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Advice on selecting a domain name

Bic Pentameter

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I am a professional who is looking to increase his online presence in order to attract new clients to both grow my personal business in the short term, and to attract new clients to make my practice more attractive if the day should ever come to fold it into some other larger organization. I will post my biography, information about the work I do, have a professional e-mail address...perhaps blog a bit.

Does anyone have any advice on selecting a domain name?

"BicPentameter.com" can be had for a mere $2,900. That is a bit too rich for my tastes. "BicPentameter.net" is available for only $9.99. Various other names, that are more descriptive of the type of work that I would prefer to do, such as "Bespokeshoewearinginternationalmanofmystery.com" are available, but choosing a name like that might limit me to customers who want to hire domestic men of mystery who buy off of the rack.

Currently, I am leaning toward registering BicPentameter.net, then attempting to optimize the site to come up in searches for "bespoke" "international" and "mystery."


Does anyone have any advice?


Bic
 

thekunk07

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nothing that requires any degree of difficulty to remember. i've focus-grouped urls hundreds of times. people only remember 5 or less letter words and acronyms.
 

Mr T

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Originally Posted by Bic Pentameter
"BicPentameter.net" is available for only $9.99.

Not any more. But I will sell it to you for $50.
 

MetroStyles

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Originally Posted by Mr T
Not any more. But I will sell it to you for $50.

devil.gif
 

thekunk07

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_____________
 

Tokyo Slim

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Originally Posted by thekunk07
nothing that requires any degree of difficulty to remember. i've focus-grouped urls hundreds of times. people only remember 5 or less letter words and acronyms.

This is good advice. The problem is that there aren't that many 5 letter combinations left.

12345.com

So the website is... one, two, three, four, five? That's the stupidest website I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have as his URL!
darkhelmet.jpg
 

VKK3450

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Dont go outside .com (or .co.uk. if you are in the UK)

As Kunk said, keep it short and easy to remember.

Domains are like real estate

K
 

Silverback

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Bic Pentameter I have some advice. First I would be hesitant to register a .net and develop it for business because the person who owns the .com could sell it to a competitor who inevitably will get type in traffic from you.

If you are typing in domain names and see one that you think you like then get it. There are lots of people who feel that people register domains they search for within a day. As far as I know this has never happened to me but I have seen this mentioned by a lot of people.

There are a lot of domain names taken already but you may be able to get a decent one pretty cheap now. I think all of the 4 letters were taken last year but now some of the poorer ones may be falling back. I have not checked. NamePros.Com and I believe dnforum.com have sales areas. I would not post on there and ask for a domain name but would search through the ones offered for sale and see if you see anything you life for less than a couple of hundred. Some can be cheaper than you think and are certainly cheaper than if you sent an unsolicited email. Sedo.com also has listings as well as several other places including eBay which seems to have overly sucky ones.

Almost all single dictionary words are gone so I find luck with two word combinations. I had luck last year finding some decent ones for some people. I just tried some stuff real fast and had no luck but I like the combination of the easy words because you can go longer.

Make sure it passes the phone test. That is if you can tell someone one the phone without having to spell it out. Like if you register atespot and eventually go broader and tell people at parties or even on the radio you will confuse them with eightspot.

If you find something spot on and want to develop it and are lucky enough to get the .com see if you can also grab the plural, the .net and .org to keep people from squatting. This is not a rule but if you want to develop a business it gives you a little more control. You can always let them drop.

i+word words and tube words are pretty much played out so if you find one you are lucky but I do not like them.

I was lucky enough to pick up some good ones a few years ago in case I ever wanted to start a business. I wish you luck.
smile.gif
 

Silverback

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Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim
This is good advice. The problem is that there aren't that many 5 letter combinations left.

12345.com



darkhelmet.jpg

Yes and numbers are going fast too. I think I read all the US zip codes are regged and that companies are turning to number domains for multiple reasons.
 

Tarmac

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Does Bic Pentameter mean something? Why did someone buy the .com?

My recommendation is to never go for the .net if you cannot secure the .com already, unless it is some very general and easy to remember domain like drinks.net or bartender.net.

I believe all 3 and 4 character domains are taken, and 5s are almost done.

What you need to do is combine 2 very common words which mean something, for example specialtybespoke.com or something of that nature. There is no squatter in the world who is smart enough or rich enough to secure all the 2-word combos.

Your other option is to use a word which is easy to remember, but is not a real word. The most obvious recent example I can think of is twitter.com.
 

j

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Be careful not to search on a scam domain reg site (including Network Solutions, sadly). I was searching for domains a while back on NetSol and when I went back the next day, the one I had decided on was registered... by them. Pretty freakin' shady. I had to pay them $30 for it instead of $15 or whatever. I'm pretty sure they have someone who just sits there all day and watches the searches and registers anything that sounds good that the person doesn't immediately buy.

This has never happened to me on GoDaddy or Dotster.
 

Silverback

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Originally Posted by j
Be careful not to search on a scam domain reg site (including Network Solutions, sadly). I was searching for domains a while back on NetSol and when I went back the next day, the one I had decided on was registered... by them. Pretty freakin' shady. I had to pay them $30 for it instead of $15 or whatever. I'm pretty sure they have someone who just sits there all day and watches the searches and registers anything that sounds good that the person doesn't immediately buy.

This has never happened to me on GoDaddy or Dotster.

There are thoughts that this happens on most of the registrars including (especially?) Godaddy.
 

j

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It's never happened to me on GoDaddy but maybe they didn't consider any of my searches good enough. It would be nice to know of a safe place to search.
 

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