by BlondieWrites on March 8, 2010
When it comes to building a website, your domain name could make it or break it. A catchy domain name can help people remember who you are and easily find you to give them what they’re looking for. By contrast, a bad domain name can make your website hard to find, so they’ll find someone else or give up trying. Here are some quick and easy tips to help you pick the name that’s best for you.
Here are some do’s to remember when picking your name:
- Make it easy to remember. If people remember a website, they’re more likely to go to it. Our brains process tons of information in a day, and most of it we forget. Just because someone’s friend tells them about a great website, doesn’t mean they’re going to remember the name when they get home to check it out.
- Make it related to your site. When you start choosing your domain name, the best place to start is with a few keywords related to your topic. Take these keywords and try to turn them into a name. While you might be able to find an awesome catchy word or phrase, if it’s not related to your topic, people aren’t going to remember it.
- Make it easy to type. There are certain letters that are just harder to type than others. While it may not make the biggest difference, try to avoid letters like q and p. And avoid difficult combinations. If it doubt, have a friend who isn’t the best typist try to get to the sites. If one takes a lot longer or is harder for them, it’s probably best to throw out that option.
Domain name don’ts - try to avoid these common domain name mistakes:
- Names that are hard to spell.
- Misspellings. If you misspell a common word, people are probably not going to spell your domain name right. Correct spellings are easier to remember. If they don’t get it on the first try, they may try again, but more likely they’ll either find another site with the correct spelling, or simply give up.
- Names including numbers. While it might be clever, it’s hard for people to remember, and it’s hard to spread the site name by word of mouth.
- Names that are too close to a popular website. Sure, you might get the traffic from misspellings, but that’s not going to be enough to sustain a quality website.
If you’re stuck finding a good name, try going to a site that sells domain names and entering your keywords. Often, sites will help you find related names that are available. And that way, you don’t have to worry about trying to buy a name that is already taken from someone who doesn’t want to give it up.
Popularity: 2% [?]
by BlondieWrites on December 10, 2008
A few minutes ago, I received an interesting email from one Dan at DomainGuardSystem.com concerning a domain name I previously owned, a dot org. In this email, Dan is attempting to get me to pay him $99 for a domain name that he does not own. In fact, it is available on GoDaddy.com for a mere $7.69 a year, when used with the discount code zine3.
This type of scam is being played for one purpose: to take the hard earned money of unsuspecting people. Paying a price for a domain name that someone owns and that you wish to buy is one thing. Paying a huge sum of money for a domain name that is not owned is nothing short of a scam.
At the present time, it appears that Dan is targeting only fot org domain name owners. I did a search and found another person who received the same type of email, nearly word for word, at http://boston.conman.org/.
Here is the copy of the email, with the domain name left out.
From: dan@domainguardsystem.com
To: teddybearteam@aol.com
Subject: xxxxxxx.com for the owner of xxxxxxx.org
Date: 12/10/2008 10:16:40 P.M. Central Standard Time
Hi,
The domain xxxxxxx.com has recently become available for us so we are offering it to you, because you are the owner of its .org version.
Domain Guard System is intended to assist our clients with their promotion on the Internet. We use many methods to increase the effectiveness of a client’s presence on the Web. Securing .com domains for anyone using another extension for their site is one of them.
There are several reasons why owning a .com is of great importance for any domain holder:
- It’s in the essense of Internet: .com is most popular and widely used, and the typical user usually supposes that he/she will find you at xxxxxxx.com. A lot of companies and organizations who use other extensions as primary (.net for Web services or private sites, .org for non-profit organizations etc.) are securing .coms not to lose the visitors who are seeking them there. With .com, you will be free to use both your .org and .com so you will only gain visitors.
- By owning the .com, you will be sure to stay #1 in your own name space.
If you are interested in this domain, please act quickly, as we soon intend to bring it to the auction where the acquisition cost will be higher than now.
Please use the link below to discover the current cost of the domain, read more about the advantages of owning a .com and get information on the details of the purchase and domain transfer procedure:
Secure xxxxxxx.com now!
Best regards,
Dan Johnson
Domain Guard System
mailto: dan@domainguardsystem.com
Given the fact that this person seems only interested in making money off of unsuspecting domain name owners, it’s a good idea to ignore emails from him and if you want the domain name, simply go to GoDaddy or your preferred domain name registrar and buy the domain name there. This guy is pocketing about $90 per sale if you buy from him. He doesn’t own what he is trying to sell, he has a price set that is nonsense, and this screams SCAM.
Popularity: 43% [?]
