Sunday, September 14, 2008
Recent Domain Purchases
I took the decision a while ago that I wanted to improve the calibre of my domain portfolio, and phase out some of my less stellar ones and replace with some better quality names. To that end, I dusted the cobwebs off my wallet and got buying. Here's what I've purchased recently...
Juicer.co.uk
I knew nothing about juicers or juicing, but I wanted a product based domain, and I wanted it to be short and snappy. I probably paid a bit too much and it has made a pittance since I bought it, but it's starting to finding its feet in the rankings now and I hope to have it well placed for Christmas, when juicers make good presents, only to remain in the cupboard for the rest of the year.
Greenwich.co.uk
I like geo domains, and I like Greenwich. So it kind of made sense to buy Greenwich.co.uk. Many thanks to John from Up The Junction for tipping me off about the Wordpress City Theme which I've been using to develop this site into an all round portal for visitors, residents and businesses.
CottageBreaks.co.uk
I had an existing cottage breaks site which did pretty well, so I thought I would treat it to a lovely new URL. I like this domain a lot, and I coded up a Cottage Breaks Wizard which I was very pleased with too.
NewMalden.co.uk
Did you know that New Malden has a population of 27,500 including 8000 Koreans, making it the largest Korean population in Europe? I got that little nugget by texting Any Question Answered. Unusually, I couldn't find the stats I needed online so I asked them and got the answer for a pound. Nice research tool when all else fails!
StJohnsWood.co.uk
St John's Wood - home to celebs and some of the most expensive properties in London. It's also where you'll find Abbey Road and the famous recording studios used by the Beatles. I think the people of St Johns Wood deserve a local portal and forum all of their own, and in time, they will have it!
There's a couple more London domains in a similar vein, and I'm on the lookout for more. One thing I have learned is that buying domains is actually a lot of fun. It's brilliant, in fact, and slightly addictive. I imagine one day that it will carry a government health warning and Sedo will be compelled by edict to display the disclaimer "Buy domains responsibly - the value your domain could go up or down" etc etc.
And now the more boring part, the slightly harder work of having to develop the actual sites...
By the way, if you have any related sites, let me know as I'm always looking for good link swaps.
Juicer.co.uk
I knew nothing about juicers or juicing, but I wanted a product based domain, and I wanted it to be short and snappy. I probably paid a bit too much and it has made a pittance since I bought it, but it's starting to finding its feet in the rankings now and I hope to have it well placed for Christmas, when juicers make good presents, only to remain in the cupboard for the rest of the year.
Greenwich.co.uk
I like geo domains, and I like Greenwich. So it kind of made sense to buy Greenwich.co.uk. Many thanks to John from Up The Junction for tipping me off about the Wordpress City Theme which I've been using to develop this site into an all round portal for visitors, residents and businesses.
CottageBreaks.co.uk
I had an existing cottage breaks site which did pretty well, so I thought I would treat it to a lovely new URL. I like this domain a lot, and I coded up a Cottage Breaks Wizard which I was very pleased with too.
NewMalden.co.uk
Did you know that New Malden has a population of 27,500 including 8000 Koreans, making it the largest Korean population in Europe? I got that little nugget by texting Any Question Answered. Unusually, I couldn't find the stats I needed online so I asked them and got the answer for a pound. Nice research tool when all else fails!
StJohnsWood.co.uk
St John's Wood - home to celebs and some of the most expensive properties in London. It's also where you'll find Abbey Road and the famous recording studios used by the Beatles. I think the people of St Johns Wood deserve a local portal and forum all of their own, and in time, they will have it!
There's a couple more London domains in a similar vein, and I'm on the lookout for more. One thing I have learned is that buying domains is actually a lot of fun. It's brilliant, in fact, and slightly addictive. I imagine one day that it will carry a government health warning and Sedo will be compelled by edict to display the disclaimer "Buy domains responsibly - the value your domain could go up or down" etc etc.
And now the more boring part, the slightly harder work of having to develop the actual sites...
By the way, if you have any related sites, let me know as I'm always looking for good link swaps.
