May 17, 2005

Buying The Right Domain Name

I've had the domain name Smallbiztechnology.com since April 1999 and I'm glad I have it. Sometimes I wonder if it's too long, or if the "z" in "biz" is not quite right, but overall I'm happy.

What about your domain name or domain name to be? When buying a domain name for your business' web site you've really got to make sure you get the right one(s).

Don't use dashes in your domain name. Why make people have to remember that there even is d dash.

Don't make it HARD to spell. Maybe you have a law office with 4 partners and the names are filled with "z's", "ph's" and the like. Instead of using the name of the law firm, why not use smblaw.com or something. By the way, SMBlaw.com is already owned by SHAFER, MOEN & BRYAN, P.S. in Seattle Washington.

Read my 10 Web Site Musts and also StartupJournal.com has a VERY good article about domain names and writes Domain-name speculators, or "cybersquatters," gobble up unclaimed names they think business owners will want and attempt to resell them at a hefty markup -- sometimes thousands of dollars more than they paid. Between the speculators and the millions of businesses already on the Web, it's increasingly tough for a start-up entrepreneur to find a domain that will help get an online business off the ground.

"Not only are there very few choices left for a distinctive name, it's [also] so hard to make yourself stand out from the crowd" because of the similarities among so many domain names, says Tom Barrett, president of EnCirca Inc., a domain registrar based in Woburn, Mass. A customer might mistakenly add a letter to your domain name "and end up on a totally different Web site."

About 50 million domain names for common extensions are currently registered, according to Name Intelligence Inc., a Bellevue, Wash., company that tracks the industry, with several million new names registered each year. (An estimated 15 million more names are registered in domain extensions that are more difficult to track.) Of those domains already registered, more than 30 million end with the.com extension. While many desirable names are still up for grabs with other extensions, such as.net,.biz or.pro,.com is the preferred extension, because it's so widely assumed by Internet users to be part of most Web addresses.

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