Choosing your domain name for your business is a very important decision, and it is the first step towards your online precense. Once you start to advertise your domain name, your customers will bookmark it. You can and should use the same domain name for both your web site AND your work email. Domain-based email addresses are one of the reasons why most people first register their domain names. Even before you are ready to build a web site, you can begin to use your domain name for email right away. This makes you look way more professional than using the free email address that is given to you by your Internet access provider. Also, if you change ISPs, your will still be able to use your own domain-based email addresses, no matter who your ISP is.
Searching for Available Domain Names
There are many places on the web where you can search domain names to see what is available, and who owns the domain names that are already taken. A domain name search is called a “whois lookup”. We have a whois lookup form here. You can also find an easy to use lookup at http://www.internic.org.
How to Choose a Domain Name
As long as the web has been around, one of the most difficult and personal decisions a company must make is choosing their Internet domain name. Good, unique domain names are hard to find sometimes, especially those that end in “.comâ€. You may find that the “nameofyourcompany.com” is already taken by someone else, and this can be a stressful realization.
What to do when the domain name you want is already taken
- Explore buying it from a squatter – This isn’t the most attractive option, but if you really have your heart set on a domain name that is already taken, then you might be able to purchase it from the current owner. If the domain name you want is taken, then look to see if there is a web site on it. Many individuals still to this day speculate on domain names (known as squatters), and they purchase them hoping to make a profit. When there is no web site on a domain name, or when there is a simple under construction page on the site, then it may be for sale. When you do the whois on the domain name, look to see who owns it, and how they list their contact information. Sometimes it is obvious that the domain name was registered by a speculator because the name of the company that owns the domain name is listed as something like “Domain For Sale”. Beware that no two domain name squatters are the same. Some will ask for $200 for a domain name and others will want $20,000 or more. If the domain name squatter is unreasonable, then move on and don’t waste your time. The average amount I have seen them ask for is about $2000. It is a supply and demand situation, so only you can decide what you are willing to pay for a domain name. Be very careful how you purchase the domain and get something in writing or use an escrow service. There are many such services you can find using a search engine.
- Wait for the domain you want to expire – A lot of people assume that they can just wait for a domain name to expire, then scoop it up on the expiration date. After all, you can see the expiration date when you do a whois search. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. When a domain name expires, it isn’t immediately available to be purchased. Instead, it goes into a sort of “hold†status for about 45 days so that the original owner can reclaim it. Waiting for a domain name to expire is almost NEVER a good idea, especially when they are automatically being re-registered.
- Registrar Warning: Domain registrars use this hold status as an opportunity to charge domain owners a re-registration penalty fee once the original expiration date passes. How nice of them. Some registrars also prevent domain names to be moved to other registrars when they are close to their expiration date (even before they expire). Lets say that your domain name is about to expire in 20 days, and you choose to move it to another registrar. Some registrars won’t let you until you pay for ANOTHER year of registration.
- Another Registrar Warning: It is now getting MUCH harder to purchase expired domains because they are being automatically re-registered the MOMENT they are available. Almost ANY web site that has the least little bit of traffic on it is being re-registered by unscrupulous companies that use the domains for “link farmsâ€, “splogsâ€, and they fill them with content from “blog scraper†content or other search links. You have probably seen one of these sites when you accidentally typed a domain name in incorrectly. A link farm is a plain-looking, small, cheesy search engine that is completely automated. Domains couldn’t be automatically re-registered to these companies unless they had inside help from registrars, and this is part of the problem with the domain name registry system today. Why does someone go through all this trouble to re-register domain names and put bogus content on them? Simple: Google and other sites pay people for link traffic. There are many stories in the news about people that do this and make a full-time living off of these junk web sites. It isn’t illegal, but it should be.
Add a hyphen to the name you want – Adding a hyphen is an easy way to find an available alternative to the name you want. Most special characters are not allowed, but hyphens are allowed.
