Domain Names Guide

What is domain name?
Every computer connected to the Internet has it's own address presented with formatted numbers (IP address). It is very hard to remember. That is why "domain name" is used instead of IP number (address). It is more easy to remember or type somesite.com than it's IP address "123.456.74.33" (only example, this is not real IP)

How to choose new domain name

Domain name is the short description of your site.
- It contains most important keywords describing theme of your site.
- It is easy to remember
- Extension is .com (domainname.com preferred)

You can be sure that one word (available) domain is very hard to find today, but adding prefix and/or suffix to your main keyword you can still find some available domain names.

Choose ten (better more) keywords. On that way that they are connected with your site theme. That will be root of your new domain name.

Now, make a list of simple words as is club, my, info or some other easy to remember word. One example of domain name constructed on this way is mykeywordclub.com.
Using those words try to make some easy to remember domain names.

Now, it is time to check availability of those domain names.

Go to (for example) whois.net and enter chosen domain name into the search box. If domain name is taken, you will see registrant info, if is not taken, you will see link to registration page.

That is only one way to check availability of domain name, but be careful when checking on some registrars, if domain name is looking good, it can be registered from that registrar and parked for sale. More details about this will be added soon. So, be ready to register domain name at the same time when you see that it is available.

Domain name registration

If domain name registration is something new for you, you can first choose hosting with free domain included, to save time for more important tasks. In that case, be sure that domain is registered on your name/company. On this page is explained what is neccessary to know when you registering new domain name using domain names registrars
[ domain name registration ]

How to add more domains (add-on domains) to one hosting account, see this page
[ Add-on domains ]

How to redirect old domain to new domain permanently using mod rewrite (apache server)
[ How to redirect domain name ]

Domain name and search engines

Keyword domain names (separated with dashes/hyphens) were popular before. Since they were used for spamming search engines, keyword in domain name is not important todays like it was before. More important is that keyword(s) is chosen to describe your site. When using hyphens in domain name, try to use only two words or max. three words separated with hyphens. Everything over that is looking spammy and it is probably penalized from search engines.
More about domains and search engine optimization you can read in Optimizing domain name and file names for search engines

Domain names suggestion tool

This tool is something you simply need if you want to find and register more domains. More targeted to "domainers", but it can be useful for you too. If you want to play, here is domain suggestion tool. It is not fr.ee, sorry. Anyway, more info there. And bonus ebook.