How to Choose a Domain Name: 9 Rules

A good domain name is short, easy to say and spell, sounds like your brand rather than a list of keywords, sits on an ending your visitors expect, and has no past or trademark that can cause trouble. It is worth an hour of care: your name ends up on your email, your cards, your shop sign and every link anybody ever shares, and changing it later costs you all of them.

Why the choice matters more than it seems

A domain is not just a website address. It is the second half of every email address you will hand out (you@yourname.com), the word customers repeat to each other, and the identity search engines learn to trust over the years. Moving to a new domain later means new email addresses, reprinted material and redirects for every page — and some of the trust search engines built up does not move with you. Choosing well once is far cheaper.

Nine rules for choosing a domain name

1. Keep it short and easy to say

Fewer than about fifteen characters is a good target. Say it out loud to somebody and ask them to type it. If they hesitate, ask how to spell it or type something else, the name will lose you visitors every day.

2. Make sure it can be spelled only one way

Avoid words people commonly misspell, letters that sound alike, and clever spellings (kwik for quick). Every visitor who types the "normal" spelling lands somewhere else — possibly on a competitor who registered it.

3. Avoid hyphens and numbers

Hyphens are forgotten when a name is spoken ("my-best-shop" or "mybestshop"?), and numbers raise the question of digit or word ("4" or "four"). Both make the name harder to pass on by mouth.

4. Choose a brand, not a string of keywords

A name like best-cheap-phones-dhaka.com looks like spam and is impossible to remember. Search engines rank pages for what they say and how useful they are; a keyword in the domain gives little advantage on its own. A short, distinctive brand is easier to remember, easier to trust and easier to grow beyond the product you start with.

5. Pick the ending your visitors expect

The ending (the top-level domain, or TLD) says something about you. .com is the one most people type without thinking and suits a wide or international audience. A country ending, such as Bangladesh's .bd, tells visitors you are local. Newer endings like .shop, .tech or .online can be memorable, but some renew at a higher price than they first register at — always compare the registration and renewal price side by side. On the domains page both prices are shown for every ending we sell.

6. Make sure it is nobody else's trademark

A name that copies or closely resembles an existing brand can be taken from you through a dispute, even after you have built a business on it. Search the name, search your national trademark register, and avoid anything a well-known company could claim.

7. Check the name's history before you buy it

A domain that has been registered before may have been used for spam, or may have been blocked by mail providers. Before you register a name that was used in the past:

• Look it up with a WHOIS lookup to see whether it is registered and when it expires.
• Use the domain age checker to see when it was first registered.
• Look at archived copies of the old site on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, if it had one.

8. Check the social media names too

Customers expect to find you under the same name everywhere. Before you register, check that the name is still free on the social networks you plan to use. A small variation is fine; a completely different handle is confusing.

9. Register it for long enough, and never let it expire

A domain is rented one year (or several) at a time. Keep the contact email on the registration current, renew before the date, and turn on reminders. Once a domain expires there is usually a short grace period and then a redemption period with an extra fee; after that, anybody can register it — including people who buy expired names to resell them.

Finding ideas when your first choice is taken

Most short .com names were registered long ago, so expect your first idea to be taken. Try adding a short word that fits your business (get, shop, hq, the city), try a different ending, or let a tool suggest combinations. Our domain name generator turns your keywords into ideas on the endings we sell and checks the first few for you; the domain search checks any name on every ending at once.

What about a domain name in Bangla?

A domain can be written in Bangla letters, and a country ending in Bangla script exists too. Behind the scenes such names are stored in a form called Punycode, beginning with xn--. They are worth knowing about, but most businesses still use a Latin-letter name as the main address. Read how Bangla domain names and Punycode work.

After you register

1. Point the domain at your hosting — see how nameserver changes and DNS propagation work.
2. Turn on HTTPS for the site.
3. Set up email on the new name with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, so your first messages do not land in spam.