Domains are, and have been, an incredibly important aspect of a site’s ability to appear in search results. Having a “good” domain can go a long way towards helping your site not only appear at the top of related searches, but also appear quicker than “bad” domains.
Branding vs. SEO
There must be a balance between snazzy/clever domains and search-friendly domains. Let’s use the Furminator as an example. This is a clever name for a pet brush, but it is not a category/industry term that people are already looking for. It had no search volume whatsoever before the product launch. To offset the lack of natural search volume, they had to put substantial money behind marketing efforts to build awareness and drive people to the site.
At the other end of the spectrum, they could have built their site at PetGroomingBrushes.com. This would not have helped with brand-related searches, but it probably would have earned a place among already existent category-level searches, saving them money by not having to run as many TV spots.
A few questions to help you decide whether to use a clever name or search friendly name:
- How long will this site/product live?
- How much online/offline marketing support will the site/product have?
- Do the new site/product stakeholders have the patience and money needed to create a new online brand?
Conjunctions and Homonyms
As a general rule, you should steer away from domains with words that can be spelled multiple ways.
For example, if you heard someone talking about a new site called ImHereWithYou.com, they could mean I am Here with You, Im hear with U, etc.
Words that make us cringe to see in domains:
I’m/I am
Here/Hear
There/Their/Theyre
To/Two/Too
Your/You’re
Numbers should also be avoided if possible to avoid confusion between the actual number and the spelled version (e.g. one vs. 1). Exceptions include numbers that are almost always in one form or another such as years (1998 vs. Nineteen Ninety Eight).
Adjacent Characters
If the last letter of the first word in your domain is the same as the first letter of the second word…keep brainstorming.
One of the more well known examples of this is Best Buy’s Giftag.com. Because there are two adjacent identical characters, users who heard the name would not know whether it was spelled GifTTag (the more obvious option in my opinion) or GifTag. To make this situation even worse. Best Buy did not bother to buy GiftTag.com. It is a parked domain probably absorbing a healthy amount of traffic from users trying to get to GifTag.com.
Other examples of bad adjacent character domains:
Maltairport.com (Official site of the Malta Airport) vs. MaltaAirport.com (parked)
Special Characters
Dashes should be avoided if possible. Google has had a grudge against them for some time since they generally reflect lower-quality, younger sites. That being said, in hyper-competitive environments their use could be warranted.
Length
Obviously, shorter domains are better. We will generally try to stay less than 3 words and/or 5 syllables. As with all domain best practices, there are always exceptions, particularly if your domain is an extremely popular saying or phrase, or if you are targeting very specific long-tail search traffic.
Heard vs. Read
During domain brainstorming, it is rather important to consider what the domain actually looks like when written down. Something like Experts Exchange probably sounded like a great name for a site where programmers can share tips and advice. The question remains at what point someone finally pointed out that expertsexchange.com could attract some arguably irrelevant traffic.
Trademarks
Always ensure, particularly for large (expensive) sites, that the term is free of any existing trademarks. Conveniently, the people who have already trademarked your great idea will probably wait until your site is popular enough to warrant action. And it would be frustrating to spend a few years building up site traffic only to receive a cease and desist letter forcing you to change the domain.
