Domain name acquisition: what is important to know

A domain name is an address that can be used to open the corresponding site in a browser. When installing the site, you need to choose which domain you want to register. If on the old domain, then you can read in this article how to check aged domain names. But you can also domain name acquisition from a domain registrar. Let’s look at how to choose a domain name and where you can buy and register it.

How to domain name acquisition for a site?

If the name of your human baby consists of a first name, patronymic, and last name, then the domain of your baby’s website consists of a domain zone and a domain name. A domain name is a word (or combination of words) that ideally matches your company name. And the domain zone is the well-known letters RU, COM, UA, EU, etc. In this article, you can read about the zone domain.

For example, a domain zone has been created for travel agencies – .travel. For shops – .shop or .store.

The domain should be easy to read and remember. It is optimal to use 5-7 letters in the domain name. However, today many short and sonorous domains have already been purchased. Therefore, as an option – reduce the name of your project to an abbreviation.

If you want to increase your company’s online visibility in the future, choose the brand name as your domain name. If you do not plan to promote the name, then “sew” keywords in the domain. So your site will be easier to promote for thematic queries in the search.

Do not use numbers in domain name and hyphens unless necessary.  The numbers in the domain are relevant only if you are creating a local project. Also, the numbers in the domain can be used if they reflect the essence of the project or the company’s activities.

Before buying a domain, type it into a search engine and check if there are domains with similar spelling in the results. If there is, and you are distinguished by one letter, a hyphen, or different spellings of the same word in transliteration, consider a different domain name. The exception is when a site not from your niche is registered on a similar domain, i.e. not a competitor.

How to register a valid domain name?

It is better to avoid domain zones where cheap domains are sold. Do not use domain zones where domains are distributed for free, for example, to – Tokelau. As a rule, domains from such zones are actively used for doorways (from the English doorway, or front door – a site that does not carry any information, but only redirects the user to another resource) and link spam.

We come to the conclusion that the relevant domain costs money.  For popular domain zones, you will pay about $20-50 per year, a bonus for beginners – many resources give a significant discount for the first year of using a domain. It must be understood that a domain cannot be bought forever, because the ultimate owner of all domains is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – Corporation for managing domain names and IP addresses). So all you do is rent a domain for a certain amount of time and then renew your domain in a timely manner for as long as you plan to use it.

There are many services that are ICANN intermediaries and perform its functions: register domains, maintain domains for their clients, etc. Most popular: Hostinger, Godaddy.com, and others.

You can also total choice hosting premium shared hosting at Hostinger and get a free domain. You can get a domain at any time, as long as your hosting account is active. 

The main factor that affects search engine rankings is the age of your site. Beginners are not lucky here, because Google and Yandex single out sites that are older than 1 year, and ideally, older than three years. And by the way, even if the site is “old”, but you changed the subject, its age for the search engine is still reset to zero. So your baby site first needs to earn the trust of the search engines, and this will take time.

If your domain name has a keyword in it, it might improve things a bit in terms of promotion. But here it is important not to overdo it. The domain zone also plays a role in promotion.

Сonclusions about domain name acquisition

Ideally, the domain should completely duplicate the name of your company:

• If the domain is expensive or busy, add a suitable word to the name of your site that does not change its meaning, or select an accessible thematic domain zone;
• Use domain zones suitable for the direction of your site or territorial domain zones if you plan to promote only in the territory of one country;
• When you pay domain name, do not try to “please” the search engine and add unnecessary keywords to your domain name, this may backfire on you. Remember that an ugly and long domain will spoil the first impression, even if your content is extremely attractive.