UK ebike domain name pricing

Seen in the current edition of Electric Bike magazine:
http://www.electricbikemag.net/showStory.php?storynum=90





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Unfortunately there are quite a few "professional domain squatters" out there these days. Even though they register a domain for $10-30 they figure its worth 1500-10k or more. In my opinion, this goes against the spirit of the internet and the ability for anyone to enter the online world within a reasonable investment. I'd like to see domain squatters shutdown, but there are always loopholes when enforcing this... Many US firms put up a quick autogenerated ad-words site and then proclaim "the domain is in use, we're not squatting!".

Its also very easy to start a small company, only to find a year after growing your business, that...your new companies name is very similar to another company that is larger and has been established for a very long time. I recall Exxon (the result of several oil companies merging/being bought-out) put considerable effort into finding a name that was different than any of their subsidiary components, and was very unlikely to have any similarity to other company names, past or present.

One bright note in this fog is that ES is the largest and most active community for E-bikes, and if a product does well here, it will become immediately known to respected enthusiasts. there are some products who's companies name has become synonymous with the product. We "Xerox" a paper instead of photocopy it. I grab a "Crescent" wrench instead of an adjustable wrench. I can "Amberwolf" bike parts into something useful, or I have "Safed" a thread with graphs and charts.

Having keywords in a domain is not as important as it used to be. Back in the day it was a requisite for online visibility. Now is is just one factor search engines use for ranking.

You can give your website any name regardless of the domain name. The catchier the title the better.