Choosing a domain name: Your difficult
questions answered! What domain name should you choose for your business? Is a .com still important? Should you pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a .com, or just register a .biz or other extension? Are Google search engine ranks affected by whether you have a .com or not?
In this post, I’ll answer these questions and more, and make some recommendations to help you choose the right domain name. Some of my suggestions may be controversial!
Short and Catchy, or Longer?
There are basically two types of domain names: short and catchy or long and keyword-filled. (I define “short” as anything with fewer than 8 characters before the dot.) Which type of domain name you use depends on how you plan to attract visitors to your site. If you plan to mostly attract people by word of mouth, use something short and catchy.
I tend to build sites that get most of their traffic from Google. In that case, a keyword-filled domain is preferable. What do I mean by that? Let’s say you own Snazzy Sandwiches in Saskatoon. You’d probably lean toward snazzysandwiches.com or snazzysandwiches.ca (since Saskatoon is in Saskatchewan, Canada.)
But you may also want to consider buying a keyword-driven domain name. In this case, more people are probably searching for “sandwiches in Saskatoon” or “sandwiches Saskatoon” than your business name. Unless you are the only sandwich shop in town, one of the best ways to capture this traffic is to also pick up the keyword-driven name–in this case, sandwichessaskatoon.com or .ca.
The key here is to find out exactly what people are searching for in Google and other search engines, and picking up the “exact match” keyword domain name. That means no “the”, “a”, hyphens, or any other extraneous words. So, if people are typing in sandwiches Saskatoon, you want sandwichessaskatoon as the first part of your domain name.
How Do You Find Out What People Are Typing Into Google?
I’m a big fan of using the free Google Keyword Tool to figure out domain names. Find a keyword that is searched between 10,000 and 50,000 times per month, and see if the exact match domain name is available.
Every once in a while, you’ll hit a home run. I had a client once who did marketing for a certain type of business. He paid me for consulting time to figure out how to get more business from his website.
I ran the Google keyword tool for him and found out that business owners were actually typing in the type of the business followed by “marketing” about 800 times a month! Better yet, the exact match .com domain name was available! With some savvy tricks, I helped him conquer 2 of the top 3 slots in Google for those keywords. It added 5 figures a year to the bottom line of his business…and took about three hours of work.
What if the .Com Isn’t Available?
But more often, the exact match .com is not available. It’s either in use or for sale for hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Let’s say you’re setting up a site to sell home remedies. You hit up the Google keyword tool and see that “home remedies for acne” is searched 40,500 times a month. (This is true, by the way.) That’s a huge avalanche of traffic if you get ranked #1 for that keyword, and domain names with the keyword in them naturally rank higher than domain names without.
But all the domains are taken. The .com, .net, and .org are all parked–meaning they don’t have any real content on them, and may be for sale. You know the owners will probably want hundreds of dollars for them. The .biz looks like a scam site.
So what do you do? This is a pretty common quandary. Do you go for one of the weird extensions like .cc or .tv, or try to buy one of the more common domains like .com or .net? Or do you just start over from scratch?
First, let’s talk about what all those weird extensions are. Any two-letter extension, like .cc, .ws, and .tv, are actually country codes. Some countries, like Tuvalu, a tiny island nation of just 12,000 people, got extraordinarily lucky in the “domain name lottery”. Tuvalu licensed the .tv extension to Verisign, a top domain name registrar, for “not less than $1 million per quarter.” Wow! (Here’s the entire list of country codes.)
I tread very carefully with these two-letter extensions. Except for ones that have been widely adopted, like .tv and .us, I tend to avoid them. I also tend to avoid .org, unless you just want to set up a blog on it and you’re not selling anything, because .org is, in many people’s minds, still associated with its original purpose of serving non-profit organizations.
In order, I prefer: .com; .net; .biz; .us. Since none of those are available, if you were my client, I would advise you to go back to Google at this point, and search for similar keywords. Sure enough, a similar keyword, acne home remedy, with 27,100 searches per month, has the .biz available, and in this case, I’d advise you to buy that.
But Don’t You Need a .Com?
There’s a myth floating around that you need a .com to rank better in Google. That’s a complete myth, I assure you. For Google, it’s more important to have proper keywords in your domain name than to have the .com.
The reason to get a .com is because people tend to assume that your site is the .com. So, if you don’t have the .com and someone else does, that other site will pick up some traffic that would otherwise go to your site.
If the .com is available for registration, go ahead and get it. I recently found a keyword that had 27,100 searches per month, and the .com was available. I immediately snagged it and plan to use it as an advertising-driven niche site. But more commonly, you’ll find the .com is for sale for a few hundred dollars.
