One of the most common questions I'm asked by my clients is "What domain name should I use for my website?". In response, I would recommend considering several factors. In the following article, I will go through these factors in a question and answer format:

1. Should I choose a country code domain name (like .CO.UK or .CA), or a global top-level domain like .COM?

If your target market is specific to one country, I would recommend using a country code domain name, especially if you sell physical products that can only be delivered within that country. Many people I have spoken to tell me that they are often uncertain of where online stores are located, and it is not until they reach checkout and are asked to pay in a foreign currency that they are not able to order the products in their shopping basket due to the website not selling internationally. Having a country code domain name instantly lets your potential customers know that you are located in the same country as them, and that your service is designed specifically for that nation.

Alternatively, if you have a website developed for the purpose of sharing information, with little or no content which is only relevant in one part of the world, my advice would be to choose a global top-level domain such as .com.

2. Should I break up words within my domain name with hyphens? Is 'widget-shop.com' better than 'widgetshop.com'?

There seems to be a general consensus within the search engine optimisation industry that using hyphens helps search engines deduce what the actual words within an URL are, therefore leading to those pages being ranked higher in the search engine results. However, there is also speculation that using 2 or more hyphens within the domain name incurs a penalty. With this in mind, I would advise anyone who plans to receive most of their custom from organic search engine results to use one hyphen in their domain name to separate their targeted search keywords.

However, if your business model is not heavy on search engine optimisation, my recommendation would be to not have any hyphens in your domain name, as the vast majority of internet users intuitively enter domain names in their browser address bar without any hyphens. In domain name value appraisal circles, the non-hyphenated version of a domain name is usually considered to be of greater worth.

For search engine optimisation, studies show that one hyphen may give you an advantage, but on the whole I would recommend not using any hyphens in your domain name.

3. Is it better to have digits (2, 3 etc.) or words for numbers (two, three etc.) in my domain name?

Generally speaking, I would dissuade anyone using word of mouth advertising from having any numbers, either as digits or as words, in their domain name. The reason for this is that a domain name should be easy to remember and easy to spell correctly. Let's say for example you had the domain name 'widgets4u.com.' If you meet someone that is interested in your product, and tell them to visit your website, you are going to have tell them specifically that the 4 is numeric and the U is just one letter. Otherwise, they may input 'widgetsforyou.com,' 'widgets4you.com,' 'widgetsforu.com' and end up at the website of one of your competitors.

If however you are prepared to accept this risk, in my experience the layperson tends to instinctively put the numeric version of a number in a domain name. Therefore, use 'widgets2.com', not 'widgetstwo.com'.

4. How long should my domain name be?

As short as possible. Long domain names are harder for your customers to remember, take longer to type, longer to spell out (you may find yourself having to spell your domain name letter-by-letter to some clients) and also may be harder to actually fit onto your business cards, print advertisements and similar. I have one client whose business name consists of four words, two of which are tricky to spell. My advice to him was to use a domain name with the first letter of each word only, which has proved very easy to remember.

If you are targeting specific search keywords, I would recommend that your domain name consists of those keywords and as little else as possible. If you were targeting 'purple widgets,' my advice would be to use the domain name 'purplewidgets.com'. If that domain name is not available, I would recommend adding one extra word to the end. For example, I personally have a web site which targets the search keyword 'weight loss'. As one would expect, 'weightloss.com' and 'weightloss.co.uk' were already registered - so I opted for the domain name 'weightlossweb.co.uk'. Choosing an added word that begins with the same letter as your first keyword helps your visitors remember your domain name. So, going back to the purple widgets example: Alternative domain names could include 'purplewidgetpro.com,' 'purplewidgetpower.com,' and 'purplewidgetparadise.com.'

5. Are some domain name extensions better than others?

Yes. Generally speaking, the most desirable top-level domain is the .COM. Charitable websites may choose .ORG in order to declare that they are a charitable organisation, but there are currently no restrictions on who can register .ORG domain names or what they need be used for - and many commercial websites still use them.

My personal "league table" of favoured domain name extensions is as follows:

1 .COM
2 Country-code (.CO.UK, .CA, .IE etc.)
3 .NET
4 .ORG
5 .BIZ
6 .INFO
7 .NAME

I currently have in excess of 300 domain names registered, none of which are .INFO or .NAME. I would only recommend that one registers .BIZ, .INFO or .NAME domains if they have a large website with a brand name to protect. For example, my business trading name is 'Starsol.co.uk'. At the time of writing this article, 'Starsol.com' is currently registered by a domain name squatter, who is asking for an extortionate price. I have chosen to register 'Starsol.biz' to prevent a similar situation occurring in future. I feel it is very unlikely that anyone actually types the domain with the .BIZ extension into the address bar looking for my website - but if I didn't register the name myself - someone else might and go on to use it for purposes that may harm my brand.

