Help choosing a new domain name.

[Tomness]

After 2 years my domain name is soon to expire, however - I want something more catchy and less as long. Are there any tips people have for choosing a good domain name that will pull in traffic, and be easier to remember.

[cyberair]

First of all, is your current domain being used for your website? If so, all of the effort you have put into getting world wide recognition and awareness of your site could be lost.

There could be links to your site, reviews, visitors who remember the name. If this is the case, letting your domain expire could be a huge mistake. A better solution could be, renewing your domain, and registering a new desired domain. In that case, you can set a forwarding to your new address.

What kind of domains are desired? For most cases, a short and memorable .com. For some cases, like local presence, you might want to register the local extension.

The other way to go is the 'SEO' way, which is to get keyword-keyword.tld. This way might be favorable if you wish to get easier Search Engine traffic.

[dutch_dude]

Make it short.

For a small site a domain consisting of a few keywords can work well.

A larger authority site will usually do better on a branded domain.

Don't do hyphens. My main site is hyphenated and I regret it :( Visitors have trouble spelling them out to friends or typing them. Some webmasters even think they rank lower.

[rfgdxm1]

>Don't do hyphens. My main site is hyphenated and I regret it Visitors have trouble spelling them out to friends or typing them. Some webmasters even think they rank lower.

NO! Register BOTH versions, and redirect one to the other. Otherwise, if you are bluewidgets.com, a competitor or such can register blue-widgets.com and steal away taffic from those who type in the domain name with a hyphen. Domain names are less than $10 a year.

As for ranking, for SEO purposes hyphens tend to be best.

[Tomness]

I don't intend to use hyphens, I would idealy like a one word domain, it has 4 letters... ****.com - It would be easily remembered.

I had an idea of renewing my current url, and buying the dot com, then transfering all the data to the new domain. Renaming the site in appearence and text.

Then for anyone who visits the new domain it'll be normal, and for anyone who vists the old one, they will get redirected and it will soon register with them what's happened.

A good example of this is the well known profile site now known as '<snip>'

It was '<snip>', but they changed their name to pull in more traffic and used the old domain to redirect.

[edited by: engine at 1:32 am (utc) on June 23, 2005]
[edit reason] Specifics TOS [/edit]