DailyBlogr - Why webmasters shouldnt worry too much about domain names

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We heard recently that the internet is approaching another milestone – its approaching 200 million domain names ! That is amazing. Just goes out to say how many domain names

are being bought as we speak. The reality is that there are about hundreds of domain names being bought and registered, every single second.

The bigger question is what is being done with all these domain names ?

I know for a fact that webmasters buy loads of domain names, just by impulse and do nothing with it until it gets expired. They would buy it either spotting a nice domain name or because they have a new business idea. Reality is that, out of all the domains being bought this way, only less than 5% is being used.

Its easy to pick up a domain name, doesn’t need lot of thinking. Research, look for options and grab one as soon as you can – that’s the process many go through.

And I believe this is one of the reasons why so many domain names are being bought in bulk.

But when it comes to using/utilizing a domain, there has to be some rules involved, and indeed there are, just that they are overlooked most often.

Even though buying a domain is easy, in order to make a domain worthwhile, either by standing out from the rest or by branding it, there are certain things one need to know.

1. Short is always not the best

There is a popular belief that short domain names are best. This came up during the web 2.0 times when there was a scarcity for actual word-by-word match and people opted for shorter, catchy domain names. Although I agree that they are catchy, in terms of search engines, they aren’t really giving you any advantage.

If you’re starting fresh and does not plan for any aggressive link building strategy anytime soon, its better to opt for a meaningful domain name than a catchy short one.

However, if you have a branding strategy in place there is nothing like a great short, catchy name.

2. Exact word match does not give you any advantage

Though technically, search engines prefer direct word match on the domain, and they help make sense out of it, its best not to take it to the extremes.

Like finding a direct match for a long keyword. Te average length of a domain name ranges anywhere from 7-15 characters, and if you can find an exact match between that limit, its best, otherwise its best not to extrapolate it.

3. Top level domain names are best for SEO

Top level domain names like .com are best when it comes to preference, but that’s not a thumb rule. If you have an option between a dot com and a dot org, go for the dot com version. But otherwise it doesn’t make sense to work around and come up with an awkward domain name just because you need a top level domain name.

4. Domain name may not matter at all in the long run

That’s a fact. When your content is so good that it attracts lots of backlinks, you don’t really bother what the domain name is. With amazing content and tons of relevant backlinks pointing, a domain name like "123exeray.com" can outrank "xray.com". So the focus is not really on the domain name, but on the content and the relevancy in search engine algorithms.

5. If not for branding, don’t really worry about domain names

I mean, if you have a proper strategy in place, then don’t worry about domain names. It only helps initially. In the long run, its the branding, content strategy and volume of content that will speak and get you laurels not the domain name. But when you start a business/blog its natural for people to get carried away and spent an un necessary amount of time deciding on the domain name.

Get over it. Webmasters should spend more time figuring out what to do with the site and the content more than the domain name this one should go in probably at last.

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