6. What about .TV and .WS?

Although they may be marketed as such, .TV does not mean television and WS does not mean website or world-site. .TV is the country code extension for Tuvalu and .WS is for Samoa. Tuvalu is small island country located in the Western Pacific Ocean with a population of approximately 11,000 in the Western Pacific Ocean that gained independence from the UK in 1978. Samoa, also in the Pacific, gained independence from New Zealand in 1962 and has a population of around 180,000. If these countries are not your target markets, I would personally dissuade you from using their country code domain names.

Other similar domain names include .FM (Federated States of Micronesia) which masquerades as the TLD for radio stations and .CC (Cocos Islands).

7. Why do some domain name registrars charge more than others? Are their domain names better?

Surprising, this is a question I have been asked on several occasions. Just like how some supermarkets which charge more than others for identical cans of fizzy drink than others, domain name registrars also charge differing domain name registration costs. Although some domain name registrars may provide extra tools with domain name registration, a domain name registered for $8.95 a year will work in exactly the same way and one registered for $35.00 a year. If I may give my own service a plug here, Starsol Domains at starsol.co.uk/domains/ offers .COM registration for what I believe are some of the fairest prices on the 'net.

I hope this article has helped you in your search for a perfect domain name. I would like to add however, that with domain name registrations being so cheap, that registering multiple domains and redirecting them all to your one "main domain" may prove to be a very good idea. If there is one domain that you will be heavily marketing, I would strongly advise you to at least also register the .COM version of that domain name too, and if you are outside the United States to also register the relevant country-code version of the domain name. Many of your customers may input the wrong extension when looking for your site, possibly leading to you losing their custom to a competitor of yours; or like my personal situation which I described earlier, may lead to a domain name squatter registering a domain similar to yours in the hope that you will spend many thousands buying it from them.

About the Author:

Rupe Parnell is the founder and lead developer at Starsol.co.uk, a website development and management firm located in Norfolk, England. Rupe specialises in creating professional grade PHP scripts, a selection of which are available free at Starsol Scripts.

by Dan Prinzing, DrTandem Web Page Design, July 2003 

Before delving into the qualities that make a domain name great, we should first explore just what a domain name is. It really isn't a name at all, it's a numerical address. For instance, my website, DrTandem.com is really 65.18.168.206. So, depending on your browser configuration, instead of going to drtandem.com to get there, you could go to http://65.18.168.206. Go ahead, try it. I'll wait. I'm sure you'll agree that remembering DrTandem.com is much easier than 65.18.168.206. The creators of the internet realized this, as well. By the way, Al Gore wasn't one of them. 

The numbers are an IP (internet protocal) address. When you enter a name such as DrTandem.com, it is translated into its IP address by a domain name server (DNS). The name and address are located in routers that are loaded with the information to direct your request to the proper web server. Without getting into technical detail, it's just a convenience. Imagine trying to remember all of your friends by their Social Security number!

Now, that we have a better understanding of what a domain name is, what makes it a good one. Well, from what we have just learned, it's important that it be easy to remember. You may have also noticed that at the end of a domain name is a suffix such as .com, .org, .net, .gov, etc. These domains, also known as the "top domain" or "domain extension" were originally used for designating the purpose of a site. Dot com was for commercial sites, .net was for a network related site, .org was for organizations and .gov was for the government. There are several others, but you get the idea. Unless you work in the government, you can't have a .gov domain. Most of the others can be acquired for any purpose. By far the most common is .com. As a matter of fact, people entering a domain name, also known as a URL (uniform resource locator), will many times enter .com out of habit, although they are trying to reach one of the others. That narrows our field of preferred choices.

We want something short and easy to remember in the .com domain. SomethingEasyToRemember.com. In this example, "SomethingEasyToRemember" is known as the bottom domain. When you select a domain name, you need to select both, so from here on we'll simply discuss them as one entity, the domain name. Choosing a name that has something to do with your business will assist greatly in making it easy to remember. 