In this case, I recommend that you use an alternative extension, set up your website, and then reinvest your profits. That’s what I did with Blog Set Up. I used the Google keyword tool to figure out which domain I wanted, and then bought the .us. The site was profitable immediately, and I reinvested the profits back in to buying the .com version of the domain name. The acquisition closed this week, so blogsetup.us is now blogsetup.com!
In conclusion, I only recommend buying an expensive domain name if you’ve already launched your business and are making money. It’s perfectly acceptable to start your business on a .biz or .us, especially if you’re getting most of your traffic via Google. Then buy the .com with your first profits. If your business isn’t profitable, then, you’re not out hundreds or thousands of dollars with the .com. But if your business is profitable, I recommend snagging the .com as soon as you can afford it.
Do you have thoughts or suggestions on choosing a domain name? Let me hear them in the comments!
Recommended Reading:
- Namecheap. I recommend Namecheap as a good domain name registrar. Never use Go Daddy to register domains.
- Go Daddy. The link here is to a site called nodaddy.com, which was set up by a friend of mine after Go Daddy screwed up his entire business by shutting his domain name down for days. I know another person this happened to, as well. Never use Go Daddy for anything–not hosting, not domain name registration, anything. Again, I recommend NameCheap (above).
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22. July 2010 at 6:41 am
I have a simple setup of BOTH short and catchy and domain name! Basically people I hand cards to, or talk to in the street can remember my catchy name better than a string of keywords. But like you said, google likes keywords.
I created a jpg nav menu, just a greeting card really, a front page, for my catchy domain. People go to it and are presented with the same logos and formats that they see on both sites, but all they can do at this front page is click on one of several links. Each link takes them to a corresponding page on the keyword domain site. This way all the content and keywords are on the keyword driven site, and i can tell you it works MAGIC and I’m at the top of google for my keywords. And I’m a VERY small business and I’m outperforming everyone in my area on the web.
The key thing to remember in this scenario though is that the front page catchy site can’t be a redirection script. Google doesn’t like that and can see right through it. If however you build a small page and show the guests a little bit of clickable love (you don’t want to deter your potential customers!), then google sees it as just another web site. It happens to link to pages all over your other, completely independent, site but that’s no big deal.
22. July 2010 at 9:51 am
Andy, great approach. For anyone who’s curious as to what he’s talking about, you can click on his name above and see his site. I really like this idea.
-Erica
31. July 2010 at 10:51 am
Is it worthwhile to purchase multiple name extensions for a website where you are claiming ownership of a brand name (TM)? For example, in addition to .com I also own .net, .org and a couple others. Is this necessary? After reading this article (and also the info about GO Daddy), I am thinking I will be much better getting a generic key word driven domain and dropping the other extension of my brand name .com
Feedback on this? Loving the google keyword tool!
31. July 2010 at 10:53 am
I meant to say just to keep my .com name and drop the other extensions I currently own!
22. July 2010 at 7:25 am
Hey Erica,
I agree about the GoDaddy stuff. Haven’t been with them for several years, but when I was…they were a bunch of losers on their customer support side. Hated them.
I switched to Namecheap/Hostgator combo.
I like your concept of buying the cheap one…and then switching over to the .com after you are profitable, etc.
Brandon
22. July 2010 at 9:33 am
I use godaddy for all my domains…
22. July 2010 at 9:40 am
I don’t have a personal experience with a keyword domain.
However, I do know that other sites which offer much less or are totally irrelevant rank higher with my keywords because of the domain name. Even with a PR5 site and over 10000 backlinks, 800 pages, I am not able to get ahead of them.
Thanks Erica for confirming this, I was just in the process of buying some new domains, now I have one more reason to do so.
22. July 2010 at 9:46 am
Great article Erica. This article is great for establishing the mindset “always be looking for opportunities.” Very inspirational.
I’m shocked to hear about Go Daddy’s horrible service. I use them for both of my domains and to host my main blog. I’m wondering how simple it is to switch hosting from Go Daddy to Host Gator and then switch the domains to NameCheap? Anyone have any thoughts?
22. July 2010 at 9:50 am
Hi Jon,
It’s pretty easy. If you want to sign up for HostGator, you can do so through my Blog Set Up site. I’ve referred a whole lot of people to HostGator and they’ve been great.
Moving domains is pretty easy. You get a “transfer key” from GoDaddy and then set up an account at Namecheap and transfer them in. The process usually takes a few days, but on your part it’s pretty straightforward.
-Erica
22. July 2010 at 10:06 am
Thanks for the quick reply Erica. Does Blog Set Up assist in transferring a currently existing blog over to Host Gator assuming the database and backup files are provided?
