If you're ready to start your own website you need to find domain name information that's going to be right for your chunk of cyberspace. That starts with knowing what the best domain name might be for your site, finding what people are looking for, and checking any past associations with things like expired or currently registered domains.
Find Domain Names that People are Searching For
The first step in getting your own domain is to think about your site's purpose. You wouldn't be creating a site if you didn't want people to find it, and choosing a good domain name will help with that. Let's pretend that you're an artist. You want a website that's going to show your latest artwork. You might sell the artwork from the site, send people to your current showings and sales or just show off your skill. No matter what the reason is you do want as many visitors as you can get. So go to the Google Keyword Tool and enter search terms that apply to you and your site.
For an art site you would put in things like art, artwork, oil paintings, art for sale, art galleries and other similar terms. Doing so will bring up a long list of related keywords and it will show you how many people search on those keywords each month. This is a good basic way to start picking words for your domain name.
You can find domain name choices that work for successful websites that have nothing to do with the site, of course. You can register the domain in your name and have it be about any topic and make it successful. But you make it just a little bit easier if you choose at least one or two good keywords to include in your domain. Bobsmithartwork.com, for instance, would be a better choice for an art site then just bobsmith.com.
Find Domain Names That are Expired or Registered
A way to give your site a little boost right out of the gate is to purchase a domain name that's already registered. That can be a current name or one that's recently expired and is for sale by the registrar or another service. These names may already have a history, may be already indexed by the search engines and may already have links pointing to them which give them a little more weight in a web search.
Look at archive.org for that domain's name to see if there is a history associated with it, bearing in mind that the archive won't show anything for the last year to year and a half. Use something like Yahoo Site Explorer to check to see which types of sites have linked to that domain, if any. Make sure there aren't any sites linking to it like pharmaceutical, pornography or gambling sites that the search engines frown on. And in Google's search box, use the site:yoursite.com command to see if the site has been indexed. If it's been indexed and there doesn't appear to be any controversial sites linking to it, then the domain has a bit of history and can give your site a boost.
If there are pages listed at archive.org, be sure to look at them and make sure that the links aren't pointing out to any controversial sites like pharmaceutical, gambling or pornography sites. If not, then you could be giving your website an edge and helping it become more popular, more quickly.
Dusty Blackwell is an experienced domainer who constantly updates his site so you can Find Domain Names that are perfect for your web properties. Visit http://www.thedomainstar.com where you have access to over 500 premium domain names so you can get the best one for your website.
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