need tips on domain name.....

good ones taken, what's second best and WHY

[Shadows Papa]

Greetings, all
I've had such great luck with the CSS forums and HTML forums, thought I'd try here for a question or 5.
I'm attempting to start a web design company with my son. The name is chosen, but the domain name is not yet. We are going to use "OURLASTNAME DESIGN" as the company name.
I note that "OURLASTNAMEDESIGN.COM"" is free, however, would it be better to use "OURLASTNAME-DESIGN.COM" or the former? And why?

PART TWO:
I can also put my personal pages on the same host and point a domain name to that for the same price (well, additional cost for the domain, of course!)
So, my personal pages are "Bill's old widgets".
I don't have a domain name for that, it's just what I've always called it and it's the title, etc. and it's sitting on a free host right now. Considering moving it and getting a domain name. Of course, the good names are gone, like word1-word2.com, word1word2.com and so on. However, "word1-word2-word3.com" and "word1-word2-word3s.COM" APPEAR to be available. Is one better than the other? I used whois.com and they said the domains were NOT avialable, however, internic.net says "no record found" so I assume that means it's avialable?
Why would one show no, the other show yes?

[edited by: Shadows_Papa at 10:36 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2004]

[havarian]

First thing, it is not a smart thing to post a domain name you are about to buy, they are not avaible now, second if was you i would have secured both version, i personally think the ones without hyphens looks more pro, but google still seems to be very happy for hyphens, so there can be some seo in using hyphens.
hope this was helpfull
ps. its not me who bought your wanted domains
regards havarian

[havarian]

correction the one with hyphens still is still free
havarian

[nativenewyorker]

You can check the availability of .com domains by going directly to the NSI Global Registry [nsiregistry.com] run by Verisign. Whois records are not always accurate. They sometimes show domains as available when the registrant does not have a designated name server.