I could probably write an entire book on this subject. (Hear that Wiley Publishing? That's the sound of money.) From a marketing perspective, a domain name is the single most important element of a website. Unlike a brick-and-mortar company, websites don't have visual cues closely associated with them. Whereas potential customers can use visual cues to identify if a physical building is more likely a barber shop or a bank, they are not able to tell the difference between domain names. All domain names use the exact same format: http:// subdomain dot (optional) root domain dot TLD. Take, for example, http://www.gooale.com or http://www.bing.com. To an outsider, there is no reason to think that any of these resources would be a search engine. They don't contain the word search, and if their brands weren't as strong as they are, their gibberish names wouldn't mean anything to anyone. In fact, if you look at the top 100
most linked-to domains on the Internet, you see this trend over and over again: Wikipedia, >buTube, W3, Amazon, Macromedia, MSN, Flickr, Twitter, Digg, Technorati, IMDB, eBay—the list goes on.
This is where people get confused. They see websites like this and think that the domain name doesn't matter. They register domains that are hard to pronounce (SEOmoz) or hard to spell (Picnik) and figure they don't have to worry. The problem is they don't realize that the popular websites got popular not because of their domain names, but rather despite their domain names. Google was such an outstanding product with a plan that was executed so well that it could have had been named BackRub and still been successful. (Note: It was originally called BackRub. I am just amusing myself.)
As an SEO, if you find yourself in the position of changing or choosing a domain name, you need to make a difficult decision. How confident are you in the client's idea? Is it an idea that serves the entire world, or is it only useful to a few thousand people? If the website is world changing, it might actually benefit from a gibberish name. If the name is gibberish and very successful, people naturally start to associate its name with its service. For example, Google is now synonymous with "search." However, if the idea doesn't end up being world changing (and most websites aren't), a gibberish domain name can hurt the website. What are the odds that the general populous will type in spoke.com (a real website) to find personal profiles?
A nonsensical domain name can hurt a website, making it harder for people (and search engines) to find that site and associate with the concepts that the site focuses on.
For the vast majority of websites, a "search friendly" domain name is best. The search engines will always be constrained by the fact that many people search for exact URLs when they want to go to websites. Of course, the most relevant and popular result for the query "myspace.com" would be www.myspace.com. You can use this to your advantage.
Say your clients own a hotel in Seattle. For them, the best domain name would be www.seattlehotel.com so that they could rank for the query Seattle Hotel. They should not worry about becoming a verb because the demand
is not high enough for their service and the benefits of an exact match domain name outweigh the chances of their website changing the world. Need more proof? The domain names pom.com and sex.com sold for $9.5 million and $12 million, respectively.
NOTE For a while, the most searched-for term on both Yahoo! and MSN was Google. People would search for the search leader in Yahoo! and
MSN, click through toQOQQle.COm. and then type their search query This bothered Yahoo! so much that it e\entually put a Yahoo! search bar as the number one result for Google.
But what if a killer domain name is not available? \bu are not alone. As of the time of writing all of the combinations for .com domains with three or fewer characters were already owned. If you can't get seattlehotel.com. you will just need to be more creative. To limit your ability to hurt yourself by being "too creative," I advise you to look out for the following when registering a domain name:
• Avoid hyphens: In domain names, hyphens detract from credibility and act as a spam indicator.
• Avoid generic, uncommon top-level domains (TLDs): Like
hyphens, TLDs such as .info, .cc, .ws, and .name are spam indicators.
• Avoid domain names longer than 15 characters: People are lazy; don't try to make them type a novel just to access your website.
• Be aware of permutations: The owners of ExpertsExchanae.com built a sizable brand before they realized their domain name could be misconstrued as ExpertSexChange.com.
This advice about domains applies mostly to people who are either starting out from scratch, or for whom purchasing a better domain is an option. If you're an SEO, you'll probably have clients that are stuck with the domain they have, either due to branding or financial constraints. If that's you, never fear. While a smartly chosen, keyword-rich domain is often an ideal situation, plenty of sites succeed without one. I doubt, for example, thatAmazon.com is on the lookout for a more book- or electronics-based domain name.
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