Labels: domain names, greenwich
Monday, June 09, 2008
.es domain: 123-reg Poor, EuroDNS Great
I was looking for nice brandable domain names and of course, the .es TLD of Spain provides the opportunity to create some nice one word domains, separated only by a ".". I've not seen them much in the SERPs but I do like the aesthetics of creative domain registrations so picked out a name I wanted to register.
123-Reg had a fairly prominent notice on its site saying that they now register .es domains for £14.99. I know lots of people have had problems with them before, but I've never had any real difficulties that I can think of with 123-reg, so went ahead and registered the domain. It was all very painless and went through like a normal domain registration.
A few hours later - probably because I've been spoilt by recent ultra quick domain setups - I tried the domain and it wasn't resolving. Then I went over to www.nic.es to check, and it was still saying the domain I registered was available. I kept an eye on it throughout the day and this didn't change. By this morning, I was getting a bit miffed. When I decide I want a domain, I find I want it under my control ASAP just in case someone else buys it before you have a chance. So I started looking for other registrars and found Nameroute. I tried to register the same domain as the original, but with a hyphen in it which I had planned to buy anyway. It went through, they sent me a username and password that didn't work and several hours later, the domain was still showing as available on nic.es
I was definitely fed up at this point, so I headed on over to EuroDNS where everything went smoothly and within 40 minutes both the domains were registered and listed as belong to me with nic.es.
I have no idea if the problems I had with 123reg and Nameroute were one offs, or maybe they are just a bit slow with .es domains, but from the three companies I have used in the last day or so, the only one I would recommend to you for registering .es domains is EuroDNS. They are affiliate links by the way - I wasn't going to bother signing up but when I think a company does a genuinly great job, I like to promote them.
123-Reg had a fairly prominent notice on its site saying that they now register .es domains for £14.99. I know lots of people have had problems with them before, but I've never had any real difficulties that I can think of with 123-reg, so went ahead and registered the domain. It was all very painless and went through like a normal domain registration.
A few hours later - probably because I've been spoilt by recent ultra quick domain setups - I tried the domain and it wasn't resolving. Then I went over to www.nic.es to check, and it was still saying the domain I registered was available. I kept an eye on it throughout the day and this didn't change. By this morning, I was getting a bit miffed. When I decide I want a domain, I find I want it under my control ASAP just in case someone else buys it before you have a chance. So I started looking for other registrars and found Nameroute. I tried to register the same domain as the original, but with a hyphen in it which I had planned to buy anyway. It went through, they sent me a username and password that didn't work and several hours later, the domain was still showing as available on nic.es
I was definitely fed up at this point, so I headed on over to EuroDNS where everything went smoothly and within 40 minutes both the domains were registered and listed as belong to me with nic.es.
I have no idea if the problems I had with 123reg and Nameroute were one offs, or maybe they are just a bit slow with .es domains, but from the three companies I have used in the last day or so, the only one I would recommend to you for registering .es domains is EuroDNS. They are affiliate links by the way - I wasn't going to bother signing up but when I think a company does a genuinly great job, I like to promote them.
Labels: domain names
Monday, June 04, 2007
Make-Money-Online.info for sale
For sale: Make-Money-Online.info
I got this domain a couple of months back and really like it.
I started a small Blogger blog there but to be honest, I haven't quite had the motivation to do anything serious with it (probably because the subject kind of duplicates what I already do here) , so I thought I'd offer it up for sale and see if anyone was interested in it. I guess a half decent site is going to generate some incoming links to it that automatically have great anchor text.
The trouble I have when it comes to selling stuff is that when I try to think of the reasons someone else would want to buy it, I end up convincing myself I should keep it.
Anyway, the domain is for sale - if you think you could do something with it, get in touch, otherwise I guess I'll sit on it for a bit and try to find some enthusiasm to do something with it later on.
I got this domain a couple of months back and really like it.
I started a small Blogger blog there but to be honest, I haven't quite had the motivation to do anything serious with it (probably because the subject kind of duplicates what I already do here) , so I thought I'd offer it up for sale and see if anyone was interested in it. I guess a half decent site is going to generate some incoming links to it that automatically have great anchor text.