22. July 2010 at 10:30 am
Hi Jon,
No, but HostGator will do that for you if you file a support ticket with them. If you don’t need a new blog, you can sign up for HostGator here: http://erica.biz/go/hostgator Thanks!
-Erica
22. July 2010 at 10:31 am
Hi Erica,
Nice advice, especially about “upgrading” your domain registrations:) I have a few catchy names but have mainly focused on registering keywords people naturally search for.
Monte Cahn from Moniker, in a talk given at Affiliate Summit awhile back, said a lot of people type search terms into the URL bar instead of the search box.
So since most people type in the .com version, they are automatically taken there no matter what the true rank is.
I created a site for my biology mentor to promote his new book. Searching for his name revealed paid advertising but “hisname”.com was available.
Using the strategy I outlined above, I was able to rank him #1 on Google, ahead of Amazon.com and his own publisher: Princeton Press within 3 hours, and then through natural link and content strategies keep him there.
22. July 2010 at 10:48 am
Hi Erica, great article. What about keyword with e.g. the, store, my in the front or in the end of the domain name ?
22. July 2010 at 2:03 pm
No, you want an exact match keyword if possible (no extraneous words.) If the exact match isn’t available, that’s when I typically recommend a different extension instead of adding words on to get the .com.
-Erica
22. July 2010 at 11:07 am
Erica:
I agree with all you rassesments about the domain extenstions, except I think it is okay to get a .org extension.
For me when researching for my minisites I definitely go for the long keyword domain name. Then for my blog I went with MarketingWithRick.com so as to develop a brand.
I currently use GoDaddy and have never had any issues but I have read alot about NameCheap lately so I may give them a try.
22. July 2010 at 12:42 pm
Maybe my comment was lost.
I use GoDaddy, and haven’t had any issue. Why Google uses GoDaddy for Google sites?
Best regards
22. July 2010 at 2:02 pm
Not sure where you heard that Google uses Go Daddy. Google is its own registrar.
Go Daddy does pay Google to be represented as a recommended domain name registrar for Google Apps, as does eNom.
-Erica
23. July 2010 at 6:08 pm
Google is not its own registar: Read at the bottom of http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hlrm=es&answer=53929 “Note: Google doesn’t register or host domain names. We’ve partnered with a few companies that offer these services because it’s a lot easier to set up a Google Apps account this way…”
Between dec 2009 and jan 2010 i acquired 4 domains for google apps and the registar was godaddy. Now they recommend eNom as they did in january with godaddy. Maybe they had some issue to change their recommendation. Google is not clear in that sense.
22. July 2010 at 1:04 pm
Wow, you get domains w/ 27k searches for just a few hundred dollars?
I have paid $5k for a site that only gets 5k searches
and $4k for a site that gets 9k searches. Btw, I already own profitable sites in the niche of these domains, so it was definitely worth it for us.
if you find any more sites that get in the tens of 1,000s of searches, for less than $1k, let me know! Where do you find them?
22. July 2010 at 1:08 pm
Erica,
I see what you are doing, you are searching the terms as broad, and not exact. To see how many searches for those exact terms, you have to put the keywords in brackets. For example:
home remedies for acne >>> gets 27,100 searches
[home remedies for acne] >>> gets 14,800 searches
this is because the first one is a ‘broad’ term, meaning things like ‘free home remedies for acne’ would be included in that number.
22. July 2010 at 2:00 pm
Yep, true, though I find that once you rank well for the suggested term, the rankings tend to “trickle down” to the other keywords, too. I will make sure to note this in future posts.
-Erica
22. July 2010 at 2:13 pm
Hey Erica-
Just started receiving your emails a month or so ago- thanks.
Is there a reason to stick between 10000-50000 searches a month? Is there a reason to not go for higher search terms if the domain is available?
PS- I am in San Diego, too.
23. July 2010 at 10:33 am
Higher=more competition; it’ll be harder to rank for those. But not impossible…it just takes a concerted effort. I prefer the “easy wins”.
-Erica
22. July 2010 at 3:05 pm
What an informative post! The more you learn, the less you know. I feel like you just scraped the surface on this topic.
I personally like the option of having a catchy domain name so your site can be shared verbally, but I also understand the benefits of lengthy domain names (I’m on to you Ramit!).
@Andy I like your idea of using a landing page, but feel you should include the phrase “Recently moved to http://www.yourkeyworddrivendomainpage.com.” Clicking a link and being directed to another domain needs a forewarning or people will think they’ve been spammed.
@Erica What if I found a keyword driven domain but it requires dashes (www.super-cool-website.com). Will this hinder my google ranking?
