If your domain name is completely irrelevant to your site topic, then people are less likely to visit. In addition, if your domain name is very long or looks ’spammy,’ then the first impression is that your site is not very professional.

How to Find Good Domain Names

Choosing a good domain name is not difficult. Finding an available domain that you like can be tough; but if you search hard enough and take in all possibilities as far as where you can buy a domain, you will get lucky eventually.

You are not limited to buying domains from domain registrars. While it can be fun finding available domains and registering them, it can be even more exciting finding old, established domains which are for sale.

Where to Register Domain Names

There are many places where you can register domain names, including:

GoDaddy
Namecheap
eNom
Name.com
Moniker
Dynadot
Yahoo!
MyDomain
Dotster
Register.com

The above registrars are all ICANN accredited and provide .com, .net, .org, .info and many other extensions for registration.

Where to Buy Used Domain Names

If you want to buy domain names that are old, has page rank or would just rather not register a new domain, then you can search domain auctions and for sale websites.

Many forums have people selling domain names including forums like Digital Point, Sitepoint, DN Forum and Namepros. You will find many cheap domain names there, just do your due diligence to avoid being scammed. Research the history of the domain names before buying, and never spend more than $1000 on a domain name without paying through Escrow for safety reasons.

Alternatively, you can visit the domain name aftermarket from GoDaddy at tdnam.com. This site has tens of thousands of used domains for sale from $5 up to the six-figure mark. There are both auctions and buy it now listings there.

Other auction sites include Pool.com, Afternic, Sedo and SnapNames. You should become more familiar with domain terminology and market trends before buying domain names at auction, as the price can easily become out of hand.

Which Domain Extension Is Best?

In just about all cases, .com should be the domain name extension that you aim to acquire. There are a few exceptions to this, namely .org for non-profit organizations, .tv for sites focused on television, and international extensions for sites based in certain countries.

Regardless of which alternative extension you choose, aim to also own the .com version so that you protect your brand against copycats or competitors. .Com always has, and will probably always be, the most popular and well-known domain name extension.

Whichever method you choose to buy domain names, make sure they match your websites, are short and memorable, and will attract users to click through to your websites.

You’ve probably seen domain names for sale for ridiculous amounts of money. Think those names will lead to surefire online success? Before you get tempted to buy one of those names, read this article.

One of the most interesting phenomena on the Internet is the selling of domain names. In some situations it could even be likened to an auction-based system. There was a time in the nineties that it reached ridiculous proportions, with several people becoming millionaires from selling domain names.

Why are these names so expensive? Who are the buyers? Does domain name selling actually backfire sometimes? In what situations has it paid off? A lot of these questions have no clear cut answers, as long as the world has rotated; people have bought and sold “everything,” literally. Domain name selling would be consigned to a scam if it was examined closely.

Most of the names that go for extremely high prices (for this topic anything above a hundred dollars is considered extremely high) are domain names that contain key words that are in demand. Some of the domain names are actually category names. That’s all very well and good so far. But when these practices favor the seller over the buyer, then something has gone wrong with the equation.

Most of my grumbling against domain name reselling stems from the view that, from a branding perspective, it is a failure. Quite a number of SEO proponents argue that having key words in the domain name is good (something I have never agreed with) but the real issue is, the name alone does not make good SEO. If it is good to have the key word in the domain name, why wasn’t Monster simply called Job seekers?

I will be using as reference an excellent book by Al and Laura Ries, “The Eleven Immutable Laws of Internet Branding.” Al Ries considers domain names so important that he uses up two of his eleven laws on how to name your web site. But why am I bothering to bash a totally “harmless” practice? First, because it seems to be catching on in SEO circles; and second, it will definitely add useless costs to the cost of domain name registration and hosting, making it relevant to any one who is thinking of buying that attractive domain name. By the end of this article, you should be able to go through the mental exercise of coming up with an original name of your own.

In branding the most important decision you can make is what to call your product, in this case your web site. This concept seems to have encouraged the buying of “key word rich” domain names. A good translation of the phrase “key word rich” is “generic.” Your SEO expert and you webmaster will probably advise you to name a site which fits that description.

