Domain names are a special and self-sufficient part of the WWW and a lucrative type of business on the Internet. There are a lot of IT companies that sell/buy/estimate domain names. Gone are the days when you could get a unique free domain name from your hosting provider. Now, to buy a good domain, you can visit some of the websites that specialize in selling domain names (for example, Sedo.com) and buy the domain you like (of course, if you’re willing to pay around than $10,000 for it, though, many of the domain names are much more expensive). If it is not, you will have to select the domain name from those that are being sold as vacancies. Here’s what to consider when choosing a domain name:
1. Mastery level.
It is preferable to have a second level domain name. For example, in “http://www.design.com” the prefix “www” means World Wide Web; “design” is the base of the domain (see below how to select it); “com” is the domain zone. The third level domain name is a little different – “http://www.logo.design.com”, the fourth level domain will look like “http://www.pixel.logo.design.com” – the number of mastery components increases depending on your level. Domain components imply words that affiliate the domain name and are separated by periods. The more components there are in a domain name, the higher its level and the less valuable it is. Third level domains and above are often distributed for free. When buying a domain name for your business (or yourself), make sure it’s a second level domain.
2. Domain zone.
There are a huge number of domain zones, each of them has its own meaning, and it is important to choose the most suitable one. There are generic domains and country code domains. Among the Generic Domains are: “com” – commercial project; “red” – network, related to WWW; “org” – organization; “biz” – business project; “info” – information project; “TV” – TV channel; and many others. Country code domains are domains that reveal ownership of a particular domain (website) by a country. Each country (including those that do not yet exist) has its own domain zone. For example, “us” means US site; “of” is German; “co.uk” means Great Britain”,”ru” refers to Russia; “fr” denotes France. So which domain zone would be best suited for your domain? If your Internet project is going to have regional restrictions ( e.g. e-store intended for sale only in the USA) – feel free to choose the domain zone for Your region.
If your project is not tied to a particular country, you will need to choose from the “big five” domain zones: com/net/org/biz/info. These areas are the most valuable and popular on the Internet. “Com” is one of the best, being a universal domain zone. “Net” matches to IT forums and domain name related sites. “Org” is perfectly suited for web directories. Almost all of the best large directories have domains in the “org” zone (dmoz.org; lii.org; vlib.org; botw.org). “Biz”- will be a brilliant solution for e-shops and projects that have to do with online sales. “Info” is suitable for blogs and personal pages. But you don’t have to be consistent with these meanings, they are conventional. However, there are domains that you cannot buy without having a competent authority: “gov” – establishment of the government; “thousand” – military department; “edu” – educational establishment; “int” – international organization; “museum” – museums and so on.
3. Base of the domain name.
The domain name base is the most important domain component. Let’s focus on 2 completely different methods to select a successful domain name base:
1) As the basis for a domain, they use a well-remembered, euphonious word that is not associated with the company.
activity, products or services. Such domains are often referred to by the company name. For example, Google.com and GoDaddy.com are notable short domains that do not have terms that characterize their
activities, such as “search”, “host”, “domain”, “web”. They are based on exclusivity, brevity and memorability.
2) The second method includes that the domain name will consist of a term or terms related to the activity (project) of the company. The terms here serve as keywords for a given site. For example, “http://www.design.com” contains a keyword: design. It is counted to promote the domain in search engines. Some search engines (eg Google.com) take the domain name into account when providing search results. Domains of this type stick in memory without being unique and can be easily found by entering them into a browser line. Such domain names are typical for purely Internet projects.
4. Number of words in a domain.
The more words there are in a domain name, the less valuable it is. And vice versa: the fewer words it contains (ideally one), the more value it represents. For example, “http://www.design.com” has one word: design. This word is polysemantic to the max, because it can denote landscape design, interior design, web design, 3D design, and other notions relevant to design. Such domains are highly appreciated. “http://www.webdesign.com” consists of 2 words: web and design. The value of this domain is a little less than the previous one, because it has a narrower meaning that narrows its scope. “http://www.customwebdesign.com” includes 3 words: custom web design and is therefore even less valuable.
5. Brevity and memorability.
It makes no sense to include more than 3 words in a domain name: its value and ability to stick to the
memory will decrease due to length. The shorter a domain is, the more valuable it is. Short domains are easily remembered, you can easily dictate them over the phone, have them displayed as a
ad on public transport and make sure they get noticed etc.
6. No hyphens or digits.
Hyphens and digits degrade the value of the domain. The exception to the rule are cases where the digits are an integral part of a domain concept. For example, “3D”, “mp3”, “formula 1”.
7. Logical abbreviations.
Sometimes, to insert a multipart expression into a domain, they use abbreviations. But as for
refers to domains, they often do this incorrectly. For example, it is necessary to apply
notion of “full flash websites” to a domain. To do this, they usually abbreviate the expression, leaving only the initial letters of each word. According to the “ffws” received, it is impossible to understand what this domain means. It is not “read” by search engines and is poorly remembered despite its brevity. That is, the given domain has more drawbacks than advantages. How to correctly abbreviate the expression like this? We must define your main idea/concept, which will serve as the keyword of the future site. In our case it will be “full flash”. The rest – “websites” is of minor importance, so we can abbreviate it as “ws”. As a result, we have the domain “http://www.FullFlashWs.com”. This domain has obvious advantages when promoted in search engines on the query “full flash”, reasonably long and not difficult to remember.
8. First letter of the domain.
By itself, the first letter of a domain name is of minor importance. But there are nuances that can have a beneficial effect on the popularization of a future site. The fact is that many of the web directories have the option to sort the websites alphabetically, and some of the directories have this option in disguise. Thus, sites whose domain names begin with the first letters of the alphabet are being visited much more frequently than the rest of a directory. This factor should be taken into account while coming up with a suitable and short domain name.
Finally, if you buy a domain that is not new and has been showing up on the internet for a while, consider
must be delivered to:
-Age of the domain name.
-History of the domain, its scope in the past.
-Make sure this domain does not have punitive search engine penalties and that your email is not recognized as spam.
-Make sure other companies/people don’t make claims on this domain.
-PR and Alexa statistics of this domain.
