How to Choose a Domain Name

07/31/2007

David Brown

The domain name is the top level name of your main Web site page, such as www.cnn.com, www.yahoo.com www.amazon.com etc. Choosing an Internet domain name for your Web site requires a bit of thought. In effect, you are branding your Web site and your organization and telling the world (and Internet search engines like Google) what is in it. Different sources give conflicting advice on what sort of name to choose, because the choice of name depends on the type of Web site or the type of organization it represents. Below, we will try to help you find the strategy that fits you best. How will people find your Web Site? The first issue to settle before choosing a name for your site is how people are going to find your Web site. If your site is for a well established business or organization, you probably want to use a Web site that includes your off-line business name, such as www.macys.com/ or www.cnn.com. If you are a large organization or Web enterprise that is going to be known by advertising in the media and word of mouth, then you should choose a unique, easy to remember name like yahoo.com or google.com. However, if you are small or medium sized site or business you may be depending on Internet search engines to drive traffic to your site. Choosing the right domain name can save you very large sums in advertising and spell the difference between a successful business or informational Web site and failure. Choosing Top Level Domain Name (Domain Suffix) There are numerous standard suffixes for Internet domains, including the following major ones: ac - An academic research institution Web site. arpa - a Web site of the old Arpanet biz - A new designation for business Web sites. com - Company/commercial. Country specific: us, .nu, .co.uk, - Country-specific domain extensions that localize your site. They may require the owner or person registering the site to be a citizen of the given country. edu - Educational Web sites. eu - European Union info - A relatively new designation for informational Web sites. int - an international Web site. gov - A government Web site name - Can be used for private name Web sites, as for example John.Smith.name net - Often used for a network of sites org - Supposedly for non-profit entities. store - A retail business store. For a Web site that provides information or is the site of a non-profit organization, .info and .org suffixes may be best, especially if you are depending on search engines to bring people to your Web site. Google and others seem to give more weight to sites with these suffixes. If you are a business, it is generally best to use a .com or .biz suffix. Most people who forget the suffix of a Web site will use the .com suffix. Choosing a domain name that people will remember If you are counting on people coming to your Web site by word of mouth and advertising, choose a name that people will remember. It should be brief and special like Yahoo, Google, ebay or Amazon,. and it should be alliterative if possible. Choosing a domain name by keywords Most people get to Web sites by searching the Web using Google, Yahoo and other search engines. The search engines retrieve sites and pages for specific search phrases (called keywords) according to many different criteria. The pages with the top listings in search engines get most of the traffic. Studies show that an overwhelming proportion of searchers pick the first site listed by the search engine, and that almost all Web searchers ignore pages that are not in the first ten sites listed for the phrase they were seeking. The domain name and filename of the page are important criteria for ranking a site in search in search engine results. If you do not have a big advertising budget then you need to invest a lot of though in constructing a domain name that will fit your keywords. For keyword shoes, all other things being equal, Google is going to list shoes.com/shoes.htm above joeblow.com/footwear.htm. Each major page of your site, including the domain name and main page is going to be optimized for a different and unique keyword combination. If your business is shoes, then the domain name should be optimized for "shoes," and main pages might be "Men's Shoes" "Ladies Shoes," "Children's shoes," "walking shoes," "boots" etc. Finding the right keywords - If you are constructing a domain name by keywords, choose keywords that: Describe your product or Web site Are popular in searches Are not listed in too many competing Web sites You can find which keywords are popular through services like Wordtracker or at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ Competition and popular keywords - You can find out how many pages are retrieved by search engines by searching for the keyword. For example, if you type footwear in Google, Google will tell you that it retrieved about 36,800,000 pages for that keyword right now. For shoes, Google retrieves about 216,000,000 pages as of current writing. Competition for "footwear" is less keen than competition for "shoes." Most of those pages will not in fact be listed by Google, and most pages beyond the first thousand that are actually retrieved are not relevant, but the total number of sites gives you an idea of the competition. It is easy to get to the top Google listings for words that have less than 2 million pages, and very difficult for phrases that have more than a 100 million pages in Google. Overture returns about 880,000 searches per month for keyword shoes (multiply by about 8 or 10 to get the number of searches in Google), but only about 64,000 for keyword footwear. Checking for existing names - Each domain name must be unique, so you need to check if the domain name you want has already been registered. You can do so at a number of online services such as www.whois.net - retrieves information about ownership for existing domains, but does not cover all domains. www.domainsearch.com/ - checks which domain name suffixes are free for a given domain name. www.nameboy.com/ - suggests names of non-occupied domains for given key words. www.dynamoo.com/webmaster/choosing_a_domain_name.htm - finds deleted domain names. Plural or Singular? - Some search engines treat "shoe" the same as "shoes" while others do not. Check carefully when selecting the keyword to use, and use the most popular combination. Google seems to return different results for "shoe" and "shoes." What if the domain name is already registered? Chances are, if you choose a popular keyword like "shoes" - the name shoes.com will be taken. Consider alternatives like shoes.biz, or shoes.store, but keep in mind that you must not violate trademark law, and that choosing a domain name similar to an existing one has both advantages and disadvantages in terms of competition. You might consider our-shoes shoes-etc shoes-for-you and similar combinations. Using separators - Is it better to call your site LadiesShoes or Ladies-Shoes? There are different opinions, depending on whether or not experts believe search engines can parse out the keywords in the names. Better not count on the intelligence of search engine spider robots: put a hyphen between each word. Keeping out competition for domain names - If you are really serious about "capturing the market" for a domain name or keyword, then you might want to buy up similar domain names. If you are shoes.com, you may want to buy shoes.net, shoes.biz, shoes.store and shoes.us for example. If you are really paranoid, you may also want to register shoessuck.com and other vicious takeoffs. Buying existing domain names - There are many domain names that are registered, but are not in use, that are for sale. A well known site or business that closed may be interested in selling its name as a business asset. Entrepreneurs have made a business of thinking up names that might be useful to someone and registering them as domain names. You would be surprised at how many domain names are taken up in this way, and offered at premium prices. In most cases, we believe there is no great advantage to be derived from using these name, unless the search word is extremely popular or the brand name is a household word. What not to do - Don't use your personal name as a domain name unless people are likely to be searching for it. If you are Jimmy Carter, Paris Hilton, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce or Alan Dershowitz, it pays to have a Web site in your name. If you are Joseph Nrdspondilowsky, chances are people never heard of you, and your name is not a Web or business asset, unless that is the name of your business. Business names are valuable. Don't use the name of an existing business as a domain name because you may be sued. Amazon.net domain name might be free, but Amazon owns that brand name.