Creating Your Domain Name - Spelling, TLDs, and Other Controversies
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A number of the items I read while researching this article recommended buying popular misspellings of your chosen domain name as well as your intended spelling. That could easily be taken too far and end up costing you more money than you want to spend. On the other hand, there are cases where you would want to consider a spelling variation.
For example, if you do search engine optimization and you want to attract clients in both the United States and the United Kingdom, you might want to keep in mind that we spell it “optimization” here in the US, but it's “optimisation” in the UK. So if you're using the word “optimization” in your URL, you can see where you might run into some issues. This is far from the only example of regional differences in the use of the English language! Check these issues before you buy a domain name.
Looking at regional issues actually brings up another question. Throughout this article, I've used the .com ending. Does that mean you should not consider .net, .org, or even .info? Or even more broadly, should you only use top-level domains and avoid country code domains such as co.uk? Well, there was a time when you weren't anything if you weren't .com. Search engines tend to treat all domain endings the same, but web savvy users will automatically type in .com when they put something into the address bar.
That's somewhat less true today. And it very much depends on what you're trying to achieve with your business. If you want to emphasize that you're a local business serving local customers, you might consider going for the country code. Of course, if you serve more than one country or region, you might not want to do that, since your customers might come to the false conclusion that you do.
If your web site is for a non-profit organization, use .org rather than .com; it hasn't lost its original association, unlike .net (which used to be associated only with large networks, such as cable and telephone companies).
In part, it boils down to how important it is that you get exactly the domain name you want. I know of one business that was in existence for decades before it got a web site. It couldn't get its business name as a .com URL, so it went with a .net, because the name was so well-known among its customers. However – and this is an important caveat – the owner makes sure that the web site's .net status is very clear in all of her promotional material.
By the way, if you can't get the .com URL for your business, it would be wise to check out the web site that's actually at that address – even if you didn't want the .com to begin with. Your customers are likely to mistype, and you don't want to send them to a competitor – or worse. Jennifer Slegg, a search engine marketing consultant, tells this cautionary tale: “Many years ago a friend started a business targeting moms and their kids and went and registered her website with a .ca extension. She had the URL advertised on her vehicle, on mail outs, on her business cards...people kept forgetting it was .ca and went to the .com version instead, which happened to be a spyware ridden hardcore porn site.”
Next: Does it Have a History? >>
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