The trouble I have when it comes to selling stuff is that when I try to think of the reasons someone else would want to buy it, I end up convincing myself I should keep it.
Anyway, the domain is for sale - if you think you could do something with it, get in touch, otherwise I guess I'll sit on it for a bit and try to find some enthusiasm to do something with it later on.
Labels: domain names
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
I love it when this happens
I was browsing the Overture Keyword Tool and saw a nice phrase that attracts a good few thousands searches a month.
Did a quick domain search and found a perfect keyword rich domain and knocked up a not too shabby site. I checked my Adsense stats sometime time later and it was already making me money."WTF" was my first reaction.
Did a little bit of digging and turns out the domain has an age of 3 years, and is already linked to and listed on several sites. Some days this job can seem tough. Other days it's so easy it's almost funny!
I just got lucky in that instance, but to do the same thing in a more organised way, you might have a look at Deleted Domains which is a site my friend just recommended to me.
aStore provides aNice Suprise
Amazon's aStore is a nice little tool and I've incorporated it into a few sites, but I must have been a bit slow on the uptake because I've only just realised it can actually rank quite nicely on it's own. I guess because I've integrated it into a few sites using IFRAME I didn't think of it as a site in its own right, but I just noticed they do actually list in the SERPs. And one of mine ranks one for the keyword phrase which is the title of the aStore page. Unfortuntely it's not a phrase many people use so I've reoptimised the page titles with something a bit more search worthy and look forward to seeing where lands when its indexed again.
Did a quick domain search and found a perfect keyword rich domain and knocked up a not too shabby site. I checked my Adsense stats sometime time later and it was already making me money."WTF" was my first reaction.
Did a little bit of digging and turns out the domain has an age of 3 years, and is already linked to and listed on several sites. Some days this job can seem tough. Other days it's so easy it's almost funny!
I just got lucky in that instance, but to do the same thing in a more organised way, you might have a look at Deleted Domains which is a site my friend just recommended to me.
aStore provides aNice Suprise
Amazon's aStore is a nice little tool and I've incorporated it into a few sites, but I must have been a bit slow on the uptake because I've only just realised it can actually rank quite nicely on it's own. I guess because I've integrated it into a few sites using IFRAME I didn't think of it as a site in its own right, but I just noticed they do actually list in the SERPs. And one of mine ranks one for the keyword phrase which is the title of the aStore page. Unfortuntely it's not a phrase many people use so I've reoptimised the page titles with something a bit more search worthy and look forward to seeing where lands when its indexed again.
Labels: adsense, domain names
Monday, March 19, 2007
My new domain is an old domain
I mentioned the other day about some new .info domains I bought
Most of them were pretty obscure so I was not surprised they were available. Another one though seemed really rather decent (well, as decent as a hyphanated .info can be) - make-money-online.info. I really didn't expect to find that available when I did a domain search, because "make money online" is a reasonably popular phrase.
So anyway I got to work yesterday on a quick blog for the domain, just detailing a few basic ways to make money online with the intention of throwing up some pages, letting them get indexed and see where it falls in the rankings.
Checked the server logs today and noticed it was receiving traffic already! So, I get out my deerstalker and pipe to start investigating. Started by searching for the domain in various search engines and found a few mentions of it on some link pages - not of all them looking entirely reputable it has to be said.
Then I used a domain age tool to find out that the domain had an age of almost 3 years. Interesting.
I examined the server logs further and noticed that a particular page was being called in several instances, which was related to clickbank - either a sales page or maybe a "thankyou" page. So I've knocked together a page with the same name to showcase other "make money online" style ebooks which may be of interest to this trafficc.
So there's the good side - I have a domain which is a couple of years old, getting the odd bit of related traffic and has a few links in place.
The downside? Well the links are not from great sources and look a bit spammy. And why did the previous owner let it go? Could this domain have been penalised before by a search engine?
They're the pros and cons of buying a pre-owned domain I guess - but it added a bit of intrigue to my day. I wonder if in years to come, instead of tracing family trees, people will trace domain name ownerships. Granddads will fondly reminisce to the grandkids about that domain name they once owned, before the developers came in and turned it into just another price comparison site.
