How to choose the right domain name

The first thing people think about when creating a new project is what name it should have. Often originality is lacking, and catchy but already widely used names are chosen. You may come up against the harsh reality, however, and find that the domain name you wanted turns out to be already busy. In this article I will explain some tricks to speed up the search for free domains, the best sites to buy new domains, and some details you should pay attention to.

Table of Contents

• What is a domain name
• Domain extension
  • National Extensions
  • Generic Extensions
• Choose the extension
  • When to choose the .it extension
  • When to choose the .com extension
• What is a subdomain
• Your domain name and brand name
• Domain search engine
• Buying domains that are already occupied
• How to verify who owns a domain
• Italian names or foreign names?
• Long or short domain name?
• Using hyphens, pros and cons
• Best sites where to buy domains
  • Flippa
  • Sedo
• Namesnack
• Conclusions
• HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

What is a domain name

Think about the license plate on a car. There are national license plates, different colors, and each contains numbers that identify the vehicle exactly.

A domain is like your site’s license plate and can contain letters, numbers, hyphens.

Domain extension

A French car and an Italian car, may have the same license plate number, but thanks to the country’s initial they can be uniquely recognized.

The extension of a domain (.com, .it, .net, .eu, .fr) will serve both to uniquely identify a domain and to best decline the domain based on the geographic audience of users you want to reach in the SERP (organic results) of search engines.

National Extensions

Country extensions are used primarily for those domain names that target customers in a particular state. In fact, extensions are available for most nations or areas in the world. For example, extensions fall into this category:

• .it (Italy)
• .de (Germany)
• .fr (France)
• .co.uk (United Kingdom)
• .es (Spain)
• .us (United States)
• .nl (Netherlands)

Or unions of states:

• .eu (European Union)

Generic Extensions

They are used especially by companies or entities, but thanks to a liberalization in 2012 by ICANN (international domain management body) it is allowed for anyone to create their own extension, for a fee of 185,000€. Buying instead on the market domains with generic extensions already available on the market is of course possible for a few euros (some extensions may have restrictions on purchase). Some institutional examples:

• .com: commercial
• .edu: educational institutions
• .gov: U.S. government agencies
• .net: entities that deal with the network, such as ISPs
• .mil: U.S. military forces
• .org: other organizations not best categorized in the top level domains.

Or other more informal ones:

• .agency
• .bar
• .beer
• .bike
• .bio
• .blog
• .boutique
• .cafe
• .casa
• .center
• .clothing
• .cloud
• .club
• .coffee

Choose the extension

One of the things to ask when choosing one domain extension over another is how much it affects ranking within search engines. Reading the guidelines provided by Google it would seem that there is no difference, but this topic always has very conflicting answers, and as always too many opinions generate as much confusion. As always, to find your compass in this fog of information, the best thing I can do is to bring you the field experience accumulated over the years. So does choosing one extension over another present differences in terms of positioning? To date, yes, but it will tend to be less and less so. I could see that the best extensions always remain the classic .com, .net, .it, .org. Secondary extensions such as .eu and .biz have somewhat longer times in ranking, which further increases for all the other lesser known extensions such as .io or .co.

When to choose the .it extension

If your business aims to reach exclusively Italian customers and you are sure it will remain that way in the future, a .it domain is a must. .it domains tend to rank better in local searches (e.g., Wedding Dresses Turin, Dog Training Turin). Here are some examples of sites I have built over the years and the results I have achieved:

When to choose the .com extension

The .com extension is absolutely a must for all commercial businesses that do not want to preclude themselves from expanding abroad. Indeed, the opportunity to internationalize your business may present itself over the years. If you found yourself, for example, exclusively in possession of www.nomesito.it, you would certainly also want to www.nomesito.com, but a bitter surprise might present itself: the domain is already occupied. Below I will explain how to solve this. A new extension would still take time to rank on Google, which is why if you were to have an extension www.nomesito.it, the best options for not losing the ranking you have gained over the years would be two:

• Set the subfolders of your new domain for the new URL to become:

  • www.nomesito.com/it (Italian)
  • www.nomesito.com/en (English)
  • www.nomesito.com/de (German)

In this case you will need to set up a 301 redirect from the old www.nomesito.it urls to www.nomesito.com/it in order to tell Google that the address has changed.

