Yet you will still find some online businesses using very long domain names either because they don't know better or because they are piggybacking off a free website developer. Either way there is a reduced customer confidence in hard to remember domain names.

In some ways it would be like a business calling itself The Furniture Store Just Two Blocks West of the Chicken Place on 14th Avenue and Just East of the Convenience Store on Maple. We would much rather remember the store as Furniture Tech than try to remember a name that is 22 words long.

Imagine trying to visit a search engine and coming up with http://www.search.onlinesearch.investments.protocol.com/futures

It is amazing to me how many people will sacrifice a prominent domain name in favor of short-term savings. The end result is often a struggling business website because the business is buried in a labyrinth of sub domains.

With a variety of choices that allow the purchase of a domain name for less than ten dollars a year it doesn't make sense to simply exist as a tag on to another site. A simple redirect can allow customer to access your site (even if it's in a sub domain environment) through the use of an exclusive domain name that has some web branding punch to it.

One of the other benefits to having your own domain name is that you can then gain access to an email account that uses this specifically branded website name.

Should you choose web builder technology you can save money on site development and many will offer a domain name at no additional cost.

It is possible there are online businesses that have been in operation for an extended period of time and have never moved from the business environment in which they started. The end result is they may not be aware there are simplified and cost-effective ways to come out from the umbrella of a larger domain to a place where there is greater control and visibility.

Even if domain names are not that important to you it is highly probable your domain name does have an impact on potential consumers. Maybe it's time to research what domain names are available.