Cloud Hosting Blog

Hosting veterans and newbies undergo certain dilemmas in the process of Internet domain registration. Giving a name for your website is easy, but deciding a good one is not. A strategically chosen domain name enjoys the benefit of increased traffic from search engines — a big factor why you should carefully examine the domain name of your new website before buying it in a domain name registrar. So what are the important elements should you consider in choosing a domain name and its corresponding extension?

Basically, think of a domain name that speaks the topic of your website. It could be a brand or a collection of keywords. Its been believed that search engines favor keyword-rich domain names. Moreover, as search engines get smarter and smarter, they tend to prioritize websites with domain names that match their own topics.

A domain name can be up to 63 characters, which can consist of any letters in the English alphabet, plus the numbers from zero to nine, and a hyphen or dash symbol as a word separator. A domain name also consists of top-level domain suffix that represent the type of site or country the website is associated. A domain name also consists of top-level domain (TLD) suffix that lets your user know the type of your website or what country you are associated. This comes after the last dot of the web address, which can be a .com, .biz, .net, .info, .org, among others.

You can actually choose any domain name extension but if you have a new website meant for online business, I personally recommend to get a .com as much as possible as this TLD carries an air of legitimacy. If you can’t get a .com, a good substitute is the .net. You do not need to worry though as any of the above-mentioned extensions can get spidered or indexed by search engines.

If you need more help for your domain name, try using Google and look for domain host websites who offer free domain name search. These sites may provide suggestions as you search for the availability of your chosen domain name. If your web pages are not ready yet but you want to buy a domain name, ask your registrar if they offer a domain parking service. It allows your domain name to be reserved and “parked” until you are ready to do something with it.