Wiley Website Design and Development: 100 Questions to Ask Before Building a Website 978-0-470-88952-7 用户手册
产品代码
978-0-470-88952-7
2
C H A P T E R 1
D O M A I N N A M E S
1. Have You Thought of a Good
Domain Name for Your Website?
Domain Name for Your Website?
Choosing a domain name is a key step in developing your website.
Aside from being part of your branding, a domain name is one of the
most common ways people will fi nd you on the Internet. That’s why
a domain name needs to be memorable—by matching or relating to
an existing name or by simply being catchy and unique.
If You Have an Existing Offl ine Name
If you already have an established name, you’ll want your domain
name to be the same (or very close to it). If your company name is
Healthwise Fitness Equipment, the top of your list will be
healthwise
fitnessequipment.com
. Even if you’re commonly known as Healthwise
Fitness, it would be bett er to have the word equipment in the domain
because it will help the search engines distinguish you from fi tness
clubs or other businesses that use the name Healthwise Fitness.
In case you can’t get the full name you want, have some variations
prepared. For Healthwise Fitness Equipment,
healthwiseequipment.com
would be a good alternative. It retains the key part of your brand name
as well as the search engine-friendly term equipment. The word health
should be enough to keep you from being confused with a construction
equipment company.
Another alternative is to place dashes between each word:
healthwise-
fitness-equipment.com
. Keep in mind, however, that communicating
those dashes can be tricky, and people will oft en forget to put them in.
Other alternatives include short forms or acronyms—hfe.com—or if
your business is confi ned to a region or a country, fi nd a domain name
using your country’s extension, such as
healthwiseequipment.us
. Quite
oft en a name that’s taken for .com will be available for a particular
country.
Some people say it’s bett er to keep your domain name as short as
possible. Aside from the fact that many shorter names have already
been snapped up, the length of the domain is not as important as its
Importance
You cannot own a do-
main name. Domain
registrants are given
exclusive right to use a
domain name for a cer-
tain period. This right is
managed through regu-
latory agencies, such as
the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), the
international agency that
oversees generic (non-
country) domain names
such as .com or .org,
for periods of up to 10
years. You’ll hear of peo-
ple selling their domain
name, but what they’re
really doing is transfer-
ring their right to use the
domain for a fee.
On Video
Watch how to use an
online domain search
tool to brainstorm al-
ternative versions of a
domain name.
There’s a lot to con-
sider when choosing a
domain name, but don’t
take too long deciding.
People have checked a
domain’s availability in
the evening only to fi nd
that it’s been taken by
morning.
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