For example, a name such as LotionLady.com pretty much fills the bill. You can guess that it's a woman that sells lotion/skin care. In contrast, my domain name DrTandem.com is a good example of what not to do. It's hard to remember, hard to spell as people don't know whether to use "Dr", "Dr." or "Doctor" for the first part and "tandem" is hard to spell over the phone with it having both a letter "n" and "m". Also, it doesn't give anyone a clue as to what I do. Well, at least it's short with a dot com domain.

You may be wondering why I use DrTandem.com or why I don't change it. The name comes from an obscure 70's song, "Dr. Tandem Takes a Ride". Tandem refers to telephone company switching tandems and I used to work as a telephone repairman. I reserved the domain name long before I had a need to use it. Most of my business comes via word-of-mouth, so I'm not terribly concerned with search engine rankings for my site. But, I digress. Let's get back to our discussion.

Another thing to consider is to use a keyword or two in your domain name, if possible. It would appear that certain search engines such as Google may use the domain name as part of its search criteria. For instance, there's LotionLady.com that is ranked high with a search for "lotion" on Google. Yet, Lotion.net, which has absolutely nothing to do with lotion or skin care, is right up there with it. If you look at Lotion.net's source code, the actual word lotion is used maybe once. This gives great suspicion that it is simply its domain name that is driving its ranking. Other sites that link to it may also contribute to its rank, but that's another topic.

So, let's review the qualities that make up a good domain name for business:

~Easy to remember 
~Short 
~Descriptive of the site 
~In the "dot com" domain, if possible 
~Uses a keyword or two 

Is there anything else to consider? Yes, copycats or just plain confusion! If you have a good domain name, you may want to consider reserving similar names or the same ones in different domains. Let me pick on LotionLady.com, again. If you try LotionLady.net, .org, .us or Lotion-Lady.com (notice the hyphen?), you'll discover that they all point to LotionLady.com. Sure, there are other domains such as .info, .bus, .tv, etc., but Lotion Lady (R) has done a reasonable job of protecting itself from copycats and confusion. 

In closing, I can't state strongly enough, if you find a domain name you like that is available, reserve it now! They are inexpensive. If you don't start a website you can always let it expire or even sell it. That's right, sell it. There are quite a few domain names that are registered without having an associated website. They are owned by people who were clever enough (unscrupulous?) to reserve domain names they have no intention of using. They're known as "cyber-squatters". So, why are you still reading? Go find and reserve your domain name. Need help? Just ask me.

DrTandem is Dan Prinzing, a freelance webmaster specializing in affordable custom websites for small businesses. He is located in the coastal community of Encinitas, north of San Diego. DrTandem.com

by Dan Prinzing, DrTandem Web Page Design, October 2003 

While you are preoccupied with high-tech hackers and viruses, you may have overlooked the more obvious low-tech threats to your website. Cyber-squatters. Scum of the Earth or entrepreneur? It probably depends on where you stand and the truth may lie somewhere between the two. I lean toward scum of the Earth. However, by the end of this article you may be inclined to become a cyber-squatter for your own good. You may be asking yourself just what a cyber-squatter is. Basically, it's a person or company that has registered a domain name in bad faith. In other words, they have no intention of using it for a website or at least a legitimate website.

Cyber-squatting had its roots long before the internet was conceived. When toll-free 800 numbers gained popularity, many companies wanted ones that spelled out their names or slogans and such. The telephone "dial" (now usually a push-button) has letters assigned to the digits two through nine. Noticeably missing are the letters "Q" and "Z", but I digress. Some individuals realizing that these vanity 800 numbers were limited, leased them from the phone company with no intention of ever answering them. For the right price, they would sign a release to the company that wanted the number.

Today, this practice has been extended to domain names used on the internet. (For a detailed explanation of just what a domain name is, please visit my article on Domain Names.) Only now, it's even easier for the cyber-squatter. No longer do they have to call to the phone company and complete a lengthy order process. They don't even have to pay a monthly fee as they did with a phone number. Now they simply register them in just a couple of minutes from their computer for less than $10/year each. Some use bulk registration for even greater savings.

I typically will explore possible domain names for my clients and have seen an alarming number of cyber-squatters. One recent experience sticks out in my memory. A client wanted a certain domain name that she found reserved, but without an associated website. I explored the requested domain name (which really was uncommon and I am omitting for obvious reasons) further and contacted the owner of record. After a couple of carefully worded e-mails to hide my true interest, the owner quoted a price of $25,000! I had already warned my client that anyone willing to squat on this particular domain name would want an unreasonably high price. Needless to say, he can keep it. Such an outrageous asking price didn't deserve a counter-offer.

