1. Your Web site is the first impression potential customers will have of your company. Many of the online "Web site builder" programs offer little control over the appearance of your site. If your competition is utilizing professional Web site and graphic designers for their sites, your site may look "homemade" and unprofessional in comparison. I know that I would not have a very good initial impression of a company if I saw, at the bottom of their home page, a graphic stating "This site was designed using EZ-Site Builder". This is about as professional as handing out business cards with the imprint on the back "Get your FREE business cards from FreeBusinessCards.com".

2. In many cases, you will not have an effective domain name. If you own Bob's Hardware, instead of having a recognizable domain name like "www.bobshardware.com", you will probably be saddled with a domain name like "www.easysitebuilder.com/users/bobshardware". Try fitting that on your business card! Again, it looks very unprofessional. The biggest problem small business face is being taken seriously... and this is one way to guarantee that you are not.

3. Referring back to #2, you may also lose the ability to have an e-mail address that is readily recognizable and meshes with your Web site address. If I see that I can send mail to "sales@bobshardware.com", the image I envision of your company is much more favorable than if I see your contact information as "bobshardware@easysitebuilder.com", or, almost as unfavorable, "bobshardware@aol.com". Save your ISP e-mail account for your personal business - don't use it as your company point of contact.

4. You may not be able to successfully market your business using search engines. If you are fortunate enough to be able to control your META tags for each page, it will probably still not be enough to secure an effective search engine placement. While META tags are very important, they are only a small part of search engine placement. Just as important is the proper formatting and relevance of text, which is very difficult to achieve without having complete control over the content of your Web site.

5. You may not be able to coordinate the look and feel of your Web site with your other marketing materials. If you want to market your business effectively, this is another important part of your company's image.  You don't want your business card to be green and white and your Web site pink and purple.  

If the name is not trademarked then legally you can register the name.  You may want to trademark the name to protect your investment.  

Business Ethics - You may find a domain name that is not trademarked and you decide to use it.  However, if another company offers the same type of products or services that you do and caterers to the same clientele, you could have still have legal issues.  It may appear that you are trying to feed off of their reputation and marketing.  If they have a good reputation this may work in your favor.  But what if they decide to go out of business or start to cheat their clients?  Do you really think people will understand you are a different company?  I doubt it.  

Marketing Issues - Once you have a domain name and Web site, you will begin to spend time and money marketing it.  Consumers as a whole do not listen or read... they assume they know all they need to know.  So, let's say your company's Web site is www.giftbaskets.net and you advertise that domain name.  However, another company in your market area has the domain name www.giftbaskets.com.  A shopper hears your ad on the radio but only remembers www.giftbaskets so they assume it was .com.  You paid for the ad, but who benefited?  

Consumers assume that all domain names end in .com.  Just as consumers know that an 800 number is toll free, asking "What is your 800 number?"   888 and 877 are also toll free numbers, but consumers need to be told that.  Whenever possible stick with .com.