I recently had to go through the pain of finding a good domain name for this site to register. Apparently anything, anyone can think of have been registered. I spent endless hours typing random names into domain search tools and came up with very little. Even all the English word on the dictionary have been registered as a domain. If want you can visit www.onewordonly.com and have a look. At the end we decided to use ‘JigJak!’ as the domain.

Here are some tips on selecting a domain name that I would like to pass on:

1) Picking the correct domain name for a website is a good first step and can help a lot in how near the top of the search engine rankings your site shows up when someone searches for your key words. It certainly won’t hurt to have a great domain name that exactly describes your website. A memorable, catchy domain name can make a lot of difference in setting you apart from the crowd.

2) If you are planning on purchasing an existing or expired domain, learn the full history of the domain before buying it. The archive site (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php)is good for part of the picture of the history of a name, but currently there seems to be no way to find out exactly how that domain might be penalized by Google. Always make sure the domain you’re buying hasn’t been a link farm or spam site. One suggestion: when buying an expired domain, register it for the longest term you can. Google rewards domains with long registration periods as more “legitimate” so it may be a way to counter-balance any sketchy history.

3) Pick a domain name that is free of legal conflicts with trademarks belonging to other businesses.

4) If you have the cash, there are tons of cool domains for sale and you might be able to get it at a reasonable price now. If all you’re looking for is a blog site, though, forget about it.

Do you have any tips that you would like to share or tell us how you picked you domain name?

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