What’s in a name? Tips on choosing your website URL

Wes — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:33:35 +0000

A URL (uniform resource locator) is arguably the most important part of your online marketing and branding. It’s your business card, an ongoing advertisement and the doorway to your company all in one. If it can, it should be the name of your company or an abbreviation, if it can’t be either of these it should be able it should sum up your service or draw interest at the very least. Choosing it isn’t always easy though, especially when you have to be clever (groan). We’re a couple decades into this internet thing and there are several million websites, some of the best names for service providers, distributors or products have been taken long ago by companies themselves or by opportunists who buy up domain names and sit on them waiting for the highest bidder. But often times these names will expire, and many business owners don’t think to check when that will be. Hunt for the perfect URL and get the right extension for your site. If you have to wait for one to come open it can often times be worth it. Or if you can use a similar name without risking copyright infringement, and use a top level domain extension this is also smart. Search sites like www.godaddy.com or www.whois.net to see when a domain name is going to expire and keep in mind that over the past several years new domain extensions have been opened up to the public; with this comes opportunities and risks however. Take for example Uk.co. While many sites, most sites, in the UK have the .uk.co extension a .co extension would be the top level domain for the country of Columbia.

The extension .cm remains one of the most popular extensions for scam sites and spreaders of malware; it’s the country code top level domain (ccTDL) of Cameroon. So make sure you put that o in your .com! Some commonly used TLDs that have become specific to industries are in fact country code top level domains (ccTLD), these are referred to as vanity ccTLDs. The increasingly common .tv extension is in fact a ccTLD for the island nation of Tuvalu but it is used for the television (“TV”) / entertainment industry. The country code extension for the Federated States of Micronesia is .fm and is frequently used by FM radio stations. Businesses in Los Angeles have become fond of using the .la extension, which is in fact the ccTDL of Laos. So before you give up on your dream URL because .com or .net is taken don’t be afraid to look at the alternatives, but be aware that some extensions can have negative associations, such as .cm or .cn (China) China is apparently looking at ways to crack down on abuse of its ccTDL by cyber scammers. In a way that’s incredibly hypocritical though isn’t it?

On top of country codes which have been used as vanity domain extensions there were several extensions offered in the early 2000s. Some of these have been successful while others have fizzled. Growing out of the the generic top-level domains which originally consisted of GOV, EDU, COM, MIL, ORG, and NET, several new domain extensions became available. Four of the new TLDs (.biz, .info, .name, and .pro) are unsponsored, meaning they are less stringent as to who can claim them. The other three new TLDs released along with them (.aero, .coop, and .museum) were sponsored. Then again in 2003, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) the body responsible for overseeing and regulating domains introduced six new TLDs (.asia, .cat, .jobs, .mobi, .tel and .travel) these TLD extension were sponsored, as are .edu and .gov etc. Meaning there is a body of regulators that oversees authenticity of those claiming to belong in these domains or wanting inclusion in them. Someone homeschooling their kids in small town USA will not likely be approved for a .edu domain name, reserved for colleges and universities, while a survivalist militia group in middle of nowhere USA will also likely not be given a .mil extension no matter how militant they may become. That is reserved for official military only. But hey, you can always try.

So before you go out looking for a URL with .ca or .net or .com know that there are dozens of extensions available now and more to come. the Dot Eco domain .eco has been slowly simmering for the past couple of years and once made available to the public (if you your company is an environmentally responsible or sustainable operation) this domain extension could be invaluable to you. Visit here for more info on this domain extension. Some domain extensions may fit your business better than others, and they are an extremely important decision for any company to make. For more information of TLDs or Generic Top Level Domains visit here. To contact Thirdi go here.

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What’s in a name? Tips on choosing your website URL