• Purchase a different domain for each language:

  • www.nomesito.it (Italian)
  • www.nomesito.co.uk (English)
  • www.nomesito.de (German)

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What is a subdomain

The subdomain, use the main domain preceded by a dot. If your domain is companyname.co.uk, you might consider creating a subdomain shop.companyname.co. uk or blog.companyname.co.uk.

Remember: positioning a subdomain is equivalent to positioning a new domain by starting from scratch. It will therefore not inherit placement from the main domain. For domains with some seniority and good positioning, this process will be much faster.

Your domain name and brand name

Where possible, it is always preferable that your brand name and domain name match. When looking for a name for your brand, you should simultaneously check that the most common extensions are available for it. If they should already be occupied, look for a name that is adaptable to your target customer base. In 2014 while creating a website for a Dog Trainer, I found myself in exactly this situation. Since this was the creation of a business from scratch, the first week was devoted to thinking about what name to give the future business. I still remember that moment when Davide, the aspiring entrepreneur, came to me and said:

“I decided to name the company ITACA, after Odysseus’ island,” said David. I replied, “A beautiful name, short and easily remembered by customers,” and then added , “Let me just check one thing….” I started typing on the keyboard and a few seconds later here was the bitter response: “The domain itaca.it and itaca.com are already occupied.” In David’s eyes I saw panic; he could only stammer, “Ah, what now?” He thought of the nights spent in searching for a good name for his future business. “Who are your customers?” asked I. He promptly replied, “Dog owners!” At this point I proposed, “How about we purchase the domains itacani.it and itacani.com?”

Even today when we meet again, we talk about this pleasant episode. The decision to add within the name two more letters so as to give the domain a double meaning, proved successful. The business idea that before was just an idea, today has grown allowing Itaca Addestramento Cinofilo to reach80 percent of its clients exclusively through the web and 20 percent through word of mouth thanks to the excellent service offered, ranking first within Google searches in Turin.

Domain search engine

I have tried several sites over the years, but I know that searching for the right domain can take several hours. I found an instant search engine that, simply by typing in the letters of your domain, shows you in real time whether it is free or busy. The site in question is Free Domains which allows you to check right away if the domain you are looking for is free for over 30 extensions.

Another very useful tool is Dot O Mator. It actually allows you to compose the keywords of the domain you are searching for. On the left side of the page you will find two columns: initial part of the domain and final part. Dot O Mator will already provide you with some suggestions based on the most used words, but you can also enter your own list of words, to check combinations. All you will have to do once you have entered your list of words to compose is to click on “Compose.” At this point, on the right side of the screen, you will be shown all the free domain combinations.

N.B: This site currently only allows searches for domains with the extension .com.

Buying domains that are already occupied

It may happen that the domain you would like to purchase is already occupied. Calm down and breathe, let’s go over how you might resolve the situation. There are two cases:

• The domain is from resellers who buy domains in bulk.

Since the 2000s, buying and selling domains has become a real business. There are companies that buy thousands of domains every day at obviously discounted prices in order to resell them at increased prices (thousands of euros). The evaluation parameters they use to decide on the best domains to buy depend on the length in characters of the domain, sonority in pronunciation, historicity and any links on the web.

It just happened to me in 2013 that I bought the Cadonet.com domain for about €20. After two years, I decided not to renew it. In fact, you should know that when the useful period for domain renewal expires (30 days from the day of expiration), there are no additional costs. Beyond these 30 days, another 30 days will follow in which the domain is renewable with additional costs, this period is called Redemption Period. Not all extensions have this additional period, so check with your provider.

Currently, the Cadonet.com domain that I owned is being offered for sale by HugeDomains, a domain buying and selling company, for the “modest” sum of $2,995.

• The domain is owned by individuals/companies

If the domain is already in the name of companies or individuals you could contact them by email so you can see if they are interested in selling the domain.

My advice is to first figure out the value of the domain, to do this you could use a tool called Free Evaluator, which estimates the value of domains. It has a control limit of a maximum of 2 domains per session. You can get around this block by browsing the site through an incognito tab in your browser. The value is symbolic, but it will give you a rough idea of what offer to make.

