webqem blog

So you have a new business. Or you just need a new website. Here are some of the issues you should address when choosing your new domain name:

1. Brand vs Keywords

Company XYZ sells widgets. Should they choose xyz.com or widgets.com?
Consensus is to go for the brand first, xyz.com. Next best would be brand plus keywords, for example xyzwidgets.com. And finally the keyword-based option, widgets.com.

The rationale is that you always want to be found for your business name, especially when you gain a high profile. You can always use your keywords in the titles, heading and content and incoming links. You may even have your keywords in your company name, which would be very helpful from an SEO perspective.

2. Which suffix?

Theroetically .com is for commercial business sites, .org is for organisations, .net for networks, .gov for government, and .edu for education. Altogether there are currently 21 top level domains to choose from. If possible, purchase all the relevant ones, to avoid your brand being hijacked. If you own xyz.com, try to get xyz.net. If you are an organisation owning xyz.org, try to purchase xyz.com.

If your target market will only ever be local, go for the .com.au. If you intend to expand globally, go for the .com. Ideally purchase both, and redirect them to the primary domain for your market.
Note that in Australia you need an ABN to purchase a .com.au domain address. To be included in the Australian index of search engines, you should either have a .com.au domain, or host your site in Australia.

On June 26, 2008 the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced that the board had approved a recommendation to expand the range of top level domains. See ICANN domain name announcement.
The final plan should be published early next year, with new names available in the second quarter of 2009. There is already interest in city-based domains, like .paris, or .brandname.
The downside is the potentially large number of extra domains you may now need to purchase, if you intend to safeguard your brand.

3. Multiple domain names

Multiple domain names can be useful for many reasons. Cater for misspelled domain names, or even setup a specific domain name for offline advertising, so that you can measure the success of different forms of advertising. If the CEO is high profile, buy their personal name as well. Even Google registers multiple domains - enter Gooooogle.com and you will get redirected to Google.com. See the multiple domain names apparently registered by Google at Google Domain List.

4. Redirecting domain names

Ideally you should have one primary domain name. E.g. xyz.com. Other domain names, such as widgets.com, xyz.com.au and xyy.com, should be permanently redirected back to the primary domain. Also known as domain forwarding. For Apache-based servers, it is most commonly known as a 301 redirect.

Avoid placing duplicate content, or token keyword-rich content on the other domains, purely for the purpose of sending traffic or generating links to the primary domain. Google views these as search engine spam, attempting to “game” the search engines. See the Google Webmaster Guidelines for more information.

If you have setup your redirects correctly, entering xyy.com will redirect you to xyz.com.

5. More on domain names

Keep it short.
Keep it catchy and memorable.
Avoid trademarked names.
Spell it correctly.

Avoid dashes if you can. A few years ago dashes were beneficial, as they helped search engines find the keywords in your title. People started creating www.the-widget-shop.com/blue-widgets/buy-blue-widgets-online-now.html, which is likely to be treated as spam by search engines these days.
If you listen to radio advertising of websites, it sounds strange reading out website names with dashes in them.

Buy it quickly. Domain names are issued on a ‘first come first served’ basis so it makes sense to get in quickly and register the best possible name for your business.

6. Domain tasting, kiting and front-running

In 2000, ICANN recommended a “grace period”, to allow you purchase a domain name and return it without cost within 5 days, in case you made a mistake, mistyping the domain name.
This led to the growth of domain tasting, where people would buy a domain, test its earning capacity by placing Google and other ads on it, and dump it after 5 days if it proved worthless. Apparently during March 2006 29 million .com names were registered, and 27 million were dropped before the grace period expired. In response, Google announced plans to crack down on profiteering from repeated domain tasting in February this year. And ICANN has a proposal to make part of the registration fee non-refundable, which will make it less popular.
Domain kiting is serial domain tasting, where people repeatedly purchase and dump, purchase and dump, the same domain name, to avoid the purchase cost.
Front-running is where domain registrars would lock a domain into their system after a search for an available domain name had been performed. There were a few US registrars who became famous for this unsavoury practice. Although they defended themselves by saying they were trying to stop domain tasting by other registrars.

Many people found that after searching to see if a domain name was available, when they returned the next day to purchase the domain, it was no longer available, and had been registered by a domain registrar. Domain name searches are logged, and also many registrars automatically contact other registrars to ask whether a domain had been registered but not propagated. This information was then used for domain tasting or front-running. Some people try to avoid having domain name searches logged by searching for only a part of the desired name, and viewing the search list results, and only searching through reputable registrars.

7. Reusing old domain names

You may choose a domain name that has been used before. It may have already been deleted a long time ago, or it may only just be expiring now.
Check the Wayback Machine to see what your domain used to be used for, to ensure you are not accidentally buying an unsavoury site.
Check what sites may still be linking to the domain, by searching for “site:yournewdomain.com” at Yahoo or Google.
If it still exists, check the Google PageRank, to see if it has been banned.
There is a significant online industry in domain names, waiting for popular names to become available, with easily downloaded software to scan for available names so they can take advantage of existing searches. Some sites, such as drophunt.com, let you search by Google PageRank and Alexa Ranking, to give an indication of the domain popularity.

8. Searching for domain names

If all the names that you can think of have been used, you may need help coming up with ideas.
Some sites with search suggestion include:
WhoIS.
If you also want to check the availability of .com.au version of domains, try:
TPP Internet.

9. Buying your domain name

When you’ve worked out which domains you would like to purchase, webqem can help you purchase your domain name, as an authorised domain name reseller.