You may be wondering how cyber-squatters such as this ever make any money. Well, some large corporations will pay it and just absorb it as a cost of doing business. Movie companies were famous for this. When they want to promote a new production they will usually include a website for the movie. Of course they want the movie's name as the domain name. They're much more savvy now. As soon as there is an idea in the works for a movie they will register a domain name for it. Today, if someone is squatting on it, they won't even negotiate. They will simply do things like add the word "The" to the domain name or "TitleOfMovie-the_movie.com, etc. Still more will use their corporate domain name and create a subdirectory for the movie title such as ProductionCompany.com/MovieTitle. The result of their not negotiating with cyber-squatters has actually resulted in diminished squatting on movie names. This has not led to a decrease in cyber-squatting in general. Like the man trying to sell watermelons for $50,000 each, it only takes one sale to make him money and encourage others to do the same.

Selling a domain name is not always the goal of the cyber-squatter. Other purposes can include copycat names of existing popular domains. This may be done by your competition in an effort to confuse visitors and lure your business to them. Let's say you have a successful website called "MyWidget.com" (which as of this writing appears to be owned by a real cyber-squatter). Your competition may launch any or all of the following (these may or may not actually exist):


~MyWidgets.com 
~MyWidget.net 
~My-Widget.com 
~MyWidgeter.com 
~MyWiddget.com 

The list is only limited by your imagination. 

Sometimes it's not for the purpose of stealing your business, but your traffic. A classic example of this is the website for our nation's capitol, whitehouse.gov. The dot-com version is an adult site. The government's website probably gets a gazillion hits a day. A small percentage (still a gazillion) of visitors may enter the dot-com suffix out of habit. Imagine their surprise when they explore that site's content! During the Clinton administration, some may have thought they had actually reached the correct website. Seriously, your business can do without that kind of mistaken exposure.

Then there is the dirty, mean and nasty. It could be an envious competitor, a disgruntled employee or customer. They take your site's domain name and simply tack the word "sucks" on the end. So, your domain, "MyWidgets.com" becomes "MyWidgetsSuck.com". They could manipulate the domain name in other ways. For instance, if someone didn't like the food chain Taco Bell, they could call their site "TacoHell.com". You get the idea. They then fill their website with dirty, mean and nasty things to say about your site and business. Although, these are not cyber-squatters in the true sense of the term, they can be a thorn in your side.

Indeed, lawsuits have been filed over the use of domain names. A recent one that comes to mind is Madonna.com. In 1998 an American paid $20,000 for the domain name Madonna.com from a cyber-squatter. That seems pretty cheap considering the other moron with whon I was dealing was asking $25,000 for the much more obscure domain name that my client wanted. Anyway, after purchasing the domain name, he featured sexually explicit photos and such (not of Madonna). In other words, an adult themed website. 

Madonna (the entertainer, not the Virgin Mary), took her claim to the the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Although, not a court, this organization has the authority to reassign domain names. Madonna prevailed as do over 80% of the plaintiffs that bring such actions to the organization. I would wager that many of those plaintiffs had some financial clout as does Madonna. I wonder how they would have ruled if the Catholic Church decided to enter the fray?

Madonna probably was not intimately involved in this cyber dual. She most likely told her her lawyers "I want it, get it." You probably don't have that luxury. You may now see why you might decide to fight the threat of cyber-squatters by using their same tactic of registering domain names that you normally would not. You may want to think of it as using your powers for good rather than evil. Surely, you can't reasonably register every domain name that can possibly cause you grief. However, you can register a reasonable amount of variations. I would suggest you seriously consider other domains besides dot com, such as dot net, dot org, etc. Depending on your domain name, the plural or singular versions may be appropriate as well as hyphenated versions.

How do the cyber-squatters market their wares? There are a number of ways. Some put a blatant "For Sale" sign on the web page when you go to their site. Others will make it known by including it in the public registry database. Many will advertise through one of the many companies authorized to register domain names. Still others will use eBay. Don't believe me? Go there and search using the term "domain name." Sort the results by "highest price". 

Once you register your extra domain name(s), it's a simple matter of forwarding them to your true website. You don't need a separate website for each domain name. If you haven't registered your domain name and it's still available, I strongly urge you to do so. Am I advocating cyber-squatting? Not really. As long as you have done so in good faith by having the intention of using it or protecting an existing website. Registration can be for as short a time as one year. If you don't use it within a year, you probably aren't serious and should abandon it.

