Choosing the domain name for your site or Web log is an important part of Search Engine Optimization, because Search
Engines and users try to use the domain name, and the names of files in your site to figure out what it is about. If you
are a huge company like IBM or Microsoft, that has invested a lot in advertising, then of course you are going to use
your company name as the domain name - a no-brainer. But if you are Jim and Jack's Widget company, calling your Web site
domain "Jim-and-Jack" might not be a good idea. People searching for Widgets on the Internet won't find you.
Regrettably, if you try to use your product or a word related to your product in the domain name, you will find that all
the "good" domain names are taken - either they are already in use by actual Web sites or they have been bought up and
parked by greedy speculators. If someone wants a huge sum for a domain name, it probably is not worth it unless the site
has built a reputation and a following and you are going to buy the whole Web site with the content.
Domain names should be brief, because shorter URLs seem to get better search engine ranking for a key word than
longer ones. You can get around the "all the good names are chosen" problem to some extent with creativity - If SEO.com
and SEO.biz are taken, then maybe USA-SEO is not taken or maybe Best-SEO is not taken. If widgets.com is taken then maybe
all-widgets.com is free.
Domain name suffixes - nobody seems to really know if it is important to have a .com domain name rather than
.org or .biz or .info. Google supposedly ranks .org higher than .com. Likewise, there is supposed to be an advantage to
buying a domain name for 5 years rather than registering it yearly.
Notice: Copyright
All materials are copyright 2008 by Ami Isseroff. All rights reserved. These pages may not be reproduced in any
form in electronic or printed media without express written permission from the author.
