Choosing the right domain name

To begin, let me just say that this article would make more sense for people who are actually building a site from scratch. All search engines, lay a emphasis on the domain name, for example if you are creating a website for selling used cars, a domain name like used cars India.com will actually almost instantly ensure that your website has a page on listing for the keyword used cars India. Such is the weight age that the domain name carries in search engine optimization.

Before you go out and start looking for a domain name that has the same keywords you are targeting, just remember a few things. First, don’t get greedy; a domain name like used cars used motorcycles used jeeps india.com is not only ridiculously long, but might not get you anywhere. For a simple reason, search engine may or may not interpret the entire domain name as a single keyword. So in effect unless someone actually types in the keyword used cars used motorcycles used jeeps india, you might not get any traffic for any other keyword. You are better off picking one or at the most two keywords and then choosing your domain name.

Secondly, don’t think that the domain name alone will optimize the site, agreed that search engines are biased to the domain name, the reasons for the bias are still generally unknown. Some believe that search engines do it to decide the genuineness of the site, for example a bradpitt.com, will obviously be the first logical choice for someone looking for Brad Pitt. What this has done is actually make some very popular domain names, very very expensive to buy. From an search engine optimization point of view, the domain name can no longer be ignored. But on the other hand having a good domain name alone does not do it (IMDB is currently the first site that comes up if you type in Brad Pitt on Google).

So in summation, one can clearly say that having the right domain name is important to any search engine optimization exercise, in fact if you have the luxury of advising a client from scratch, you best look up the keywords that he wants to target and advice him to choose a meaningful domain name, however if you don’t have the opportunity don’t worry. As I mentioned in the example above, the domain name alone does not guarantee you a high rating.

Rishi Modi