The Dot Com Name Game

Whew!  This is one that could be a topic for an entire blog.  Not to worry, I’ll start with a single post.

Choosing a domain name is as much art is as it is science.  Considerations range from the emotional connection to a branding message that comes from a carefully concieved name to the search engine love that is generated by bots finding strong keywords in the URL.  Your strategy is clear as mud.

The dot com in this post’s photo implies the value of the top level domain staple.  However, there are differing views as to its true value.  A staunch supporter is SEOmoz.  To quote a part of their post, “With the exception of the very tech-savvy, most people who use the web still make the automatic assumption that .com is all that’s out there…”  I agree with this sentiment – I can’t tell you how many times I have finished typing a URL with .com only to find out it was something else.  Old habits die hard.

At the other end of the spectrum is BloggingTips.com.  They run at it from a different direction.  A quote from their site:  ”If you have relevant content on your site that incorporates well-researched, popular keyword phrases as it relates to your niche, your blog/website will get good search engine ranking – no matter what its named, or what dot it ends in.”  Again, I agree with this position.

Choosing which “dot this or dot that” you should use for your site’s top level domain is only a small part of the decisions involved with naming your site.  In future posts, we’ll explore many of the other considerations for naming your baby.  After all, we want it to grow up and be healthy and strong.

Dave