By the end of
2004, over 66.3 million domain names had been
registered worldwide. With thousands being registered
everyday, it can often be very difficult to find a
vacant domain name to register for your business or
personal web site.
Choose Your
Domain
Firstly, you
must decide on a domain name. It is important that you
choose a name which best represents what your web site
is about. For example, if your web site was on
crayfish, you might like to register crayfish.com.
Make sure that
the domain name is not too long - visitors will not
want to spend valuable time typing in a long web
address such as i-love-freshwater-crayfish-world.com.
Also, try to
avoid hyphens if possible. This will make the domain
name more memorable and promotable. For example, if
you were to tell a customer or friend about your new
domain name, crayfish-world.com, you would have to
pronounce it as crayfish hyphen world dot com, rather
than crayfish world dot com for crayfishworld.com.
Finally, you
must also decide what TLD (or top-level domain) you
will use. There are dozens of TLDs available (com,
net, org, tv, biz, info, us, ws...). My personal
preference is .com - it is the most common and one of
the cheapest TLDs to register (some TLDs cost over
$100 a year, compared to $6-30 a year for a .com TLD).
If your web site is targeted to a specific country,
you may want to use a more expensive country-specific
TLD (eg. .com.au, .co.uk).
In summary:
keep it
relevant to your site's content
keep it short
choose an
appropriate TLD
make sure it
is easy to spell
avoid
punctuation when possible
Try to have at
least 3 or 4 different domain names in mind before you
check their availability. You will often find that
your preferred domain names are already registered,
which is not too surprising considering nearly 67
million domain names are registered. You can check the
availability of a domain name at any of the leading
domain registrars - try GoDaddy.
If you are stuck
for additional ideas, do not rely on the domain
registrar's suggestions (eg. GoDaddy suggests
crayfishworldhome.com as an alternative to
crayfishworld.com, as is taken. Not a good domain
name). Use a thesaurus to find alternative wording, or
try NameBoy
(NB. you do not have to purchase the domain
name at NameBoy. You can find suggestions for
free. For example, I typed in crayfish as my primary
keyword, and found a great name - mycrayfish.com).
Once you have
found an available name, DO NOT PURCHASE IT
YET because you must...
Choose a
Registrar
This an
important step. You will save money (sometimes a lot)
and time by choosing a good domain registrar. Some
registrars overcharge for domain registration (one
particular registrar charges 400% more for a .com
domain than another leading registrar). However, price
is not the only factor to look at. Good registrars are
easy-to-use, provide good support, and quality
features.
To find a
registrar, look no further. NameBays
provides user-ranked registrars. Find out which
registrar provides good prices, features, usability
and support. All reviews and rankings are determined
by customers of the registrar. Just a tip: don't base
your decision on one opinion. Several reviews with
good ratings for a registrar would be a good
indication that the registrar is a good company to
register domain names with.
Once you have
found the right registrar for you, register your
domain names.
The
reviews below are assigned ratings by ConsumerSearch.
These ratings are based on credibility in testing,
evaluating and identifying the best Domain Name
Registration.
Some
reviews also appear in the RSS feed at the bottom of
the page.
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