Choosing a Name:

 

There is potentially a lot to consider when choosing a domain name.

 

Personal Site

- Do you want to name the site after you? i.e. SebastianMeer.com

- Name it after an interest? i.e. Spelled.org

- Generic word(s) to help gain visitors? i.e. BusyDay.org

- Something a bit "oddball"? i.e. ApeMonkey.com

- Or just keep it as short as possible? i.e. 8nt.com / n-m.org / 4-1.info

 

The choice is up to you, but does depend on the availability of names. All of these options have seen extremely heavy sales over the past few years and short names in .com/.net/.org/.info/.biz/.co.uk are unlikely to be available; without paying a premium to the current owner.

 

Another option is to register an alternative extension:

- yourname.ws - Western Samoa (marketed as .website)

- yourname.be - Belgium

- yourname.me.uk - Personal site UK

There are over 200 to choose from, but some do have restrictions applied, such as; residency requirements. BagOfNuts can advise on these.

 

Business Site

The words

There are two main schools of thought on this one. The first declares that you should stick to generic words (i.e. ThisMove.com) in order to capture more traffic and become associated with the generic words. The other says that you should always register your domain to match your business name; creating less confusion for customers (i.e. d-i-vproductions.com) and reinforcing the existing brand.

I am an advocate for both. It is becoming less likely that you will be able to register a generic name, but if you find a relevant one; I would recommend grabbing it. As for yourcompanyname.com, I see as necessary for promoting and protecting your brand.

Additionally; I am also a fan of finding a slightly oddball name (i.e. BagOfNuts.com) and naming the company after that. This is especially true where the plumber Mr.Smith cannot get his name or trade as a domain name. (sewerinter.net might work).

The length

Whilst you will probably need to register something relevant; it is always important to consider the length. Domain names can generally be 63 characters long, before the dot, but consider the possibility of mis-typing a longer name.

c-v.org is much easier to remember and type than mycurriculumvitae.com.

Do not compromise the name through too much abbreviation. I would be more likely to remember TheBritishPoker.com than BritPkr.com

Hyphens & Numbers

A standard domain name can only contain the following characters: "0-9" "a-z" and "-" hyphens. No spaces, no underscores and no alternative characters. IDN (Internationalised Domain Names) do allow for non-english characters to be included, but are hard for the rest of the world to type.

The use of numbers in your domain is usually of little benefit. The numbers 2 & 4 can help you get a usable through representing to & for. Others can just be plain confusing (i.e. smithplumbing43.com) unless they represent a matching phone number (i.e. 0800PLUMBING.com for 080075862464 on an alpha-numeric keypad).

Hyphens can help you to seperate words (i.e. DigitalPhoto-Album.com), but will have to be explained whenever you offer the sitename verbally.

Extension

The extension is the bit after the Dot. Generic ones are the most popular and easiest to remember .com (company), .net (network), .org (organisation), .info (information), and .biz (business). These are largely seen as interchangable; although .org is mostly used by non-profit organisations.

If your well-chosen name is not available in any of these, consider using you local extension. These are known as ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domains). There are over 200 to choose from, but some are much better than others: .co.uk (UK company), .fm (Micronesia or Radio Station), .ws (Western Samoa or WebSite), etc. BagOfNuts can advise on these.

Be very careful not to infringe on others Copyright and consider not registering Plumbers.gd if Plumbers.com operates a similar business in the same country/location as you. There is too much chance of losing business to them, as people will naturally remember the name, but not necessarily the extension.

Summary

If you are lucky enough to find plumbers.com, smithplumbers & plumbers.co.uk are all available; register them all. For the sake of £10 each, you can probably afford to make a couple of mistakes and, in 12 months, you can dump the ones you no longer need.

You do not need a website for each. You can point them all to the same website or you can just ignore the ones you don't need.

If you don't get them now, there is a fairly good chance that you will lose them.

 

Domain Services:

 

BagOfNuts can provide the following services:

 

Domain Registration - We will source the best value domain registration available for you. You may register any available domain from between 1 year and the maximum permitted duration (some companies now offer 100 year registrations for TLD Names).

 

Domain Search - If you cannot find your perfect domain; just let us know what you are looking for. We will do a comprehensive search, based on your requirements, to find the perfect name for your site or company. We do not charge our customers for this service.

 

We do offer our own Domain Registration services through BagOfNuts.biz, but it is usually more cost effective to source customer domains through some of the worlds leading registrars (GoDaddy, Registerfly, DynaDot, etc).

 

Domain Management - We will provide a fully managed service for your domain name(s). We will register domains on your behalf, set them up for website and email services, renew them as part of your annual billing and maintain the WHOIS records with your data or anonymously through BagOfNuts.

 

Through the registrars we use, it is possible to register any of over 100 domain extensions and we also register IDN (Internationalised Domain Names) such as śm.com.

 

Contact us now, through our Support system, and let us know what you want.

Domain Extensions:

 

Domain Name Extensions fall into two distinct categories TLD (Top Level Domain) and ccTLD (Country Code TLD).

Generally, the TLD Domains are available to anyone and include .com, .net, .org, .info, etc.

ccTLD Domains are country specific and some of them have residency or business relationship restrictions applied to their ownership. This is becoming less of an issue within a global economy and most ccTLDs are now open for registration by everyone. Some countries are even seeing great financial benefits from opening up their markets i.e .TV (Tuvalu) marketed as dotTelevision, .FM (Micronesia) marketed for FM radio & .WS (Samoa) marketed as dot WebSite.

 

So do not despair if your chosen name is not available as a .com, .net or .co.uk, because their are plenty of alternatives available to you.

 

Behind the URL shows the full current list of domain extensions and you may even find that your initials or trade are represented i.e. cardoctor.MD or PeteFrancis.PF