Most of them were pretty obscure so I was not surprised they were available. Another one though seemed really rather decent (well, as decent as a hyphanated .info can be) - make-money-online.info. I really didn't expect to find that available when I did a domain search, because "make money online" is a reasonably popular phrase.
So anyway I got to work yesterday on a quick blog for the domain, just detailing a few basic ways to make money online with the intention of throwing up some pages, letting them get indexed and see where it falls in the rankings.
Checked the server logs today and noticed it was receiving traffic already! So, I get out my deerstalker and pipe to start investigating. Started by searching for the domain in various search engines and found a few mentions of it on some link pages - not of all them looking entirely reputable it has to be said.
Then I used a domain age tool to find out that the domain had an age of almost 3 years. Interesting.
I examined the server logs further and noticed that a particular page was being called in several instances, which was related to clickbank - either a sales page or maybe a "thankyou" page. So I've knocked together a page with the same name to showcase other "make money online" style ebooks which may be of interest to this trafficc.
So there's the good side - I have a domain which is a couple of years old, getting the odd bit of related traffic and has a few links in place.
The downside? Well the links are not from great sources and look a bit spammy. And why did the previous owner let it go? Could this domain have been penalised before by a search engine?
They're the pros and cons of buying a pre-owned domain I guess - but it added a bit of intrigue to my day. I wonder if in years to come, instead of tracing family trees, people will trace domain name ownerships. Granddads will fondly reminisce to the grandkids about that domain name they once owned, before the developers came in and turned it into just another price comparison site.
Labels: domain names
Sunday, March 18, 2007
50p for .info domains at GoDaddy
GoDaddy has been running a special deal on .info domains for a couple of weeks, offering registrations at 99 cents (or 50p in the UK).
Not sure when the deal expires but I think it's definitely worth picking up a few. They might not be pretty but I've had pretty good success at getting #1 listing on MSN with keyword rich .info domains I bought.
I read an example on a forum of some guy picking up thousands of .infos as investments. I didn't go that far but I did some brainstorming other night with the help of the Overture keyword tool - yes, rumours of its demise were greatly exagerated - and came up with a nice varied collection of domains which I registered.
Not sure when the deal expires but I think it's definitely worth picking up a few. They might not be pretty but I've had pretty good success at getting #1 listing on MSN with keyword rich .info domains I bought.
I read an example on a forum of some guy picking up thousands of .infos as investments. I didn't go that far but I did some brainstorming other night with the help of the Overture keyword tool - yes, rumours of its demise were greatly exagerated - and came up with a nice varied collection of domains which I registered.
- SALE-OF-GOODS-ACT.INFO
- VIDEOGAME-AUCTIONS.INFO
- TV-LISTINGS.INFO
- CLONE-DVD.INFO
- CRIMINAL-JUSTICE-ACT.INFO
- CARBON-EMISSIONS.INFO
- PARKING-TICKETS.INFO
- MSOFFICE-CLTREQ-ASP.INFO
- NET-TUTORIAL.INFO
- MAKE-MONEY-ONLINE.INFO
- DEBT-FACTORING.INFO
- SCHOOL-LEAGUE-TABLE.INFO
Labels: domain names
Friday, January 12, 2007
Domain Name Dilemma
I bought a great domain name a few years ago which was perfect for an IT support type business. I had recently started an IT Support business of my own under a different name and didn't fancy rebranding so soon just to use the cool domain name. So I tried a few web site ideas and nothing really took off so in the end I thought I'll try selling it. I put it on eBay and sold it for £250.
The buyer very promptly paid me the money and I sent him the Nominet forms for him to complete. In the mean time, I was happy to point the domain at his naming servers so he could begin using them. I waited for the forms to come back, sent a few reminders and still nothing came.
Six months or so later, he contacted me and asked if we could do the transfer. Again, I requested the forms from Nominet, posted them to him and waited. Again, nothing came back.
