Buying multiple domains: misspells & .net, org, etc. & 301's

[JCunningham]

Hi, an SEO guy told me to buy up domains like ours X.org, net, biz, etc. & mispellings. this could cost over $100/year. Is is worth it for SEO or is it just covering our @ss if competitors want to get stupid and buy those? I don't forsee competitors doing that. What do you suggest? Does Google actually give us points for those AND if we bought them are we supposed to redirect all of them to our site? Should I be doing this for our SEO clients? Thanks.

[cogbox]

No, I believe the best practice is to focus on your single domain. The purchases would just be for the @ss covering. If you did point those domains to your primary domain, you should be sure to do a redirect rather than just aliasing the content on a second domain.

[CMC-SD]

It has nothing to do with SEO. It's not a bad idea to own them and redirect them to prevent competitors or even other non-competing companies from getting traffic that should be going to you, but if it's not in your budget, don't stress.

[KevinBudzynski]

In the query, if the brand name is slightly misspelled, you will still be ranked high (most likely 1) in organics.