Also, when I am ready to purchase a registered domain name, which service should I use. Every service I have found requires a retainer and does not guarantee anything. I would like a ballpark figure before I commit any cash to this pursuit.
Thanks!
-Ayman A.
23. July 2010 at 10:33 am
Hyphens are possibly the most annoying invention ever when it comes to domain names. Don’t use them. Get a different extension instead.
I use Sedo to acquire already-registered domain names.
-Erica
25. July 2010 at 12:08 pm
Is there a reason you don’t like hyphenated names other than annoyance?
If they work for google rankings, I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to use them to implement Andy’s idea.
22. July 2010 at 7:32 pm
2nd question- I don’t want to be lame, but I am going to ask this question anyway.
Say you get lucky and the domain is available for “loseweightfast.com”. You buy it and set up your blog or website- put up some content..
Is this this just a site that Google is likely to pick up because 100000+ people are searching the exact phrase a month or do you need to get your rear in gear to get some backlinks to your site, ect.. before Google will rank it anywhere near the top?
23. July 2010 at 10:32 am
Backlinks are important, too; you’ll just have to build less of them with the keyword in the domain name.
22. July 2010 at 9:36 pm
Nice, true! I have always preferred a Dot Com name, so I will have a list of catchy and sometimes (ir)relevant businesses, depending on the purpose of the business.
I think purpose is key.
An example is my private rehabilitation business in which I called it “Urbanrehab”, which has the keyword rehab that I wanted, for corporate branding and google purposes.
However, my own personal site is called nigelchua.com, for personal branding.
You know, Erica, I find it sometimes hard to decide to create/choose a site name as we have to balance between people and google’s indexing, but in the end,
I opted to name sites for people.
I think being indexed highly is great for google, but ultimately it’s for people that we make businesses for, so i’d cater it for people.
People first, google second.
Of course I’m referring that we can also do a combination of “for people AND for google” =)
22. July 2010 at 9:38 pm
Oh ya, for the Urbanrehab, I couldn’t get the Urbanrehab.com, so I had to make do with urban-rehab.org, to which having a .org was even more beneficial than I thought.
I got it because all the .com, .biz, all were taken save for .org – and it’s been good! People take us more seriously seemingly because we’re a .org!
23. July 2010 at 2:51 am
Wish this was posted a week ago. I just bought hosting+domain from GoDaddy. And to think I was considering going with HostGator through your Blog Set Up, Erica! Went with the GoDaddy offer because the yearly hosting+domain cost was much cheaper than HostGator.
BTW, just found that a domain cannot be transferred to Namecheap if it is less than 60 days old.
23. July 2010 at 10:31 am
Yep, it’s true with all registrar transfers. I mark on my calendar when the 60 days is up so I know when to transfer.
23. July 2010 at 6:24 am
Thanks for reply Erica,
Let say that you keyworddomain is taken for all the .com .org .biz. What about the new .co ? Or should you just try to find another theme keyword ?
23. July 2010 at 10:31 am
Try to find another keyword. In general, I don’t recommend the two-letter extensions.
23. July 2010 at 10:05 am
Why are names and websites being lined out? I am seeing this on some other blogs and forums. Makes me think there is something wrong with the posts.
23. July 2010 at 10:22 am
I don’t see that on my end
23. July 2010 at 10:31 am
Hi Gordon,
Check your computer for spyware/malware.
-Erica
23. July 2010 at 1:48 pm
I am not trying to ge funny or smart,I wondered why you used your first name only for your site? Was it due to your business expertise?
23. July 2010 at 3:17 pm
Hi Erica,
.
I really enjoy reading your blog posts ,However, i have few comments,first,yes its good to have .com domain for better ranking in search engines but big thanks to google internationalized versions,like google.(country code).im from palestine which its extension is .ps and we have google.ps ,so google automatically linked my site jobs.ps to google.ps ,im ranked #1 in google.ps for most keywords related to vacancies and jobs (of course arabic keywords) and ranked #2,3 in google.com version for general keywords (arabic)but for keywords related to vacancies in palestine im ranked #1 in google.com .
what i wanna say thats its not always important to have .com as long google created localized search engines,and if i followed your recommendation to get .com extension from .ps profit i think i need tens of years to be able to buy jobs.com
second,i prefer one word domains even if its not .com .i used to get premium .ps domains and build a business a round it and then publish it to the globe and really works well with me
Thanks to your ideas and inspiration ,im in my way to have a successful story like yours
KR,
Amjad
23. July 2010 at 4:17 pm
I forgot to add after reading your post how horrible I have been in choosing domain names. My last two domains are Rub My Belly Too about dogs and my marketing site Over 55 Affiliate Marketer which I haven’t started yet. Now I am wonderig if I should bother. It only cost me a total of $35 . How dumb do I feel? (still smilling but not laughing)
24. July 2010 at 10:01 am
Hi Erica, thanks for the tips.
