Domain Name Tips

domain names tips

[Romema]

Hi all,

I have few basic questions about the importance of the domain name in relation to SEO.
I am not sure if this is the place to ask and if this is at all the kind of information people tend to share.
i am new to this stuff and before I buy some domains I will appreciate if you could let me in on what kind of domain names are better for SEO:

1. What is better- with or without dashes? (example: besthotels or best hotels)
2. Does the order matter? (ex: besthotels or hotelsbest).
3. What is the importance of .com verses .net verses .org verses the rest?
4. The shortness of the name? ex: hotels-best-hotels-best
5. Anything else?

Thank you for your help!

Romema

[Hunter]

Romema,

>what kind of domain names are better for SEO

I would not worry to much about seo when purchasing a domain for your sites. If you are planning on optimizing your sites, there is plenty that you can do independent of domains.

no dash
in order (needs to make sense!)
.com is king for commerce sites
keep it as short as possible

>Anything else?
Yes, MAKE the domain valuable by building a great site.

[fom2001uk]

For branding purposes and offline marketing, no dashes is better. But for pure SEO, dashes are better.

Dashes are natural delimiters, so the search engines will read two (or more) separate words in the domain name. An un-dashed domain name will not be read as two (or more) words by search engines.

Having said that, the value of keywords in the URL ain't what it used to be :-)

[goldleader]

.com is the best...no question.

Dashes are bad...if you have besthotels.com, you might want to also register best-hotels.com It doesn't hurt to protect your website's identity.

The shorter and easier to remember...the better.

Example:
xbox-playstation2-gamecube-gameboy.com

Who the hell is gonna remember that one? People register domains like this one all the time hoping seach engines will be extra nice to it because it has all the names people seach for. WRONG!

Also, proper grammer is important. hotelsbest.com sounds off. Do you ever say those two words in that order when you talk to someone? Try to pair words that go together well. Just keep them short.

[Romema]

There never seems to be a definite answer to the dashes question, and I only mean it in terms of SEO, also the importance of .com vs the others just in terms of SEO.
Does anyone really knows the answer?
:-)

[trillianjedi]

Does anyone really know the answer?

Yes. The answer is "it varies". SE's algos are constantly tweaked. You cannot base a decision as important as your business name and brand on a moving target.

You should use other factors in deciding domain name, not SEO.

TJ