Sadly, most of these domain names are pretty awful; they lack imagination, and a lot of them just copy a description (common adjective) or a class (common noun) and turn it into a name (proper adjective or noun). Yet they are sold for ridiculously high prices; think www.desktop.com, www.mortgage.com, www.womenonline.com, www.seopro.com, www.etoys.com, and I am sure you think, what great names! Well, all failed in the first dot com bust; their names did not help them survive the changing tides.

In Alexa’s current top ranking web sites, it will be interesting to note that there are no common adjective nor common noun website names (the kind of names that are most commonly sold). All websites that are listed as top sites are proper nouns. In any listing of top brands there are no generic brand names (common adjectives or common nouns), yet unsuspecting buyer after buyer is sucked into the mental trap that all it takes for a web site to achieve success is a generic name.

The lure of getting generic domain names is encouraged by some SEO practitioners and is also a product of the herd mentality; SEO “experts” in all their wisdom tout key word rich domain names as essential for high ranking in the SERPs. The key word effect is negated by the fact that hundreds of sites jump on the key word rich name band wagon. The herd mentality is due to the fact that “everybody is doing it, so it must make sense,” without checking the real reason other webmasters buys up generic domain names.

The herd mentality stretches back to the first dot com boom and bust, when hundreds of websites went for generic names like www.shoes.com, www.cars.com and other common adjectives. This trend has carried on to the second Internet boom (and inevitable bust) despite all the indicators that it can be counterproductive at worst and indifferent at best. Personally the only reason I would use a generic name on a website is so as to take advantage of the current “herd mentality” and jack up the resale value.

Have you ever looked for a site you found once, didn’t bookmark or note down, and didn’t find it again? No matter how many key words you typed into the various search engines, you just couldn’t find it? Why didn’t you simply type the name into the address bar? You couldn’t remember it. Why couldn’t you remember it? It was too long, too boring, too generic or all three. The majority of names that are sold have these faults. They are actually forgettable.

Buying names because they have generic key words makes it difficult for web surfers to form a mental association between the name and your site. People find it easier to remember weird and off the beaten path names than they do common place terms and names. Everybody knows how to type in Google.com, but you may as well forget it if you are called search_engine.com — or is it searchengine.net? Or rather searchengineinfo.org? The mistakes that would arise from misspellings of your name would probably get searchers to another page entirely different from one on your website.

Consider www.sexproject.com, www.sex_info.com, www.sexinfo.com, and www.sexinfo101.com. Unfortunately I can’t remember any of them over any period of time; there are so many variations that it is virtually impossible for any of them to register in the mind of any searcher that is typing directly into the address bar. It would take a miracle, literally, for any of these web sites to make an instant impression based on their name alone.

The same cannot be said for www.clickz.com. Compare the name clicks to such websites as www.searchenginewatch.com or www.searchengineland.com (don’t forget that there is still www.searchenginenews.com) and take it for granted that search engine anything in a domain name is sure to be for sale for over a thousand dollars minimum, and to what end? To join the hundreds of sites jostling for sandbox positions in the SERPs? All the above have generic terms in their name, and all the rest with such terms in their names will be viewed as good buys. But isn’t there a mix up somewhere?

When buying a site that has a prior reputation and a prior standing in the market for particular key words (for example Developer shed buying up http://www.seochat.com/ or Google is buying www.jotspot.com) the buyer is actually buying the brand. No matter how cluttered the domain name is with key words, what is relevant is the way the site is identified in the minds of its searchers. Incidentally, the number of surfers is usually counted by using either registered users or daily number of page views.

Now let’s look at the usual situation where a buyer, simply because s/he believes that a domain name is “key word rich” (my translation is generic), buys that domain name from a speculator for a hundred times the original price or even more. With no real idea of what to do next to get the domain name into the minds of users, apart from hoping they will type it into the address bar, such a move is sure to be counterproductive.

