# Picking a domain name...



## nromano1212 (Feb 10, 2007)

Hey, i was wondering if there was any ryme or reason to pick a certain domain name? Will picking different names effect the amount of hits you will recieve through yahoo and google or is that all based on the keywords you put in? thanks, Nick


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

I remember reading somewhere that if your domain name contains your keywords it is good for SEO.

In general though, the best domain name is one that is a .com, short and easy to remember, easy to spell and hear over the phone, no hypens (-), and makes sense for what you are selling.

Good luck


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## Dave G (Aug 7, 2006)

Make it short, memorable and a .com.


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## L00T (Feb 8, 2007)

Jasonda said:


> I remember reading somewhere that if your domain name contains your keywords it is good for SEO.
> 
> In general though, the best domain name is one that is a .com, short and easy to remember, easy to spell and hear over the phone, no hypens (-), and makes sense for what you are selling.
> 
> Good luck


It's not the domain name that holds the keywords but the meta tag in the index.html file  

The rest makes perfect sense


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

L00T said:


> It's not the domain name that holds the keywords but the meta tag in the index.html file


I know that, what I meant was that I read somewhere that keywords _specifically_ in the domain name were also good.

Sorry for the confusion.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Will picking different names effect the amount of hits you will recieve through yahoo and google or is that all based on the keywords you put in?


Some search engines do give a minor benefit to having a keyword in the domain name, but it's not necessary at all to acheive higher rankings.

A keyword in your domain name alone won't give you more hits or better results in search engines.

I agree with Jasonda's summary here:



> In general though, the best domain name is one that is a .com, short and easy to remember, easy to spell and hear over the phone, no hypens (-), and makes sense for what you are selling.


Although it doesn't always have to make sense to what you're selling if you're trying for some wacky name that is good for branding (like Amazon)


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## Useless (Feb 16, 2007)

L00T said:


> It's not the domain name that holds the keywords but the meta tag in the index.html file


Not true. The words in your domain name can be very important. If you owned monkeys-like-cats.com, you'll likely get searches for "monkeys" and "cats" even if no such creatures are mentioned on your pages. The keywords metatag is all but ignored by the bigger SEs. It was too heavily abused by keyword spammers over the years. 

The content of your pages is most important, but if you can purchase a domain that may include a keyword or two, that can be a great help. There are many great tshirt shops that don't have the word "tshirt" in their domain, but if you can find a good domain with it in it, that can be a great asset.


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## nromano1212 (Feb 10, 2007)

Ok, so, what are the first steps to creating a website? Obviously picking a domain name. Mentioned about is purchasing one. Can i just go make one up or should/could i "buy" a name off someone else that has a page rank already? 

Also, I have downloaded a tool bar thing that tells me what the page rank of that partictular page is. I know 10 is the best and pretty much impossible to reach but how long does it take to move up one notch and what notch do you need to be at to see consistant sales? How long does that take? I know all this depends on your product and such, so i should say consistant traffic on your site...

Thanks, Nick


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## Useless (Feb 16, 2007)

PageRank doesn't mean much of anything anymore either.  You'll see sites with PR 1 listed above sites with PR5. What does that tell you? Google even admits that they no longer report the true PR of any site. PR is still a neat tool to see if a site has lots of quality inbound links, but that doesn't mean that they are popping in the top 10 of all the important keyword searches. PR is also not indicative of traffic flow.

Established domains, assuming they haven't been banned by Google for SE spamming, are certainly preferable, but I wouldn't purchase one based on its PR. Frankly, I'd come up with something clever and memorable and go buy the new .com for $15.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Can i just go make one up or should/could i "buy" a name off someone else that has a page rank already?


I would suggest just making one up and going to godaddy or someplace like that and registering it for the normal sub $10 registration fee.

Or you can find a web hosting provider that will include the domain name in their yearly web hosting fees. Just make sure that you have full control over the domain name should you choose to switch hosting providers.


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