Moving to a new domain

[ic3cold]

After years with my current domain I am forced to create a brand new one. I was thinking going the way of a shorter name, and then build the brand from there, but in your experience what's better these days? Select a long name matching exactly what you do or a short name meaningless but easier to remember?

As most good names have already been taken I am not quite sure what path I should follow.

Thanks,

[buckworks]

what's better these days?

Better in what context? Many domains that would work okay for just online promotion would be clumsy and awkward for offline promotion. (I have more than one of those. :( )

What are your business goals generally, and what kind of promotional methods are you planning on?

My preference would be to go for something shorter, brandable, and suitable to promote offline as well as online. That would give the most flexibility for future growth.

Either way, give careful thought to the steps you'll need to take to salvage the existing "link juice" for the new domain.

[buckworks]

I should also say Welcome to Webmaster World! :)

[ic3cold]

Thanks for your welcome and your advise.
My business will be online only, my current domain is old but it has been steadily growing over the last couple months and due to different promotion strategies I used such as RSS and google base, plus I have thousands of links on the web, mostly incoming offers we placed over the years, plus sites that decided to list us for no apparent reason, the problem is as I was FORCED to leave this domain, as my former company is closing it's doors and I am opening a brand new one ... so in that case is better to create a link to point to the new domain?

The new company's name will be something completely different, you know many recognized brands have strange names, like Expedia, Verizon, Verio, etc, even though they manage brand recognition ... over time ...

[bwnbwn]

I don't understand why you can't just keep the old domain name and change the site but keep the domain name. This is comman and won't be a problem unless you didn't own the other domain name.

Is the old domain name your domain?

[ic3cold]

My former company owns the domain(we are an LLC partnership), and I'm opening a brand new company, without my partners.

My current domain was chosen after one my partner forgot to renew the old one, so it's not really significant as it starts with the...., so I am planning to create a brand new domain and my question was which path is more convenient, a large domain #####$$$$$@@@@@%%%%%.com or something smaller like #*$!.com

[edited by: Webwork at 4:26 am (utc) on Aug. 13, 2009]

[HuskyPup]

Select a long name matching exactly what you do

People pick up on and remember those easily.

or a short name meaningless but easier to remember?

Pretend Latin names are only any good with HUGE advertising budgets! They look and sound nice but without exposure are insignificant...unless one gets a fantstic name...now give me one off the top of your head:-)