How To Choose The Right Domain Name For Your Website

By John Lenaghan

Your website's domain name will become your internet "name" so it's important that you give it some careful thought. A good domain name will help you get more visitors to your website, and better results from them.
The ideal domain name is something that is easy for people to remember. If you can make it short and to the point, while related to what your website offers, that's the ideal situation.
Long, complicated domain names create too much chance of people misspelling it and ending up on the wrong site.
Your domain name should be relevant to what you offer on your website. If you're selling swimming pool filters, something like poolfilters.com would be a good option - easy to remember and relevant.
Using your company name as your domain is not always the best option. If you want your offline customers to be able to find your website, it's a good idea to use your company name.
If you're looking for new customers on the internet, a domain that is more descriptive of what you offer will be a better choice.
After all, which would you be more likely to visit if you were looking for pool filters - poolfilters.com or abccompany.com?
Most short and simple domain names are already taken, so it can take some searching to find something suitable. Many people choose to use hyphens in their domain names.
This can make it difficult to verbalize your domain name. If you're telling someone about your site or advertising it on the radio, you'd need to say "pool dash filters dot com". Again, it creates an opportunity for error that you probably should avoid.
Using numbers in your domain name can also make it easier to find a suitable domain, but don't resort to "cute" names like poolfilters4you.com. In this case, you'll again have problems trying to verbalize the domain. "Pool filters, the number 4, you (y-o-u) dot com" is a mouthful and just begging for mistakes to be made.
Use a Domain Registrar or Register Through Your Web Host?
Ideally, you should use a separate domain registrar and register your domain name yourself rather than doing it through your web hosting company.
Most web hosting plans include a free domain name, but domain registration is inexpensive and paying a little more to do it yourself can save you a lot of future hassle.
If you ever want to change web hosts and your domain is registered through your host, it can be a lot of work to get them to transfer it to the new host. Plus, some less-than-honest hosts will register the domain in their name instead of yours.
John Lenaghan writes about free web hosting services and other website hosting topics on the Hosting Report website. Find out more at http://www.hostingreport.org/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Lenaghan

Domain registration

Heading for new domains; Net profits: Will seven new TLDs refertilize the
barren fields of domain registering ?
SEVEN NEW TOP-LEVEL domains (TLDs) working their way into
circulation-- presumably to alleviate the congested.com space--business
owners have to decide whether they want to register a new domain name.
Until recently, your choices were limited to the .com, .net and .org
suffixes. But last year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN)--the governing body that oversees the Internet's domain
name system--approved a few new TLDs: .aero (for the air-transport
industry), .biz (for businesses), .coop (for cooperatives), .info (for all
uses), museum (for museums), .name (for individuals) and .pro (for
professionals such as doctors, lawyers and accountants). ICANN is now
assigning the new TLDs in limited release during a "proof of concept"
stage. In November of last year, it made available names registered with
.biz and .info. Your company should be able to get a .pro domain name in
the second quarter of this year; applications are currently being accepted.
But will the new TLDs really help the Web addressing problem? Opinions are
mixed. On one hand, if you missed the opportunity to register the .com you
wanted the first time around, now could be your chance. But on the other
hand, who's to say these new TLDs won't become congested as well? And many
attorneys, domain-name managers and e-business owners are now spending time
and money to register URLs they won't necessarily use in order to defend
themselves from online predators and competitors.
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"I think the new TLDs are mainly a way for ICANN and the registries to make
more money, rather than a decent solution to the problem of Web
addressing," says Danny Sullivan, editor of the Darien, Connecticut-based
newsletter SearchEngine SWatch.com. "I think anyone with a.com domain will
feel like they need to pick up .biz and info names as well, so they won't
help the problem they were supposed to solve, which is making new names
available."
.Biz to the Rescue
Despite the controversy, the new TLDs have opened up opportunities for
some. Case in point: eServ LLC, a Rock Island, Illinois, business founded
in 1999 that provides product design, engineering support, consulting
services and technical products to large and small companies. "Part of the
reason we made the move to .biz is because the eserv.com name was already
taken by a cyber-squatter and put up for sale, and somebody wanted to pay a
lot more for it than we did," says Timothy P. Baldwin, 33, co-founder and
COO. "As a result, we ended up [with] eservllc.com."
Despite the fact that eservllc.com spells out the company's name, Baldwin
says the Web address was a problem for him and his co-founders, James
Richmord, 34, and Scott Miller, 32, because "everybody knows us as eServ,
so most people would go to the eserv.com site looking for us. It was
getting pretty tiresome having to spell out our Web site name and our
e-mail address all the time." So they registered www.eserv.biz, which
"clearly states who we are and how we are known in the marketplace," says
Baldwin.
For now, the company will probably use their original
site--eservllc.com--to point customers to the new .biz location, but at
some point in the future, the eservllc.com URL will likely be phased out.
EServ, which had sales of $17 million in 2001, has also signed up for a
.info TLD, but Baldwin isn't sure how the company will use that site. He
says EServ signed up for it as a preventive measure to frustrate any
attempts from pesky cybersquatters.

In the event you already own the .com of your choice, you can still
register the new TLDs and use those Web sites in innovative ways. For
example, you could use the .com location as your main site and include your
corporate information there, but then send customers to the .info site for
product and support information. Or you might use the .com or .biz site for
consumers, and the info site for shareholders. Finally, some entrepreneurs
might even register the name of their flagship product with the .biz or
.info TLD and then use the corresponding sites as mechanisms within their
branding or marketing efforts for those products.
Before You Register
The .biz and .info TLDs can only be registered through ICANN-accredited
registrars, including Register.com and Verisign.com. For a list of
accredited registrars, log on to InterNIC (www.internic.org/regist. html),
a Web site set up by ICANN. TIDs are awarded on a first-come, first-served
basis when it comes to trademarked company names.
The cost for registering new TLDs ranges from $10 to $60 per name per year,
and the more expensive price usually includes some value-added Web services
to go with the registration.
Before applying for a Web site with a new TLD, do a "Who Is" search on your
registrar's Web site, or at www. internic.org, to see whether the name you
want for your Web site is taken. If it isn't, you can sign up for the name
on the spot.
If it's taken--and if you have a competing trademark or a trademark right
on the name and believe a competitor is holding it to resell it to you at
an inflated price--you can file a complaint. A common way to do this is
through ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy, which allows
for court action or arbitration through organizations such as the World
Intellectual Property Organization to resolve domain disputes. It's
important, however, to work with a lawyer so you'll understand your rights.

Many trademarked names with the .biz and .info TLDs have already been taken
by legitimate trademark holders. NeuLevel (www.neulevel.biz), the company
selected by ICANN to be the exclusive operator of the .biz registry; and
Afilias Limited (www.afilias.info), which was chosen as the exclusive
operator of the info registry, established procedures to allow trademark
holders to assert their rights before registration opened to the general
public.
However, there are still opportunities to buy new TLDs--whether you have a
trademark or not. Last time we checked, only 700,000 .info names and
500,000 .biz names had been registered, compared to 22 million .com names.
And though ICANN has no plans to release additional TLDs in the future, it
hasn't ruled out the idea either.