Just a question: is adding more words within the domain name counterproductive?
e.g. fatlossgurushapeleanstrong.com
Thanks
24. July 2010 at 5:36 pm
Great TLD advice Erica. While .tv and .cc and now .co are popular, they are country codes, and Google/Bing will treat sites using such domains as belonging to that country. .biz and .info are universal, and with time will become more accepted and understood by the public. I have been buying up .biz and .us, they are substantially cheaper than .com and great for the long term.
25. July 2010 at 7:01 am
I use both GoDaddy and Namecheap. No major problems with either of them. I think you were too harsh with your GoDaddy assessment. Every name server has some issues.
25. July 2010 at 11:37 am
But no other company will willfully pull your domain name if someone posts content on it and then another company files a DMCA takedown. Go Daddy will. It almost put another web hosting company owner–a friend of mine–out of business. I will never trust Go Daddy.
-Erica
25. July 2010 at 7:57 am
Erica,
Great Advice in general but I don’t agree with your suggestion about .biz domains.
I have yet to see a well ranked site which has .biz domain, even with long tail keywords.
Maybe you know something I don’t know..:-). Any example you can give will be helpful.
Thanks.
25. July 2010 at 11:36 am
Hi Gary,
Don’t know how you found erica.biz, but a significant amount of my traffic comes from Google. 10,000+ visitors per month, to be precise.
My hosting company was also on a .biz (one of the very first .biz to ever be registered!) and I was quite successful with SEO on that as well.
-Erica
25. July 2010 at 12:43 pm
This is a very timely article as I am in the process of purchasing an great keyword domain. My question is, what if I put the word “the” in front of the domain? Basically, the actual key words (domain) are all taken but the .biz, but if I put the word “the” in front of it, I can get the .net.
Another question. If I get the .biz and later purchase the .com, won’t that mess up Google if I switch everything to the .com?
Thanks for the answers!
26. July 2010 at 11:39 am
Hi Erica, I was disturbed to hear that about Go Daddy. I don’t have anything with them except my SSL certificate. Do you think that will be a problem? Most of their competitors charge hundreds of dollars for no clear reason.
26. July 2010 at 8:57 pm
Hi Erica – Thanks for this. I suck at choosing domain names. I used to have loads of really bad ones that I never got round to using, so I stopped renewing them.
I’m trying to choose a catchy domain but every idea I come up with is ridiculously expensive, or has some spammy site on it. I think I might try your idea of getting a different extension, then buying the .com when I’ve made some cash from it.
28. July 2010 at 4:00 am
I am using siteground hosting for my site. So far it is doing great. While choosing domain names for my sites, usually i will just brainstorming, keep one simple word, or a combination of two words, then just type them into the search domain field. Usually these domain hosting service have an automatic suggestion on which domain has been taken, which are still available and the available domain type such as .com, .info, .biz etc. Anyway, thanks for this post. Im a fan of u Erica.
28. July 2010 at 11:27 am
I found that I was able to get a site on the front page of Google just by purchasing the domain name and setting up a landing page. It really does pay to get the right URL.
28. July 2010 at 9:40 pm
Erica:
Great information!
On the topic of the extension, do you think ANY extension will work so long as the exact search phrase is the domain name? For example, a .me domain if .com, .net, .biz, .us, etc. are unavailable.
Thoughts?
2. August 2010 at 4:01 pm
Erica
Great post – as someone who is relaunching our product and website for primetime, your coverage was very helpful. We are moving to a keyword driven name in 90 days that leverages our ability to easily order inventory while doing it right.
3. August 2010 at 12:06 am
FYI NY plumber .net has a higher ranking thatn NY plumber .com the the .com weight on the page rank is highly over rated….
3. August 2010 at 2:15 pm
Hi Erica,
Thanks for the info. I found you via google. I was searching for what people thought about the .biz extension and this post came up. It answered all my questions perfectly and gave me the clarification I was looking for.
Have a great day!
Mavis
31. August 2010 at 5:53 am
Erica,
I’ve heard tons of people bitch about GoDaddy, but you’re the first one who gave a clear alternative. As of today, I’m switching to Namecheap. Like Malcolm Gladwell says, give me a map to the campus hospital.
I have some domains already with GoDaddy, I wonder if I can switch them to Namecheap without any danger of getting scooped or danger of a lapse in service? I’ll look into that.
Thanks again!