For example, if your site were to be about Persian Cats, you would probably want to use a domain name including the phrase "persiancat". Unfortunately, however, persiancat.com is no longer available. Nor is persiancat.net, .org, .biz or any of the other top level domain name suffixes.
As I write, persiancat.ws IS still available, so you could buy that name if you wanted to.
However, the truth of the matter is that most people who are searching on the net are going to give first priority to sites with top level domain names, such as a .com or a .net.
At least partially, this is simply a function of these being the original suffixes, and therefore the average surfer believes that they have more credibility and authority.
This is especially critical if your website is selling or promoting your business or products, as these factors translate into "trustworthy" in this situation. Simply put, a top level domain name is one of your strongest sales tools.
Search engines will also consider your domain name when considering your site for that all important search engine ranking Therefore, there needs to be some clear relationship between your domain name and site subject, to give you any chance of featuring when people search using Google or Yahoo.
So, what can you do? Well, here's a couple of very simple tips that I have used to bag top level names for some of my own sites.
First, try a plural version of your key phrase, rather than the singular version. So, in the example above, we could check on the availability of top level names using persiancats, rather than persiancat. However, used on its own, this tactic is a bit too obvious, and in my experience, when the singular version of a phrase has been take, more often than not, so has the plural.
The second little trick is, however, far more effective and well worth trying if you are looking for a top level name for your site. The trick is - numbers!
Not numbers at the beginning of the domain address - that's really "old hat" and you only have to look at a list of expired domains to see how many owners of such addresses just allow them to die. Why? Because they don't work particularly well with either search engines or with real people - and something like "0000persiancats.com" just looks plain silly!
No, I'm talking about numbers in the "body" of the domain name itself, especially the numbers 2 and 4. Why? Well, the number 2 can be substituted for the word "to" and 4 can be read as "for".
Now, tie that in with one other little substitution trick - take the word "you" and substitute the letter "u" - and we have a method of finding a good top level domain name that still relates very closely to the site subject matter.
Let's go back to our persiancats example to demonstrate how effective a strategy this can be. Using all three of the highlighted tricks, we try searching for "persiancats2u.com" and "persiancats4u.com". And, guess what? At the time of writing, both are still available!
Two top level domain names, both closely related to the site content, either (or both) of which clearly and concisely indicate exactly what the site is about.
There you have it. A simple but effective method of grabbing a top level domain name for your site.
Next time your are searching for a good domain name, try it because, remember, your customer will always look for a .com website first!
The top-level domains of the Internet domain system are those having their own suffixes, and their use is governed by a very seriously policed and rigorously monitored set of rules that everyone agrees on and never deviates from. If everyone couldn't agree on the rules for the regulation of the Internet then, as an international system, it would collapse into chaos and censorship.
The top level domains I am going to refer to are .com, .net, .org, .info and the individual country codes.
.COM
The most well-known and celebrated of these is of course the .com domain name, supposedly for commercial entities, which gave a new phrase to the English language ? dot com, as in 'dot com collapse', 'dot com scam' and 'lost millions when the dot com bubble burst'. For some reason, this is the top level domain everyone wants. They want to join in the fun, I suppose, and want to be the latest 'dot com failure'. For some reason, .com names are favored by that sad group of internet users called bloggers.
.NET
The .net top level domain was intended for those geeky companies or enterprises directly involved in Internet operations or systems, like web hosting or domain name registration. This gave rise to famous web and computer-related sites like fishing.net, porn.net, sex.net and girls.net. This is the second most popular domain suffix, chosen by those who were too late to get failure.com, clueless.com and wheredidourmoneygo.com.
.ORG
Another popular suffix is .org, which is for the use of organizations of all kinds. Popular users of this domain type are b.org, girls.org, sex.org and porn.org. If you see a pattern developing here with all the domain types, it is only coincidence, because the internet is actually not full or porn and sex at all. This is a myth.
.INFO
A newer suffix, and one you may have a chance of getting for your preferred keyword, because no-one has ever heard of it, is .info. Now I'm not going to say that this is meant for information-type sites, because frankly there are not very many of these compared with sex sites and blogs. In reality, I don't know what this suffix is for, though it has been suggested that it was a creation of the domain registration industry. Their idea was that it gave large companies another large set of trademark domains they had to register for themselves at great expense before anyone else did. Don't believe me? Well, check apple.info, dell.info and microsoft.info and see where they redirect to.
Then there are the country based names, meant for international sites and based on the International Standards Organization (ISO) country codes. Things like .us, .ca and .uk. This gave rise to famous American sites like del.icio.us, thumblicio.us, thisisby.us, and thisbelongsto.us.
As you can see, domain name owners are imaginative, respectful and very fond of following the rules both in letter and in spirit, and this is just as it should be. There should be no place for humor, satire or irreverent attitudes in the world of domains.
Both Ian Williamson & Dee Buteland are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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