What to watch for when choosing and buying a domain
Your domain is your business's address online, and changing it later is a real hassle. It deserves five minutes of thought before you buy.
The domain is usually the quickest decision in a website project and the one you live with longest. You'll redesign every three years or so, but you'll almost never change the domain.
Which extension?
If you trade locally, go for .com first. People still type .com out of habit, so with any other extension some of your visitors end up on the site of whoever owns the .com.
A country extension looks a bit more established, but it needs paperwork and gets in the way if you plan to sell abroad. For a purely local business it's a good option.
Only consider .net, .org or .co if the .com is taken and you really like the name.
Short and easy to say
Imagine reading it out to someone over the phone. If they ask "what came before the dot com, and was there a hyphen?", it's the wrong name.
Skip hyphens. "leather-bag-store.com" is awkward to say and people forget the hyphen when they type it.
Skip digits too. Nobody knows whether to type "5" or "five".
Brand name or keyword?
Keyword domains used to give you an SEO boost. That effect is close to zero now.
Take your brand name. A keyword domain gets too narrow as you grow. Say you buy "name-furniture.com" and three years later you start selling accessories as well.
Whose name is it registered in?
If you only act on one thing in this article, make it this. The domain must be registered to you or your company.
I see this a lot. The person building your site buys the domain on their own account, you part ways, the domain stays with them and you end up negotiating to get it back.
Buy the domain yourself and keep the account password. If your developer needs access, most registrars let you add a sub-user.
Don't miss the renewal
You rent a domain a year at a time. When it expires the site goes down, email stops arriving, and after a while someone else can buy it.
Turn on auto-renewal and make sure the email address on the account is current. A renewal warning sent to an inbox you no longer check might as well never have been sent.
Buy 2-3 years at a time if you can. The yearly price drops and you have one less thing to remember.
Privacy protection
Your registration details (name, address, phone) show up in a public database by default. Most registrars offer privacy protection free or for a small fee.
Turn it on, or expect a steady stream of sales calls telling you your site needs updating.