is sure some other name not registered and some other way to mislead people.

I've been saying that for ages now. :)

For my main hosting brand, I have about 53 domains registered now, that are various other extensions, misspellings etc etc etc. It's still cheap money, compared to expensive legal action.

53 domains costs me around $600/yr, and that's nothing for my brand. If you can't invest $600/yr to better protect your brand, then you're probably not super serious about it anyways.

I agree, I also have 25-30 domains (I need to make a list...) to prevent domain squating for my various main domains that I use.

I have one domain variant that I forgot to register and now someone has it and wants 500+$ for it... I offer $250 and they still wouldn't accept my offer. I don't know what they plan on doing with it since it's a misspelling and obviously infringes on my brand.

Yes, it really depends on your budget. First of all, make sure you get .COM; if you can't get that, forget about the name and go for another. Then if you have spare money, go for the ccTLD of YOUR OWN country (e.g. .CA for Canadian or .de for German). If you are a bit serious about a BRAND, go get the other gTLDs, i.e. .org, .net, .biz and .info (never mind the .name or so). All these should cost you less than US$50 A YEAR.

I have a lot of spellings variants too. I registered every possible way of misspelling my domain that I could think of, and point them all up to the main domain. That's needed if you do advertising like radio, where folks hear the domain and have to remember it. It's also handy for oral marketing. :)

This is all good and all, but imagine the following scenario: someone registers mixmusic.tld after you have registered musicmix.tld. Of course your domain is a lot better and more natural sounding. Then you create a site for musicmix.tld and also cybersquatter creates another site for mixmusic.tld and promotes it. And guess what will happen? You will get their visitors because of better domain which makes more sense. People will actually mix mixmusic into musicmix, hehe.

In cases like that its better not to register all possible variations. Even more - I think registering all possible variations except for most obvious is a waste of time and money. Traffic to them will be so low they wont make any impact at all to site traffic or your name.

It also means you will bring traffic to other site when you register inferior name, ie. someone has fastcars.tld and you register fastcar.tld.

In cases like that its better not to register all possible variations. Even more - I think registering all possible variations except for most obvious is a waste of time and money. Traffic to them will be so low they wont make any impact at all to site traffic or your name.

I think you've got some twisted thinking going on here, hoping that someone else will register your keywords reversed and you get some of their traffic. You'd get ALL their traffic if you owned the domain :)

Yes but in case someone promotes other site with similar domain name, then you can get some bonus hits. If its just a parked name, it wont bring much traffic of course.

$600/yr for domains?
We have about 12. I feel we should get more variations, but, it can wait a few months hopefully. As an established company now. I'll be very court-order happy if someone tries to take the piss.

People can still try to "squat" on your trademark in other countries which makes it much harder to enforce