This site presents some guidelines for choosing a good domain name.
Keep It Short:
It is often a tradeoff between having your domain name descriptive and having it
short. Ideally you would have domain name that is both descriptive of your
service and short enough that it can be used in conversation easily. Shorter
names tend to be more professional, easier to spell, and more memorable. They
also look nicer on printed materials and advertisements.
Avoid Unnatural Spellings:
With many good domain names already taken, many people are using "creative" ways
of getting the domain names they want. Many domain names use numbers to
represent words such as 2 for "TO" and 4 for "FOR" or the letter Z in the place
of an S. Names like 4NewYorkRealEstate.com can make your domain name more
difficult to remember or, worse, send your visitor to your competitor at
ForNewYorkRealEstate.com. By choosing a domain name that is easy to spell,
you'll maximize the number of repeat visitors to your site. It is better
to use no numbers or misspellings.
You should be able to say the name and others will know exactly how to
spell it:
Thus, avoid names like cman.com, seaman.com, seeman.com which will have to
be "explained." There probably was never a better name than Amazon.com.
Use a Dot-Com Extension:
The shortage of memorable dot-com domains has led to the creation of dozens of
other extensions. However, nothing will replace the brand name associated with a
dot-com domain name. Similar to the 1-800 toll free numbers, dot-com will always
be the most well known extension and the first place people will look for a name
they remember. Most importantly, the reason companies usually register with a
non dot-com name is that the dot-com is already taken. Now do you really want to
run the risk of advertising and promoting your web site only to send a large
portion of your clients to your competitor's site?
.com is universally recognized and remembered - the "Beverly Hills" of
extensions. The new extensions such as .biz etc will take a few years to be
accepted.
What makes a good domain name?
A good domain name should be easy to remember (would you remember it
accurately if you heard it on the radio?) , easy to spell, and preferably
short. The name of your company is always a good choice. If your desired domain
name is already taken, you can search if the .net or .org variation is
available. You may also use hyphens to create unique domain names.
As generic as possible, but related (resale value, trademarks etc.) Small
companies should consider having the same name for the product or service as for
the company. See eysu.org
for other business guidelines. Make the first letter as close to "a" as possible
if you want to be on the top of some lists.
No doubling up of letters - e.g. developmenttools can be confusing.
What characters are allowed?
.Com, .net, and .org domain names must meet these requirements: They cannot
exceed 67 characters, including the characters in the suffix (63 characters plus
the 4 character .xyz). Only letters, numbers, or hyphens are permitted. A domain
name may not begin or end with a hyphen. These requirements are part of
the regulatory standards that .com, .net and .org domain names must follow
Avoid ambiguous names - reflect on these actual unfortunate combinations...
Conduct a memory sanity test...
After you select a possible domain name, it is a good idea to ask about five
to ten people to try to remember the name from your oral description... ask them
to write it down for you ten minutes later. If you don't score at least
80%, and preferably 100%, think about acquiring a different domain name.
Thanks to these sources for some of the above ideas:
http://www.blitzdevelopment.com/guide04.php
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/vw/domainnames.html
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/whatsinaname1.htm
http://baird.ws
Peter Wightman
Where to resister your domain name?
Try http://godaddy.com and
http://1and1.com for starters... and, see
http://morro-bay.com/unrelated/
for more ideas.
Go to the How to Make a Website page
more... morro-bay.com baird.ws