Branding

Name That Domain

John Bradley "JJ" Jackson

24 Aug 2009 • 1 min read

A good domain name should have the following elements:

It should be easy to spell. Avoid hyphens, double letters or funny spellings. Hyphens get confused with underscores. Double letters can cause confusion. Unusual or clever spelling gets us all in trouble.

Domains ending in .com are preferred but .net and .us are becoming more common. This ending suffix is called a domain extension.

Two word combinations are preferred. Longer combinations can be hard to remember. I regret to inform you that it seems that almost every two word URL has been taken. Three word combinations, too.

Made up words and acronyms have been the rage—think Google, Yahoo!, and Zappos. Still the cost of creating a brand for a name like this is astronomical. Interestingly enough Google gives higher rank to URLs that use searchable words.

Short is always better, but good luck with that. It is not easy with .com prefixes.