In the mean time, the domain was up for renewal and I didn't want to be responsible for him losing it, so I renewed the domain. Many more months passed and eventually he emailed me again. Apologised for not sorting it before and asked to try again.
So its the same routine for a third time. I get the forms, do my bit, send them to him and wait for them to be returned. And true to form, he still can't pull his finger out and he still hasn't ever returned the signed forms and confirmation letter to me.
Last attempt was about 6 months ago. So the upshot is, the guy won the auction on eBay - probably two years ago now - and paid up, but I am still the owner of the domain. By this point, I'm kinda annoyed with the guy for wasting my time and would be semi reluctant to ever request the forms from Nominet again. I harbour this dark thought that I still own the domain name and it's probably worth more than he paid for it, so why shouldn't I just send him his money back and say sorry, I'm keeping it.
But then again, he has been using it for two years and maybe I should put aside the idea it's mine and respect it's his now in principle and the fact its in my name still is just an admin anomaly.
What would you do?
The buyer very promptly paid me the money and I sent him the Nominet forms for him to complete. In the mean time, I was happy to point the domain at his naming servers so he could begin using them. I waited for the forms to come back, sent a few reminders and still nothing came.
Six months or so later, he contacted me and asked if we could do the transfer. Again, I requested the forms from Nominet, posted them to him and waited. Again, nothing came back.
In the mean time, the domain was up for renewal and I didn't want to be responsible for him losing it, so I renewed the domain. Many more months passed and eventually he emailed me again. Apologised for not sorting it before and asked to try again.
So its the same routine for a third time. I get the forms, do my bit, send them to him and wait for them to be returned. And true to form, he still can't pull his finger out and he still hasn't ever returned the signed forms and confirmation letter to me.
Last attempt was about 6 months ago. So the upshot is, the guy won the auction on eBay - probably two years ago now - and paid up, but I am still the owner of the domain. By this point, I'm kinda annoyed with the guy for wasting my time and would be semi reluctant to ever request the forms from Nominet again. I harbour this dark thought that I still own the domain name and it's probably worth more than he paid for it, so why shouldn't I just send him his money back and say sorry, I'm keeping it.
But then again, he has been using it for two years and maybe I should put aside the idea it's mine and respect it's his now in principle and the fact its in my name still is just an admin anomaly.
What would you do?
Labels: domain names, ethics
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Plans for 2007
The new year is a few weeks away yet, but I feel like I've done all I can now to make the most of this Xmas season (which was really derailed when my toys and bikes sites disappeared from MSN) so I've started to look beyond 2006 and think about how I might do things different next year.
I guess my hope is to resist the tempation to go for cheap, spammy looking domain names and valueless sites and focus instead on trying to build up some online brands.
With that in mind, I today started fleshing out my new affiliate site which is going to be based around the Screwfix Direct product range. In terms of volume of sales, they've been a good performer for me with a low volume site I have called trade-prices.info. The new site which I will be launching is called BagOfNails.co.uk. I think just comparing the two domain names illustrates a better emphasis on potential brand building.
I guess there has to be more to it than just a less spammy name though and I will have to come up with some decent content that makes it a worthwhile site.
I wonder how far into 2007 I will carry this more noble ambition (that's assuming it lasts for the remainder of 2006!)
I guess my hope is to resist the tempation to go for cheap, spammy looking domain names and valueless sites and focus instead on trying to build up some online brands.
With that in mind, I today started fleshing out my new affiliate site which is going to be based around the Screwfix Direct product range. In terms of volume of sales, they've been a good performer for me with a low volume site I have called trade-prices.info. The new site which I will be launching is called BagOfNails.co.uk. I think just comparing the two domain names illustrates a better emphasis on potential brand building.
I guess there has to be more to it than just a less spammy name though and I will have to come up with some decent content that makes it a worthwhile site.
I wonder how far into 2007 I will carry this more noble ambition (that's assuming it lasts for the remainder of 2006!)
