Finding The Right Domain For Your Company

By Author: Wildfire Marketing Group Content Distribution Team
Total Articles: 49
Comment this article

"What's in a name?" Shakespeare asks in Romeo and Juliet. When it comes to your site the answer is: quite a lot.

A domain name is the English (or other) language designator for your site. Because of the way the Internet operates, that name is associated with an IP address, a numeric identifier that computers and network components use to direct a browser to a site.

It's not required that a site has a name. But directing visitors by IP address can quickly become confusing. Having an IP address IS required, since it's ultimately the way a web site is located by other computers and network software.

In the early days of the Internet the name was chosen carefully in order to help a person remember the URL. That made it easier to type, as well. With hotspots on a page, great search engines, social networking and other contemporary tools, that's not as critical these days.

But from a marketing perspective, it is still important to have an effective domain name. It's still useful to have a site called 'CheapTVs.com' if what you sell are inexpensive television sets. Calling your site, 'InexpensiveElectronicVisualDisplayDevices.com' ...
... may describe your business in some way, but it's a {lot more difficult to send a new person to your site.

Which name you choose can, as a result, affect how many visitors your site gets, how soon. Eventually, if you have information and/or products/services that people want, word will get out. But having a good name can certainly help. Love them or hate them, the Google company chose well.

Of course, the fact is that there are billions of web sites all over the world. That means, you often {{won't necessarily get the name of your first choice.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the internationally recognized authority for managing IP addresses throughout the Internet, along with the top-level domain name-extensions (.com, .net, .org, .edu, and so forth). But registering a domain name is achieved by simply contacting any of a hundred organizations that work as intermediaries to establish and track the names.

GoDaddy, Register.com, Network Solutions and a great many others provide the service for anywhere from free to a few dollars per month or year. You contact them by visiting their site. Then, using a feature they all provide, you can select a possible name. They use something called whois and other software to determine if the name is already claimed. Or, you can check yourself at www.whois.com. Registration is for a {{limited time, but is renewable in perpetuity provided you pay the annual fee.

You may have to go through several choices to find a domain name that isn't already in use. With so many billions of websites, the chances of you finding your first choice are slim, unless you have a highly creative imagination. But, it's also true that domains tend to die or expire. As they do, the name becomes available for use by someone new.

A method for getting on a 'waiting list' is available. You register the domain name you want and if and when the name becomes available, you are offered the opportunity to claim it. Of course, there's fierce competition even on the waiting list for unique names. There are many different methods of establishing priority that vary by company. At any given time there are thousands of so-called auctions going on for these domain names.

Give some thought to your new domain name and research its availability, but don't stress too much over it. The name isn't everything. After all, if Google had built a search engine that produced usable results only 10% of the time, their name would be mud.
Once you have your new domain, it's time to find the best web hosting company, so drop by Web Hosting Reviews to see how people rated the top hosts, and if you need a newweb design to go along with your new domain, be sure to visit Wildfire Marketing Group!