DrTandem is Dan Prinzing, a freelance webmaster specializing in affordable custom websites for small businesses. He is located in the coastal community of Encinitas, north of San Diego. http://www.drtandem.com

- by Niall Roche, (c) Niall Roche - All Rights Reserved
http://www.affiliate-advocate.com

What is a domain name?
A domain name is the location of your website on the Internet. Your domain name will be what you become known by online so it's important to get it right.

Each website on the Internet is labeled with something called an IP address which is the actual address of the website online. A typical IP address looks like this: 159.134.27.64. Remembering a string of numbers like that is difficult so a domain name translates all those numbers into something like amazon.com. This is far easier to remember.

#1 Dot what?
Each domain has what's called an extension. The most well known of these extensions is .com. This, however, is not the only type of domain extension available. There is also:

.net
If you can't find your preferred .com domain name you could always choose the same domain with a .net extension. It might not have the same ring as a .com but is still as just useful as a .com.

.org
These domain extensions were orginally designed for educational and more formal websites. Anybody can register a .org, however, so you have more options for domain selection.

.info
A more recent introduction to the domain name game are .info domains. Many of the valuable .info domains were bought up overnight but there's still a huge range of good .info domains available. With a little creativity you could really make a .info work for you e.g. moviereview.info.

Bear in mind that most web surfers tend to remember .com more easily than anything else.


#2 Branding vs Business Name
There is an age old debate on the whether or not you should establish a brand name online or use a domain that more actually reflects your real business. Let's look at Amazon as an example. Amazon sells books online. Most people setting up a business would have chosen say booksonline.com instead of amazon.com. Amazon has since established itself as a brand name of global recognition - proving the value of building a brand name.

You'll need to choose between the two. Brand name or your own business name. Consider how your domain sounds, how it might look on a business card and how well it relates to your business.

There's no one right answer to this question. You need to choose what makes most sense for you, your website and your business in general.


#3 Hyphenated or not
This is another area of debate. Should your domain be one single word or should the words be separated by hyphens? There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. Single word domain names can be easier to explain, use on header paper and lend themselves to brand names very well. Single word domains are in very, very short supply.

Hyphenated domains names can be slighltly more difficult to explain, may not look as well on headed paper and possibly harder to establish as a brand name. There's no shortage of multiple word domains.

The single biggest advantage a hyphenated domain has is that searche engines can "read" the domain more easily. For example in a domain like foreignholidaysonline.com the search engine can only read the first word "foreign" and that's it. It can't tell anything else about the website domain name.

If you hyphenated that to foreign-holidays-online.com the search engine can read "foreign", "holidays" and "online" as separate words and therefore knows that this website is about foreign holidays.

A well chosen hyphenated domain name can be just as effective as a single word domain name.


#4 Your Domain Registrar
These are the people you pay to register the domain for you. There are dozens if not hundreds of these companies out there so which one do you choose? This takes some research but things worth checking are:

* Do you retain sole ownership of the domain or does the registrar keep some level of control over it?

* Search Google for any horror stories relating to the registrar

* Does the registrar allow you to transfer the domain to another registrar?

* Is there an online control panel for domain administration?

* How easy is it to change the domain Name Servers?

Shop around for domain registrars. What you really want to find is a previously satisfied customer to ask questions before you buy.


#5 Cheap Domain Names
You can save a lot of money on the domain names you purchase. A typical .com domain costs about $15 to register from most registrars. However you can get the same domain for as little as $7.95 from other, very reliable, companies.

Oddly enough some of the cheaper domain registrars are more reliable, have fewer horror stories and offer equally good customer service as their more expensive competitors.

Are there any disadvantages in using a discount domain registrar? Will it affect your website in any way? The answer to both is a definite No.

If you'd like more information on choosing and setting up your domain name then visit affiliate-advocate.com for our Domain Guide.


http://www.affiliate-advocate.com is run by Niall Roche. The site offers reviews of affiliate marketing ebooks and software as well as advice and tips for new and existing affiliate marketers.

The internet works because every computer that is connected to it, all use the same protocol to communicate and to route traffic. Without this universal protocol the networks that make up the internet would not be able to route the information to the correct destination. The TCP/IP protocol that deals with the way information is shared across the internet is one of the oldest and certainly one of the most reliable. The numerical address of the protocol is what is known as the IP address of the computer, and every machine is given a unique number when they connect to the internet.