At this point you will have to trace the owner’s information and contact him, in the next paragraph I will explain how to do this.

How to verify who owns a domain

The WHOIS is a protocol used to figure out who the provider and/or holder of a specific domain is. To get all the useful information in seconds, log on to this site, and enter the name of the domain you are interested in. When registering a domain, the holder has the option of making his or her sensitive data visible or hidden. If available you will be able to copy and paste the email to contact him, if they should be hidden, you will have to do a reverse search starting with the website (if available) and check around (Google, social media or so on) to find a contact person.

Italian names or foreign names?

When choosing your domain and company name, you should always pay attention to your target audience. If your company’s business is 100% focused in Italy, and you do not foresee expansion abroad in the future, choosing a domain consisting of English words, might even be disadvantageous.

• In fact, search engines attach some importance to domains composed of keywords. Ex: pizzeriamilano.it. piscologovenezia.it. Although Google has given less and less importance to this parameter in recent years, getting hold of these key domains could allow you to make landing pages (landing pages) so as to drive traffic to the main domain.
• Local searches almost always occur in the native language. If a user is looking for a psychologist in Turin, they will type “Psicologo Torino”, not “Turin psychologist”.
• Native language names are better memorized by users.

Different discussion, however, for those projects that target a mixed audience (domestic and international). In this case you can aim for more generic names.

Long or short domain name?

A short name will be easier for users to memorize and visually appreciable . This is one reason why 4-letter domains with the .com extension are virtually untraceable. For search engines, there is no difference. In case you decide to start a personal and business site, my advice is still to align the domain name with your business name.

Using hyphens, pros and cons

Same advice as the length of the domain name: it no longer makes a difference to Google. However, it is preferable to use at most one hyphen within the domain name to avoid repetition and to make the website address more pleasant to read. Also if you decide to buy a domain to resell it in the future, remember that domains containing hyphens, usually have a lower value on the market.

Best sites where to buy domains

Domains also have their own market. You can buy and sell domains. As I mentioned there are companies that have made a real multimillion-dollar business out of it. There are dedicated sites on the Internet where private buyers and sellers meet with a guarantee that they will not run into rip-offs. On these platforms you will find advertisers offering their domains or even complete and started sites that are already generating income! I will outline the most well-known platforms below.

Flippa

The most famous and recognized site for buying and selling between individuals, domains and websites. The proposed modes of purchase are Auction (with possible “reserve price” i.e., the minimum price that the auction must reach so that the seller cannot reject the proposed purchase price) or Buy It Now. There is also a section devoted to websites that are already established, which can be sorted by monthly earnings. Among the features that have made Flippa so reliable is the ability for sellers to link Google Analytics data and show buyers reliable data. Payment is made through an Escrow system. In practice, the payment does not reach the seller immediately, but goes through Flippa first. Funds will be transferred to the seller only when:

• The buyer confirms that the domain/website matches the description and is satisfied with the goods.
• The inspection period has ended without a response from the buyer.

The website is international, which is precisely why most of the sites offered are in English. From time to time, however, Italian domains and websites are found for sale.

Among the many features offered by Flippa is the ability to receive a free evaluation of your domain/site before offering it for sale.

Sedo

Sedo’s motto is “Buy, park and sell domains.” In addition to a buy and sell section, if you own an unused domain you can make it profitable by accessing Sedo’s Parking program. This service is free, and once activated, visitors to your domain will be shown an advertising page with links of interest to him. If some user clicks on one of those links, you earn money.

In addition, Sedo provides you with statistics of visits received to the domain you have “parked.”

Namesnack

[2023 Update] I recently discovered a new site called Namesnack that allows you to generate new names for your brand by simply entering a few keywords and the relevant category. The service is 100% free, and the really interesting thing is that it generates names with availability of the relevant .com domain. Absolutely a must try!

Conclusions

Choosing the right domain, is the first step in getting a project done right. Now that you understand what the ideal features of a domain are, you are ready to purchase one of your own.

What about you, which domain did you choose for your project?

Tell me about your experience in the comments.

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

Do you have a business project in mind but don’t know where to start, or do you want to give your business more visibility to attract more customers over the Internet?

WHAT I DO