New here ~ Brainstorming my domain name!

[FrugalFarmer]

[robert adams]

Hi and welcome to the group.

Short .com domain names are becoming very hard to get.
If you can get one that relates to what you are doing, then grab it while you can. Otherwise the hyphenated versions are good.
Some research has shown that multiple word domain names work well in the search engines, if the words are separated by hyphens. If you run the words all together, the search engine thinks it is all one word , therefore if nobody ever searches for that one long word you will get no hits.

You can also try for .net, .biz, .info to find just the one you want.
The new extentions are becoming more popular and nobody types them in anyway, they just click on a link.
You can register domains for under $10 a year at many places.

You asked about hosting in your other post.
You can get 500 megs of hosting space with unlimited email accounts for $5 a month click here:

I have no affiliation with this company other thana as a customer.
That is enough space to put several huge websites on.

hope some of this helps you, if you have any more questions , please ask away,

robert

[Lynn Terry]

Hello Marjon & Welcome to the SSWT Forum!

I recommend for domain name registrations - $8.95/year and great service.

Personally, I prefer the .com extensions, with .net running a close second (if you have a need to develop both - but I wouldnt recommend registering the .net if the .com is already taken by another company).

While I agree that researching keywords and using hyphenated domain names is a good option - you might also consider branding. Think GoDaddy, Google, Yahoo, eBay - short domain names that dont necessarily relate to the content on their sites.

Keep us posted!

[FrugalFarmer]

Thank you, Robert and Lynn, for the warm welcome and your suggestions.

I thought about hyphenated vs. non-hyphenated for quite a while and decided to go with hyphenated. This because the search engines will be able to pick up each word separately.

Lynn, I searched the nooks and crannies of my brain for a short name that doesn't necessarily relate to the contents of my site but I couldn't come up with anything jazzy. Also, those sites spend a lot of money on their branding which is not something I can afford.

Soooo, I've secured......taa-daaaaa: Frugal-Farmer.com. Now I'm going to find a Mac-friendly hosting site and get the smallest space they have - just so I can start fiddling with it. I've researched several already and just need to make a decision.

I'll keep you posted!

[robert adams]

I am not sure what you mean by a Mac friendly hosting company.
I don't think that what OS you use has any bearing on what the hosting company does.
Most of the hosting companies run Unix or Linux. A lot of them run MS based servers. However, you should be able to create your website on your machine and upload it to your server with no problems. Even if you want to use a MS based host , you could still use your Mac to create the web pages and upload them.

Just my 1.5 cents,
robert

[onlineleben]

First, congratualitions on having your own domain.
In my opinion it is the most importent marketing tool.

Regarding your question, I still provide my opinion in case you have other projects in mind:

>>What if the name I want is taken but the hyphenated version is available?<<
Using the hyphenated version sometimes could cause usability problems. Try spelling out a hyphenated domain name on the phone and you see the problem. eg self-starters-weekly-tips.com (?)
Also using the hyphenated version when the single word version is already taken, can be a problem regarding trademarks etc.
In case the oneword version is taken, but not operated and the person who has registered it is just a domain grabber, than go with the hyphenated version (and maybe try to get the other version as well later).
Hope my point came across. its monday morning and I am still sleepy.

[robert adams]

Using the hyphenated version sometimes could cause usability problems. Try spelling out a hyphenated domain name on the phone and you see the problem. eg self-starters-weekly-tips.com (?)

what does typing it out on a phone have to do with anything?
the idea here is that no body will type in selfstarteresweeklytips as a search term, therefore the search engines will return a hit for any of the words in the domain name that match.
this is certainly not the only thing that matters in SEO but why not cover all the bases you can.

robert

[onlineleben]

[robert adams]

[Tam]

Hi Robert,

I'm going to slightly disagree with you. Sorry, I promise i will make it up tp you elsewhere.

The point is - the dashes only make sense in a domain if it contains relevent keywords, or search terms. And as, you said, there is a lot more to SEO than the domain name. In fact, I think that a non-hypenated name is better.

Yes, there are advantages regarding SEO, but there are a lot of disadvantages. It's a lot harder to get your domain name to be your brand when it contains hypens.

Tam

[robert adams]

[FrugalFarmer]

[robert adams]

[americanadian]