Labels: domain names, new site
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Some domains for sale
Book-Club-Books.com
BusinessBrainstorm.co.uk
ChanceEncounter.co.uk
CityStart.co.uk
FreelanceProjects.co.uk
Life-Coach-Directory.co.uk
London-Computer-Support.co.uk
MindBodyTherapies.co.uk
MyReferrals.co.uk
OfficeRomance.co.uk
PMQS.com
Surrey-Computer-Support.co.uk
Text-Only.co.uk
WhatPhobia.com
YourBlackberry.co.uk
Some of these have previous lifes as websites, some of them were registered but I haven't got round to do anything with. If anything in the list floats your boat, contact me using the link in the side menu.
BusinessBrainstorm.co.uk
ChanceEncounter.co.uk
CityStart.co.uk
FreelanceProjects.co.uk
Life-Coach-Directory.co.uk
London-Computer-Support.co.uk
MindBodyTherapies.co.uk
MyReferrals.co.uk
OfficeRomance.co.uk
PMQS.com
Surrey-Computer-Support.co.uk
Text-Only.co.uk
WhatPhobia.com
YourBlackberry.co.uk
Some of these have previous lifes as websites, some of them were registered but I haven't got round to do anything with. If anything in the list floats your boat, contact me using the link in the side menu.
Labels: domain names
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Beautiful URLs
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can enter new sectors and be creating content about completey different subjects to what you were doing the previous week. I only recently did my first travel site and it has immediately become one of my best earners.
So after seeing how great this sector is, I've set about building a site which will be for hotel listings, and I really want this to be a site that generate US traffic and sales.
The domain I am using for this project is star-hotels.org.
Ok, seems alright but nothing special you might be thinking.
But now lets add in some sub domains, like this:
http://five.star-hotels.org
http://four.star-hotels.org
And for good measure, lets put on some interesting sub folder names, like this:
http://four.star-hotels.org/new-york/
http://three.star-hotels.org/london/
And you have possibly the most beautiful URLs I have ever seen! They read so nicely, I really love these URLs and can't wait to start promoting them! The site is still in need of further development but I've got enough up to let the search engine bots get to know it a bit better.
So after seeing how great this sector is, I've set about building a site which will be for hotel listings, and I really want this to be a site that generate US traffic and sales.
The domain I am using for this project is star-hotels.org.
Ok, seems alright but nothing special you might be thinking.
But now lets add in some sub domains, like this:
http://five.star-hotels.org
http://four.star-hotels.org
And for good measure, lets put on some interesting sub folder names, like this:
http://four.star-hotels.org/new-york/
http://three.star-hotels.org/london/
And you have possibly the most beautiful URLs I have ever seen! They read so nicely, I really love these URLs and can't wait to start promoting them! The site is still in need of further development but I've got enough up to let the search engine bots get to know it a bit better.
Labels: domain names
Friday, September 08, 2006
In Defence of the Hyphen
Hyphens are often sneered at for domain names. A hyphen-less domain name is worth much more, they say. People get confused it by it, they tell us. Is it a dash, a hyphen or a minus sign - or all of them.
Personally I've never had a problem with the hyphen. It seems to work well for SEO purposes and my most popular site uses one in its URL - www.what-process.com. I could understand the arguments against it though and tend to think that if I have an idea for a site that harbour massive ambitions for, I would steer clear of the hyphen.
So I was a little bit suprised when I a heard an advert on the radio (LBC) for one of the most prestigious brand names about and yes, they used a hyphen. Mercedes Benz - surely a very brand conscious company - are promoting the website www.mercedes-benz.co.uk with the ad pronouncing it "mercedes hyphen benz dot co dot uk". I think domain owners all over the world can be a bit a little bit prouder of their URLs today, thanks to Mercedes.
Personally I've never had a problem with the hyphen. It seems to work well for SEO purposes and my most popular site uses one in its URL - www.what-process.com. I could understand the arguments against it though and tend to think that if I have an idea for a site that harbour massive ambitions for, I would steer clear of the hyphen.
So I was a little bit suprised when I a heard an advert on the radio (LBC) for one of the most prestigious brand names about and yes, they used a hyphen. Mercedes Benz - surely a very brand conscious company - are promoting the website www.mercedes-benz.co.uk with the ad pronouncing it "mercedes hyphen benz dot co dot uk". I think domain owners all over the world can be a bit a little bit prouder of their URLs today, thanks to Mercedes.
