Tim Almond

I’m looking for a domain name for a project, and a few rules have struck me about good domain names.

1) Get the .com, as well as the regional one. If the .com doesn’t exist, it’s probably worth moving on.

2) Make it memorable over descriptive. Don’t worry about what it says.  Amazon, eBay, Google and Yahoo do not say "store, auction, search engine, search engine".

3) Avoid ambiguity. Think about how telling someone a domain name could be misinterpreted. A site like treespree.com (a fictional online tree retailer) could be misinterpreted as treesspree.com. Stick with strong words with a single spelling, and keep away from complex, hard-to-spell words. Avoid words that can be misheard.

4) Avoid numbers. Although, long numbers may be better. If you call a site 90210blogging.com, no-one is likely to think it is ninezerotwoonezeroblogging.com.

5) Get it without hyphens. If the non-hyphenated version has gone, move on. If you can, though, getting the hyphenated one may capture people.

6) Remember - domain names are cheap, missing out on one is not.

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Tags: Business //