Domain Name Availability:  What is in a Domain Name

The selection of you domain names are very important and will have a direct impact on the performance of your site and your e-business.  Here are a few points that you will want to consider when selecting a domain name.

• Number of characters:

  • Very short domain names (1 to 10 characters) are very useful as domain names for directing your companies business.  One common practice is to use the first character from each word in the companies name.   Try adding "inc" to these characters if your company is incorporated. 

  • Medium domain names (7 to 23 characters) usually make good domain names for name retention, business cards, TV/Radio ads, print media, and various signs.  Your companies name often works well here.  There less and less good domain names in this range left.  Once again, try adding "inc" to these characters if your company is incorporated. 

  • Long domain names (20 to 63 characters) usually make good domain names for the search engines.  A long domain name rich in key words will help you get your business into the top of each search engine.

• Word Selection:

  • Company Name:  Always a good way to go if it is available. 

  • Key Words:  Careful selection of key words in a domain name will help your business in the search engine war.  

• Dashes or underscores:

  • Dashes:  It is not uncommon to use a dash to separate two words in your company name in order to get the domain name that you want.  Plus, there are some who think that the use of dashes to separate words add to the ability to search engines to recognize some words.

  • Underscores:  The items discussed for the use of a dash apply to underscores as well.  There is one problem when deciding to use an underscore:  they sometime get covered up when your domain name is used in a hyper link.  There are also quite a few users out there in i-Land that do not have a clue that underscores exist.