Use an optional TLD – If the .COM suffix (known as a Top Level Domain, or TLD) is not available, many companies also choose to use “.NET” or “.US” or “.ORG” or “.INFO” or “.TV”. There are MANY more TLDs, but these that I have mentioned are the most popular. They sort of all work the same, but most of the different TLDs represent countries (.TV is an example). Some registrars charge a little more for TLDs like “.US”. Obviously, .COM is always the best choice if it is available, because most people are used to seeing them and typing them in.
Avoid .INFO – I personally do not recommend the .INFO TLD because they are used quite a bit by spammers and especially sploggers. This is because they can be purchased in bulk cheaply. Some spam filtering solutions give a stronger weight to these domains.Use your location – Sometimes adding a city or state name or abbreviation can help differentiate you from another company located somewhere else that has the same name as your company.
Trademarked Names and Words – Be careful not to use trademarks in your domain name that do not belong to you. Large law firms now employ special Internet search tools to look for infringements on trademarks that their clients own.
Service Categories – Think about the services that you offer. If your company specializes in a particular area that is specific, that might be a way to find more words to use in your domain name.
Product Names – Like service categories, if you have specific products that you wish to market on your web site, then perhaps they can be part of your domain name.
Adjectives – Think about the types of people that buy from you, and the adjectives that people use to describe the products that you sell. Also consider the advantages of your product or service. An online thesaurus can help.
Slogans (taglines) – A short tagline for you company can make a nice domain name if it is short enough.
Abbreviations and Acronyms – Many domain names that are 4-5 letters are now all taken. Every combination. But if you are one of the lucky ones that has an acronym that is still available, it could be your best domain name. But be careful about difficult acronyms. Sometimes a word is easier to remember than an acronym.
Keep Your Names Short
While it may be tempting to keep adding words to your domain name, the golden rule is to keep them as short as possible. Longer domain names DO NOT help with search engines. Search engines give little or no relevance to the words in your domain. The longer your domain name is, the harder it is for your clients to type it in. Also don’t forget that your domain name is used for branded email as well. This means that everyone who wants to email you will also have to type in your new domain name every time they type your email address.
The domain you want is available! Now what?
You need to register it. The question is, which registrar should you use? Network Solutions, GoDaddy, Enom, Delaware.Net, or who? There are hundreds of domain name registrars, and hundreds of thousands of resellers of these registrars. Delaware.Net is a reseller of TuCows, which is the most ethical and friendly registrar for hosting companies. When you register a domain name with my company, we use TuCows or another quality registrar. You still own your domain name, and resellers like us only make a dollar or two on domain name registrations. There isn’t a lot of profit (if any) in this part of the business. There are companies that I do not recommend, including GoDaddy and Enom. Enom is the provider for Domain Registry of America, which is one of those companies that sends people fake renewal invoices in the mail hoping that people will renew their domain with them accidentally. As long as Enom allows this to go on, I can’t recommend them. GoDaddy is an inexpensive domain registrar because they use (sell) your information, and they WILL target your with advertisements for their hosting services. Obviously, most hosting companies can’t recommend GoDaddy for this reason, but that is the reason why GoDaddy is a couple of dollars cheaper than other registrars (because they make up the loss by selling your information and upselling other services to you). Network Solutions is also a domain name registrar that I do not recommend. Network Solutions has the worst support, and they make it VERY hard for their customers to get information changed. They also make it very painful when you are trying to move your domains away from them to other registrars. Network Solutions is one of those companies that charges penalties when you try to move your domain name away when it is close to its expiration date. Always read the fine print of your registrar’s terms and conditions before you chose them.
Make sure you own your domain name after you pay for it
I know this title looks strange, but it is possible to purchase a domain name and still not be the owner of it. This is very rare today, but I still see this happen from time to time. Always make sure that if someone else is registering your domain name for you, that this information is accurate, and the administration contact information should be someone that will be with the organization for some time, and who is trustworthy.
When a domain name is registered, there are three areas of the registration form for contact information:
- Registrant – this is the organization that owns the domain name. Make sure that this is the legal name of your company.
- Administrative Contact – This is the person that has the authoritative rights to change the domain name information.
- Technical Contact – this contact information is usually that of the hosting company that is hosting the domain.
