Choosing the right domain name

triumph · second grade Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 94

I know a domain name can play a crucial role in the success of a website. Sometimes a bad name can still work well, but a good name will always help in the long run.

What are some key things to look for when deciding on a domain name to use for your website? Do you have anything you particular look for or try to avoid when selecting a name?

guitarman · fourth grade Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 728

For me I would always choose two domain name if possible.

One would be for Search engine which would look like: http://keyword-keywords-keword.com

And the other would be the one that would use for printing purpose i.e. shorter name and easy to remember.

Klaas Koopman · Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:45 pm Post subject:

Totally agree with guitarman. Perhaps getting the .net, .com etc also! They will get alot of type'ing traffic once your company/website is more famous! So you don't want to spend those visitors on something else then your site!

triumph · second grade Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 94

I assume you would have the shorter name for the user forward to the search engine name? That is the right way to do it I think due to how serps deal with forwarding?

Intersting thought on the .net etc Klaas. I have never done that because when I started my budget was tight, and I would rather get more unique names then duplicates. Now I need to go back and get some of those though.

guitarman · fourth grade Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 728

Klaas Koopman · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:40 pm Post subject:

Well it's good to have the .net, because if you are starting a business or just a great website, having more domains will add to the total price of which you can sell it for! And if they do not want the .net etc, you can keep it and that means also keep that traffic!

khemer_85 · second grade Joined: 12 Nov 2005 Posts: 60

Good tips Klaas!
This one from me: .info could be a good choice as well after .net. This works especially if the website is more for information or kind of content type of site.

For me, I wouldn't go for .bz , .la , .tk , .tm etc.. Those TLD are only created so that the domain name seller can earn money. nothing else! (IMHO)

Klaas Koopman · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 11:02 pm Post subject:

I totally agree with you khemer, .bz and .la, .tk etc all are worthless, but they are short which means they could work for a forward service, like shorten your websites url to something like abc.tk... that's the only reason it could be used for... that's it!

triumph · second grade Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 94

Does anyone have a resource that lists whom all the different TLD's are associated with? Would be nice to look at... I know a lot of them common ones, but some of the ones here which I have seen before, like .tk and others I am not fully clear on.

Klaas Koopman · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject:

well I don't have the list but .tk is one that you can freely use. It's from some island or something who doesn't sell them but uses them for forwarding!