Labels: domain names
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Info on .Info
I said in my recent post on domain suffixes that I quite like the ".info" TLD, used by this website you're on and others that I have recently setup.
On a similar theme, Sedo - the domains people - have done a write up on the growth of .info domains and predicts they will overtake .org and .net by 2010.
A Quiet but Strong Rival to the .COM
On a similar theme, Sedo - the domains people - have done a write up on the growth of .info domains and predicts they will overtake .org and .net by 2010.
A Quiet but Strong Rival to the .COM
Labels: domain names
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Choosing the right domain suffix
Just noticed this is my 101st post - yay!
I thought I'd spend a few minutes today considering domain name suffixes - top level domains and second level domain names.
When buying a domain name for a new site, most people will try and for a .com.
Just the phrase "dot com" is recognisable to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the web and has a great sound do it. It also builds in scalability to your project as there's no real geographic location indicated in the domain name. You can market your site effectively anywhere in the world using a ".com"
If the ".com" that I might want to use is already taken, I'd consider if the site I want to build is realistically only ever going to be a UK site, in which case I'd plump for ".co.uk". If I wanted to retain the possibility to go global, I'd want to see if a ".net" was available.
Last on my list of preferred domain names is .info. Whilst you don't see many big firms using these TLDs as their main domain, they are becoming increasingly common online and I have ranked well on Search Engines using them.
I shy away from .biz as I think it sounds a little bit tacky. I purchased a .biz a few years ago and most people didn't like the name when I tried to promote it. I've seen quite a few people using .org and .org.uk for their affiliate sites. I wouldn't criticise other people's choices - sometimes you just have to get what you can with the right keywords - but for me, .org and .org.uk should be respected and left for their intention which was non commercial organisations, such as charities, non profit groups, political parties etc. I don't think Nominet enforces these rules for org.uk so it's a bit of a free for all.
Lastly, there's the newcomer - ".eu". I've got a couple of .eu's and I have to say I quite like them. Firstly they are short, which if you are concerned about keyword density in your URLs is a great thing, and they are easy to say. I've got a site about weekend breaks (www.weekend-breaks.eu) which has a European emphasis, so the .eu domain seems to just work and fit the site well.
What top level and second level domains do you go for? Who's the best registrar? Tell me what you think.
I thought I'd spend a few minutes today considering domain name suffixes - top level domains and second level domain names.
When buying a domain name for a new site, most people will try and for a .com.
Just the phrase "dot com" is recognisable to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the web and has a great sound do it. It also builds in scalability to your project as there's no real geographic location indicated in the domain name. You can market your site effectively anywhere in the world using a ".com"
If the ".com" that I might want to use is already taken, I'd consider if the site I want to build is realistically only ever going to be a UK site, in which case I'd plump for ".co.uk". If I wanted to retain the possibility to go global, I'd want to see if a ".net" was available.
Last on my list of preferred domain names is .info. Whilst you don't see many big firms using these TLDs as their main domain, they are becoming increasingly common online and I have ranked well on Search Engines using them.
I shy away from .biz as I think it sounds a little bit tacky. I purchased a .biz a few years ago and most people didn't like the name when I tried to promote it. I've seen quite a few people using .org and .org.uk for their affiliate sites. I wouldn't criticise other people's choices - sometimes you just have to get what you can with the right keywords - but for me, .org and .org.uk should be respected and left for their intention which was non commercial organisations, such as charities, non profit groups, political parties etc. I don't think Nominet enforces these rules for org.uk so it's a bit of a free for all.
Lastly, there's the newcomer - ".eu". I've got a couple of .eu's and I have to say I quite like them. Firstly they are short, which if you are concerned about keyword density in your URLs is a great thing, and they are easy to say. I've got a site about weekend breaks (www.weekend-breaks.eu) which has a European emphasis, so the .eu domain seems to just work and fit the site well.
What top level and second level domains do you go for? Who's the best registrar? Tell me what you think.
Labels: domain names
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