Another situation is one that arises when buyers buy a domain name hoping to cash in on another site’s popularity. For example, buying a domain name such as www.my_yahoofinance.net to cash in on a successful brands name is probably copyright infringement. It’s mostly phishers, scammers and also some MFA sites, who participate in this particular type of domain name buying.

Others buy names which closely approximate popular brands to take advantage of misspellings by users (like the user won’t notice). There is a massive difference between the services of www.technorati.com and www.technocrati.com. Of course if you just want a Made for Ad Sense site (or worse, if you are actually a scammer) these names are all well and good. But if you are serious about building a serious long term Internet presence, you may as well forget it.

A recent high profile case occurred between Google and adult search engine Booble. Google sued the adult search engine for “aiming to deceive” with its look-alike domain name. Google’s case ultimately failed, but other situations may not end up the same way. Companies are not afraid to defend their copyrights, and the results may not always be pleasant for the infringing company depending on how that jury interprets the situation.

Here are some ridiculous fees that were paid for “hot” domain names that ended up as spectacular failures (note that at purchase most of these domain names were just that, “domain names”). The name www.business.com was bought for 7.5 million dollars, www.wine.com was bought $3 million, and www.wallstreet.com was bought for $1.3 million. All failed as websites (unimaginable, huh?). Fortunately, those times have ended. Now such domain names are “reasonably” priced to tempt the average webmaster. I mean $1500 is a measly amount to pay for http://www.quickloans.com/ right? Wrong, it will probably fail in as spectacular a manner as those in the first dot com boom.

Over and over again, the most successful brands on and off the net have been proper names. AOL and Yahoo! were the first Internet brands to break into Interbrand’s top hundred lists. The most successful Internet brands created their domain names using basic rules of naming which work for every naming situation.

Yes, some people are much better at naming things (and websites) than others. Over time we will look at these situations and see how best to come up with a domain name that should work, and not cost you anything more than $15 (at the most). Before then, next time you see that “must have” domain name for sale, take a deep breath and consider finding an alternative.

Lowest Domain and Hosting Services from http://www.yoursdomain.com

Online Videos From http://www.ispcheck.com.pk

Lowest UK hosting http://www.theexalter.co.uk

Easy to Remember – Your domain name should be memorable and easy for visitors to recall and type into their browser.

Relevant – Your domain name should be relevant to your business and to the content on your web site.

Short Name – Although domain names can be up to 67 characters, your domain name should be shorter, preferably seven characters or less. Shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and less susceptible to mistakes. Domain names with seven characters or less are harder to come by these days, so you may have to settle for a domain name that is slightly longer.

Top Level Domain

If your business is in the US or if your web site is targeting a global audience then you should use .com as your top-level domain. Generally .net and .org domains are not perceived as being as professional as .com domains. If however you are marketing to a local audience in another country, for example in UK or Australia, then using the local .com domain such as .com.uk or .com.au may make it easier for visitors to recognize that your site is local.

Keyword Optimized – If possible your domain name should contain popular keywords relating to your topic. This will help your site to rank high in the natural rankings of search engines. Use a keyword tool such as Good Keywords to check which keywords are searched more frequently.

Consider Hyphenated Names – If you are having trouble getting the name you want, consider a hyphenated domain name, e.g. barbecue-grills.com. However the downside of this approach is that some people will forget the hyphen when typing your domain name.

How Does it Sound? – If you tell a friend your domain name over the phone, will they easily be able to spell it correctly the first time?

No Trademark Conflicts – Make certain that your domain name is free of legal conflicts due to trademarks belonging to other businesses. Your new site at GoogleSecrets.com might attract a lot of traffic but it will probably attract even more after your court case is in the headlines for breaching Google’s trademark! Stay clear of other companies’ names and trademarks.

A good place to check if a domain name is available is Whois.org. Keep these tips in mind, and you will be well on your way to choosing a good domain name.

If you expect to be able to buy a domain name that you just registered and sell it, your crazy! In order to sell a domain, and have it be worth anything it either has to be brand-able (hotels.com, cars.com photography.com), or it has to be worth something to begin with. A domain is worth something, usually when its already developed into an existing website.