Again, make sure that this information is accurate ANNUALLY, and always make sure that someone at your company is the administration contact. Don’t let your web designer or hosting company be the admin contact. Also make sure it is your company’s name and address in the registrant section. If this information is not yours, then you can lose ownership of your domain name.
How many domain names should you register?
If you have a few names that you have a hard time deciding on, and you feel in your gut that they are all good choices, then register them all. Domains are inexpensive, after all, so grab a few if you think you will actually use them. Just don’t go hog-wild. I had one client that came to me after he registered 1,500 domain names, back when they were $35 each just a few years ago. That cost him $52,500 retail PER YEAR! He didn’t end up paying full price, but he had received bad advice from someone that told him registering his name a bunch of different ways would help him with search engines. If he had come to me first, I could have saved him a lot of money. He ended up wasting about $80,000 on useless domain names. I myself have about 50 domain names after being in this industry for ten years, and I actually use about half of them. Unless you are a really large company or you have lots of products that each need to be trademarked, then I would keep your domains to five or ten tops.
Reasons for Registering Multiple Domain Names
Sometimes it makes sense to register more than one domain name for your organization. Here are some instances where it makes sense:
* Ad Campaigns – When I see a domain name for a company in an advertisement that has additional information attached to it for tracking purposes, it sometimes turns me off. Sometimes I see that and I only type in the root domain. So if an add in the Wall Street Journal says “visit our web site at www.oursite.com/wsjâ€, I might not type in the “wsj†because I know that is just for tracking. A more clever way to track ad campaigns is to create a domain name around the ad campaign that doesn’t necessarily contain your company’s name. Keep in mind that if you have a good web analytics reporting system at your disposal, it is not necessary to register additional domains, beca
* Mailing List Domains – If you have a successful web site today without using an email mailing list, then consider yourself lucky. An email mailing list that keeps your company’s name fresh in your client’s minds is a very important part of web marketing. The down side of mailing lists is that they can sometimes be mistakenly flagged as spam, even if they are completely opt-in. There are many reasons why this can happen, and I will cover them in another article. To keep your main email safe and not blocked, it makes sense to use a separate domain name for your email campaigns. So if your domain name is someorganization.com, you could have a domain name like someorganziationnews.com to keep your business email from being blocked. Using a mailing list service is also another option that you can use to protect your main domain, but you could use your own email list domain to host an archive of your previous newsletters.
Reasons to NOT Register Multiple Domain Names
- Sub-Domains (hostnames) can sometimes work just as well – When you host your new domain name with a web site hosting company, it is possible to create additional sub-domains, AKA hostnames for free.
- Domains don’t help with search engine placement – Some people assume that their domain name choice will have a big affect on search engine ranking. This is not true. The content and popularity of your web site will have an affect on your search engine positioning, but your domain name will not. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is out of the scope of this article, but I will post more articles on this soon.
How many years should you register your domain names for?
Domain names can now be pre-registered for up to ten years. If your domain name matches the name of your business, or you are sure that you are going to keep your domain name for years to come, then I would recommend registering it for at least three years. This eliminates any chance of forgetting to renew your domain name.
Don’t lose your domain name by accident!
It IS possible to lose your domain name if the company you register it from doesn’t alert you when your domain is close to expiration. One thing that I have seen happen, is that someone will register their domain name for just one year, then they change their email address. This is a MAJOR problem for that person because registrars ONLY try to contact you by email. If you change your email address and you don’t change it on your domain name registrations, then your registrar will not be able to contact you. If one of my customers has their domain name registered with us, and it is getting close to expiration, we actually pick up the phone and try to contact them before they lose it. This is rare but it does happen. Many people assume that their hosting company is liable for their domain name renewals, and this is not the case. You are responsible for your own domain names and their renewals. It is a really good idea to put a reminder on your calendars so that you don’t miss your domain renewal anniversaries.
Good Luck!
The domain name registry system, process, and competitive landscape is getting more complex, just as web sites and email are getting more complicated. I hope that these tips help you to find the perfect domain name for your web site. If you have any questions about this article, or about domain names in general, post them here in my blog.