This gives us humans the main pitfall of this long established system; we find it hard to remember numbers. As humans we like to give everything a name, to help us identify things and recall them later and it is much easier to remember an alphanumeric name than a series of numbers. A good analogy of this is with a public telephone directory, where we look up a name to get the corresponding telephone number, imagine how it would be to remember a number and look up the corresponding name. That is exactly what the DNS system does for us.

At its most basic the Domain Name System is ways of giving each numeric IP address an alphanumeric name, for example an IP address may look like 80.145.35.10 but the domain name may look like tasnet.co.uk. The domain name is made up with a hierarchal structure each part is used to speed up the identification of the IP address. The domain name works in reverse with the last part being the first looked at by the DNS system A Domain Name will consist of two or more words separated by a “.”. For example: yourdomain.com the first part “yourdomain” is called a second-level domain. The second part .com is called a top-level domain. A TLD is the suffix that is attached to the end of a Domain Name .com, .net and .org are Top-Level Domains in the hierarchical domain name system. How domain names work is a whole tutorial on its own.

So what happens when a domain name is entered into a web browser? The browser sends a request to the closest DNS server to look up the IP address (numeric address) from the domain name (alphanumeric address) and the DNS server sends the information back to your browser, telling it the IP address of the computer the browser needs to request the information from. If the closest DNS server cannot resolve the query the Domain Name System passes the request onto the next server and so on until the information is found and passed back to the browser. If the information cannot be found on the DNS servers the browser will display an error message that says the page cannot be displayed. Each domain name is given an IP address to go to by creating or amending the DNS settings of the domain name with a management tool. Normally this is with an online control panel which allows DNS settings to be changed. These can be changed and this information is distributed to all the DNS servers around the world, this is known as propagation.The DNS settings also control the other uses for the domain name such as the mail servers, but that is for another day.

Terry Stokes created and runs tasnet.co.uk. A site that provides free website creation and SEO tools and articles.

With the recent explosion in the availability of website domain name extensions (i.e. com, .net, .ws, and others) it's never been easier to register a domain name that is highly descriptive of your website's subject matter.

For example, if you want to create a website about search engine optimization, it would make sense to use a domain name including the phrase "SEO" or "search optimization" or something similar. However, you can bet that many other people have had the same idea, so "seo.com" is no longer available, nor is "seo.net", .org, .biz, or any other simple domain name with a top level extension.

Additionally, it's a fact that most people who are searching on the internet are going to give top priority to websites with top level domain names like .com or .net. This is simply a matter of these being original suffixes, and the average web surfer believes that they have more credibility and authority.

This is especially important if your website is selling or promoting your business or products, as these factors translate into how trustworthy your website may or may not be in the mind of the web surfer.

To put it simply, a top level domain name extension is one of your strongest sales tools. Many people believe that the search engines will give more weight to your domain when considering your site for search engine rankings. Keep in mind that there should be a clear relationship between your domain name and website theme to increase your chances of ranking well in search engines.

Here are a couple of tips that may help you to bag that all important top level domain name for your site.

First, try a plural version of your key phrase. So, in the example above, you might check out the availability of top level names using "search-engine-optimizers", rather than "search-engine-optimizer". However, when used on its own, this tactic may be a bit too obvious, and more often than not, when the singular version of a phrase is taken, so is the plural.

This second little trick is far more effective and well worth trying if you are looking for a top level name for your site. The trick is - numbers. Not numbers at the beginning of the domain name - that's already been done to death and you only have to look at a list of expired domains to see how many owners of such addresses just allow them to die. Why? Because they don't work very well with search engines or with real people - and something like "0000seo.com" just looks weird.

So that's not likely to be of much benefit to your site. But numbers in the "body" of the domain name itself, especially the numbers 2 and 4, very possibly will be. Why? The number 2 is a simple substitute for the word "to" or "two" and 4 can be read as "for" or "four".

Now combine that with one other little substitution trick. Take the word "You" and substitute the letter "U", and finding a good top level domain name that still relates very closely to the site subject matter becomes relatively easier. Let's take our SEO example to demonstrate how effective a strategy like this can be. Using all three of the highlighted tricks, try searching for "seo4u.com" or "searchoptimizers4u.com". Still available? If not, how about "seo4us.com" or "searchoptimizers4me.com"?

Even if all of these are now taken, all you need is a bit of imagination to create a ".com" domain name that relates directly to your subject matter. An easy but effective method of grabbing good a top level domains for your websites.

For More Highly Effective Internet Marketing Tactics Visit The Internet Marketing Website. Get Free Internet Marketing Tips, Tools and Techniques: TheInternetMarketingWebsite.com