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Author:
Clare Lawrence

Tips on Domain Name Choice

By Clare Lawrence 3rd November 2003 Clare is the CEO of Discount Domains Ltd a leading UK Domain name registration service.

Before buying your domain name, give some thought to the followng:-

1) If possible use your sites name as the basis of your domain name e.g www.discountdomainsuk.com for Discount Domains UK. This might seem common sense but not every site follows the convention. If you use your name in your URL it will be much easier for your customers to find you.

2) Generic names – if you can register a generic domain such as toys.com that’s great, but most of these have already gone. Also getting ranked in the search engines is likely to be harder. Selected a domain closer to your market segment will cut down the competition. E.g toyplanes.com

3) Hyphenated Names – Its easy to forget the hyphen! Which is the problem, particularly if your customer remembers your name but not your URL. Though on a positive note hyphenated names are less likely to be registered already.

4) If the .com or .co.uk extension is not available then consider the alternative TLD ( Top level domain types) such as .net or .biz. If your domain name has already been registered then approach the owner and ask if they’ll sell. They may accept a £100. If you ask, they can only say no.

5) Plurals. Very often a domain name will be free in the plural but not in the singular form. It’s a personal choice, but if your prefered choice of domain name is not available you might be stuck.

6) Short or Long domains – A short domain name is more memorable, but less likely to be available. A longer domain is harder to remember, but can contain more keywords which is important as some of the search engines, use keywords in a domain name as part of the search algorithm.

7) Which Top Level Domain Type - .com, .co.uk , .net etc This is a question I am often asked. There is no evidence that any domain name type is given preference by the search engines. However some search engines such as Google, have local searches e.g www.google.co.uk which do select local content. Customer often get re-assurance from seeing a local TLD as they know they are dealing with a local company etc. You can, of course, register all of them!

8) Variations – If your prefered domain name is not available then its always worth trying a prefix my e.g mydomains.com or suffix e.g domains4U.com etc

About the Author
Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to http://www.discountdomainsuk.com Clare can also be contacted on clare@discountdomainsuk.com.

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Domain Names... How To Get A Good Domain Name Do you want to get a domain name? If so, you should first know some of the recommended tips for you to get a domain name that is really good. So here they are. One of the common queries with regards to the process of getting a domain name is “How do I get a domain name?” So to answer such query, it is important that you know the steps on how you decide on a domain name. Keep the Domain Name as Short as Possible For that matter, you should remember that a good domain name is short. This means that the maximum allowed size for you to get a domain name is 63 characters. However, it is advisable that you keep the name as short as possible. Why? This is for the main reason that short domain names are easier to type and remember than the kilometric one. Avoid Using Special Characters For you to get a domain name that is good, you should also know that domain names with special characters such as hyphens and underbars are harder to describe to the customers over the phone. It is perhaps for the reason that most of the visitors are not used to them either and there are instances that you may accidentally send customers to your competitors of they have the same names without special characters. Avoid Initials Aside from such consideration, here comes another consideration which holds that when you get a domain name, you should use your company name or a description of your product rather than your company initials. For example, one would instantly what a site named “NeverPayIncomeTaxAgain” is about than using the acronym “NPITA”. Understand the Possibilities for Errors In cases when you get a domain name and entered it into the browser but got an error message, you should remember that there are some possibilities for such error message....