What Do You Look For In A Domain Name?

[Lee]

Just curious to see how everyone chooses which domains they register.

Do you have a specific set of criteria that you use when searching for and, ultimately, registering a domain name?

I know when we register domains we like them to be as short as possible and preferably to end in .com and they mustnt have hyphens in them.

What type of thing do you take in to consideration when registering new domain names?

Regards,

Lee

[Xstr8guy]

Short, descriptive and .com.

Finding short .coms that are descriptive is pretty hard, but possible. I just got cumhunks.com a few weeks ago.

[Newton]

Most of the ones I go for are meaningful one word/two word domains and always dot coms, with no dashes and about 10 letters max.

[Newton]

I am looking at the mobile market more than anything at the moment, just picked up gaymobiles.com and a few more

[gaystoryman]

Hmm, guess I am the exception so far. I get descriptive words, prefer they end in com too but I want hyphens in them.. not dashes but hyphens so that the domain itself becomes a good keyword phrase.. helps in the anchor text for the SE's. When possible getting the non hyphen name is an option I consider for the surfer's ease but as a rule.. i get a two to three word domain name that applies to my main keyword phrase that I am planning to use.

Hey any added edge is a plus :thumbsup:

[longboardjim]

What type of thing do you take in to consideration when registering new domain names?

...a name that best describes the "theme" ( meninthongs ) , something catchy and easy to type , and if possible has some "room to grow" ( tyler's room..err.."tyler's world" )

of course i'm also registering names of "new companies" up and comming in hopes that someday they will approach me for their site name.

sincerely ~ ..."when you wish upon a site!"... :gaydays:

[GPallan]

Short - but if it's long it has to have a nice flow and make sense (ie. straightguysphotos.com)

.COM - a must!!

No Hyphens or other Characters - another must!!

Unique - My last domain is something that no one has prob ever heard but i makes sense and has a nice ring. Like "twix" "napster" "badpuppy" or something. However, this is more related to branding (more on this below).

Not Too Descriptive - unless you're going after a very specific niche. But if you don't know where you'd like to take your site in the future, it's a better idea to keep it more general. I mean look at RandyBlue.com and SeanCody.com...these guys can take their companies in many different directions. As apposed to a site like straightguysjerkingoff.com that is pretty much limited to just that, straight guys jerking off. It all really depends on what you've got planned for the site and whether it's going to be representative of your company or your content.

Like i said, it depends on what i'm going to do with the site. Sometimes the more specific the name the better (ie for AVS sites) and other times the more general the name the better (for branding purposes).

Allan

[Mamakity]

There is a criteria??? j/k I knew that. hehe

[DigitalJay]

Whatever I can find, more or less. After a while of trying everything I want, and getting "taken" notices, then seeing they go to a "search" page that installs spyware/adware, I usually go with the first thing I find.

A funny sidenote; The domain I wanted for my music site was available, which was great, first time ever my first choice wasn't taken. One of the suggestions it gave me though was Menlikesex.com - thats a funny domain, I'm surprised nobody has it yet. I bet one of you could do something cool with it, at least a tgp or something.

[BDBionic]

I think the days of domain names being so vitally important are over.

You can properly brand just about anything, and turn just about any domain name in to a name intimately, integrally and deeply associated with whatever it is you brand it as.

So long as a domain name isn't so obviously out of synch with what you're going to be presenting there - (elephantflies.com for a porn site, for example... hehe) - and is generic enough, then you can assign it its meaning, give it its value, create a name with it.

In fact, it certain cases it can be even better to not get some specific, sexual domain name because then that domain name limits you to content and subject matter that fall within it. For example, if you get uncuteurotwinks.com then... you can't get away with anything but uncut euro twinks on that site without having it look out of place. But if you got a name like paulsgang.com... it's completely generic, insinuates nothing, denotes nothing... you can do whatever you want with it. And develop an identity that links paulsgang with uncut euro twinks after the fact, if that's what you want to put up there.

CorbinFisher.com
RandyBlue.com
SeanCody.com
19Nitten.com
AllAmericanHeroes.com
BadPuppy.com
B*edfellow.com
TylersRoom.net
GearCrew.com
ActiveDuty.com

nothing blatantly sexual or sexually descriptive in any of those. And yet they're all quite successful. A generic, non insinuating term turned in to and developed in to something now synonymous with gay sex and the content they feature.

I even think you can easily make the .com vs. .net issue obsolete, as well, so long as whatever .net product you present is done so in a way that ties that .net in to the whole name of the site rather than as just some afterthought that comes behind the name. So instead of GaySexWebsite with the assumed .com at the end, your site is GaySexWebsiteDotNet. It's not hard to establish that.

Don't limit yourself to the available domain names out there is what I say.

[caliente4sex]

well... I will say short is A+ and extremelly relate with the content with a .com or .net (Only)