Written by Raúl Carrión
Índice
The choice of a good domain will help us a lot in achieving the objectives of our Web project, so we must take our time when deciding which will be the winning domain.
The selection of domains begins by generating a list of candidate domains with the following premises in mind:
Key aspects for the selection of candidate domains
Our domain, our brand
The first choice should be the store brand. A domain must represent the company and therefore must be easily associated with it.
A domain must be easy to remember
In order for our domain to be easily memorable, we must avoid words that do not exist or are too long.
A domain must be easy to communicate
A domain must have a unique pronunciation, so we will avoid using hyphens or numbers.
The litmus test is to transmit our domain to another person through a phone call, if our interlocutor does not need any confirmation question to make sure that he/she has understood our domain correctly, this will indicate that the domain is easy to communicate.
When we use numbers, our interlocutor will probably ask us if it is with letters or numbers: 11811.es or onceochoonce.es.
A domain must be easy to type
Our duty is to facilitate access to the user, the less you have to type, the sooner you will access our Web site.
A domain is for life
Changing the domain name of a project is costly and can have repercussions on search engine rankings if it is not done properly.
Use search keywords
Using the words that our customers use to find us can benefit us in search engine positioning, but we should not become obsessed, nor leave aside our corporate identity.
After this analysis, we will have drawn up a list of candidate domains, at this point we will have to check if the winning domain is available.
Tools for choosing a good domain name
Whois.net
The Whois tool allows you to analyze a domain, checking its availability and if it is registered, to whom it belongs (there is a paid option in the registry, which hides this data, nowadays its use is not very widespread).
Archive.org
If the chosen domain is available, there is only one step left before registration: check its history.
The fact that the domain is currently available does not mean that it has never been used, it may have been part of a Web project in the past. If such a projectwas once penalized by Google for being a SPAM emitter or for having hosted adult material, it is possible that the penalty is still in force, being a burden for your online store.
To perform this check, Internet Archive offers the Wayback Machine tool with screenshots of the previous project if available.
Domain contracting
The Whois tool notifies us that your domain is available and does not have a pernicious history, now is the time to register it. We should not leave it for another time. It has happened to more than one of you that when you go to register the domain the next day, you find to your disbelief that someone else has registered it a few hours earlier.
In this market you will find a great variation on price, we must select the one that projects the most confidence at a reasonable price.
At the time of registration, special attention should be paid to the following issues:
Register the domain ourselves
We must avoid third party companies. There are known cases of companies that register their clients’ domains in their own name.
Register the domain for at least 4 years
Google will reward you with a better positioning as it understands that this is a long term project.
Set an alarm with the due date
If we do not renew the domain in time we could lose it forever.
Registration of auxiliary domains
Additionally, we can register auxiliary domains based on the possible typographical errors that our potential customers may make, for example, if our domain is www.haagen-dazs.com, it is very likely that a considerable percentage of customers will write: www.haagendazs.com, www.hagendazs.com, www.haagendasz.com, etc.
Another reason to register this type of domains is that if our volume of Web traffic is high, other companies can register them to capture these visitors, they are called Typo domains and among the most famous are: www.facebok.com, www.twiter.com, www.iphone.com.
Once this practice is detected, it is up to a judge to decide whether to grant ownership of the typo domain to the original company or not.
To finish our domain selection stage, in the case of having registered several domains, we must choose which of them is the main domain. And then program 301 redirects from the secondary domains to the main domain to avoid losing visitors.