This isn’t always the case, but more often than not it is. Example, I bought a domain at the beginning of 08 for $9.99 on NameCheap, just because I was curious about this domain real estate thing. On sites like estibot it was worth zero, it had no back links, no rank, brand new. So I decided to get it developed, which is one of the most important things for any domain name.

With in 7 months it went from being worth zero to being worth over $1500. Again not that much money. But by having it developed and getting back links to it, it was raised from PR0 to PR3 in just a month, and every single week the price goes up $10-$20. This website isn’t anything spectacular. Its just a one page, developed joke site. So imagine how much a domain could be worth if you really got involved in developing it!

Once you get it developed, and its actually worth something to someone (an individual or a company) you can sell this domain for money. Domain real estate follows the buy low sell high rule. You could easily buy a domain for $5000 and sell it in a few months or a year for triple that amount, if you work at it. Or in some instances like mine you can register a domain name, develop it, market it, get traffic to it, and sell it in a year for a few grand.

And yes, people do this for a living and actually make really great money at it. The real point is having “an eye” for a good domain name. The rules have sort of changed over the years, but it used to be that the domain was considered worthy if it was brand-able, one worded (cat, dog, art, photography, truck, car, fabulous etc), and if it was a .com extension. Now this still does come in hand when doing domain real estate, but there’s also a new rule. A domain name may not always be worth very much to an individual, but it might be worth a lot to the end user. An end user, is someone that is actually going to use the domain and not resell it like you may have.

So StumpSomeone may not be worth anything to you or me, but to someone interested in having a joke website, they might be willing to pay a pretty penny for it, sometimes its good to sit on a domain for awhile rather than just sell it right away. Find the right buyer. But don’t ask for a price that no one is willing to pay because then you will never sell the domain and that’s NOT what you want. There are tons of sites you can find more info on about domain real estate. Here are a few really good reference and resource sites you can take a look at; NamePros, Sedo, Moniker etc.

A “cookie cutter” site is one that the builder creates so the title of the site can be easily changed to your domain name and the sites can be stamped out like using a “cookie cutter”. The site is sold under the pretense that all you have to do to make LOTS of money is buy the site and pay to have it hosted on the Internet. The site has ready made links to products and services from which you are told will make a commission each time a person clicks a link. Usually the products and services are sold by the company that developed the website so they make most of the money if you do get a sale. They keep telling you, “Just think how much money you will make by having a site like this on the Internet”.

For those of you who have “cookie cutter” sites, it’s time for true confessions. When I first started on the Internet I did not know the magic word “traffic”. I was naïve and thought that all you did was set up a website and the world beat a path to it to click on your offerings. I read an ad that said, “My little website made me $11,000 in a week”. I thought, “Wow, if that site made him that much money, just a small percentage of that will be fine with me”. Little did I know that the marketer who sold this “cookie cutter” site had a list of over 40,000 to which to promote the web site.

There were several testimonials in his sales letter about how people who had bought the site were raking in the money. When I later researched the testimonials, I found that these were from other Internet marketers who had large lists and could drive traffic to their “cookie cutter” sites.Beware of the fraternity of Internet marketers. They scratch each other’s backs.

I bought the site and guess what. The only benefit I received from it was from some really good bonuses that were attached to the deal. It was a “live and learn” experience. I have justified it to myself that the bonuses were worth the amount I paid, but they really weren’t.

Since then I have seen many of these sites on the Net, and I really think it is a shame that people do this to other people.

The time and money spent trying to promote someone else’s “cookie cutter” site could be better spent creating your own site with your own personality.

So much of what is sold on the Internet should require the seller to tell “the rest of the story” to quote Paul Harvey. The untold part of the truth is really a lie.

You can build your own website with the right guidance and assistance. For more information about building your own website instead of paying for another “cookie cutter site”, click the following link:

STAMP OUT COOKIE CUTTER SITES

href=”http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I52_040607.htm#CYOS”>http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I52_040607.htm#CYOS