Tips on Picking Domain Names

Before you register www.thefirstideathatcameintoyourmind.com, I’m going to let you in a little secret of how search engines work. One of the ways search engine work is they look at domain names for searched keywords, and present sites as result.

For example: when you do a search for “business print automation“, Google shows “www.businessprintautomation.com” as number one.

A good domain name must be as short as possible, easy to say, easy to remember and easy to spell.

.com is preferred unless you’re a nonprofit or educational organization.

Shorter is good, but easy and memorable is better. Here’s a list of badly named domains to give you an idea how not to name yours:

expertsexchange.com (a database for agencies to the rich and famous)
whorepresents.com (a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views)
penisland.net (buy a pen at Pen Island)
therapistfinder.com (need a therapist?)
molestationnursery.com (Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales)
powergenitalia.com (on-line with Power-Gen)
cummingfirst.com (The First Cumming Methodist Church)
gotahoe.com (the website of Lake Tahoe)

Useful Tips: Every registered domain name has one to four contact names. To save everybody’s time, if you have someone else manage and run the site, list them as the Technical Contact.