Choosing the Domain Name of Your Dreams - A Few Things to Avoid
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Hyphens and underscores both seem to have fallen out of fashion these days. That makes it particularly important that you look at several different ways of parsing your domain name, so you don’t accidentally spell out something you never intended. For instance, therapistfinder.com is a real site; it helps users find therapists located in California. Unfortunately, it also spells out TheRapistFinder, which is not exactly a positive association, especially for their target audience.
You should also avoid using numbers in your domain name unless they’re part of your business name. They lead to confusion. Likewise, try to avoid any unusual spelling. Yes, a site like “Flowers4U.com” can succeed, but setting it up that way can throw up unnecessary obstacles to your success.
Check for copyright infringement before you register a domain name. Don’t register a domain name that infringes on someone else’s copyright. You should be especially careful to not register a domain name that infringes on someone else’s copyright in bad faith. That’s illegal. If you want to avoid doing it accidentally, visit the U.S. Copyright Office's web site for copyrights registered in the United States. Not everything is a registered copyright!
Don’t go for anything other than a .com extension if you’re serious about creating an online business. It is still by far the most popular domain extension; people will automatically assume your full URL is your business name followed by .com. Some less savvy web surfers hardly realize there is any other domain extension. It is getting to be more commonly known that .org is often used by not-for-profit organizations, and .net is slowly gaining in popularity. Country code top level domains are often popular in their own country and may do well online (I see a lot of .co.uk and .com.au web sites). They may also help you get into the right databases, as Google seems to divide their data centers by region, and there is some evidence that someone doing a search on Google in the UK is likely to see more sites with .co.uk extensions. But going for the .com is still a good general rule.
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