Choosing The Right Domain Name

Looking for your next domain name purchase? Do some research first! Here are some great tips and tools to look for your next domain name.

• Determine the popularity of any word or term

  Google Keyword Tool

  A very popular free tool so there may be times when it is inaccessible due to a high volume of users

  Reports on how many times a word/term has been searched for in their system in the previous

  Reports on popular terms that include the word you searched for

  Reports on the amount of traffic the searched word and corresponding extension is receiving

  Google Search Engine

  Returns the number of pages that contains the word you search

  Most useful for product/service nouns, surnames and city names

  Wordtracker.com or Reystar.com

  Can be used to determine the most commonly searched words on the Internet

  U.S. Census Bureau

  Can be used to look up how popular a name is in the United States

• Look for popular usage of acronyms

  Acronym Finder and Google Search Engine

  Provides lists of companies and organizations that use a 3-letter abbreviation to truncate their actual company name

• Determine popularity of words by advertiser bids

  7Search.com

  Shows you a list of the 500 highest priced keywords in their search engine

• Determine popularity of a word by real world usage

  Switchboard.com

  Look up how many companies are using that word in their company name

  Provides a list of businesses that incorporate the word in their name, complete with their address and phone number if you want to market yourself directly to them

  If you decide to buy based on real world use popularity, you take the chance that one of these companies may come after you when they are ready to buy that domain name

• Check whether or not a word/term has been taken in major extensions (.com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info)

  NetCheap.com

  Returns an easy-to-read page with the top 13 results

• Check if a word/term is trademarked

  U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

  Using TESS, their database, you can search all US patents and trademarks