Question about Domain Names

[kathynewman]

I'm looking to purchase a domain name (was looking for .co.uk & .com) for a possible new business.

The one I really want is gone - however there is no website up for the name - when typing it into google address bar just get www.whatever.co.uk did not match any documents- but on checking with nominet it is registered.

However the .biz version is available as is a hyphned version.

So my question which is best

whatever.biz or
what-ever.co.uk/.com

obviously substituting whatever with real name!

Kathy

[leehack]

i would always recommend a .co.uk.

[pinbrook]

yep the co.uk

[acompton]

One of my competitors is based in Holland and ship to the UK for amazingly low prices - they trade as a .co.uk and on amazon.co.uk

Alan

[RuralWeb]

.co.uk and .com - IMO its vital to have both.

[los_design]

.co.uk and .com - IMO its vital to have both.

Agree 100% with this.

If you walk up to the man in the street and tell him joe blogs has a website, the vast majority will go home and look for joe blogs .com...

So you can own both and manage your viewers by sending to your operational site (.co.uk for here etc...blah blah blah)

[RuralWeb]

Read the end of this thread http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=27593

[chris ashdown]

What-ever sound like my daughter 50 times a day but as the rest use .co.uk I have no problems with mine being hypenated, think it is better than verylongnamestogoifyoulike.co.uk

[leehack]

I have no problem with hyphenated domain names, one of the main problems you encounter IMO is trying to relay the hyphen when giving out a url or email address. I would never have more than one hyphen.

Hyphen, dash, the minus character, the thing next to zero on your keyboard - you know the drill. It can easily be argued that the added keyword separation cancels out the pain in the backside explanation, however its a matter of opinion.

SE's seem to be better at separating words now than before, im sure we can all recall the expertsexcchange.com laugh. Confused, what the chuff am i on about?

experts-exchange.com easily interpreted as expert-sex-change.com

Whether you like the hyphenated domain names or not, you'd be wise to purchse it anyway to block anybody else doing so.

[RuralWeb]

Whether you like the hyphenated domain names or not, you'd be wise to purchse it anyway to block anybody else doing so

Its best to buy EVERY possible combination of name includeing spelling variations - it can save alot of heart ache in the long term.

And the other big one get it TRADEMARKED before you use it. Oh and check its not already trade marked if it is trademarked then even if the domains are available the owner of the trademark will come visiting!

[Miranda Stamp]

The only disadvantage of what-ever.co.uk I can see is that should the owners of whatever.co.uk decide to create a site doing the same 'whatever' as you, then people looking for you at what-ever.co.uk will always think they have found *you* at whatever.co.uk rather than the other whatever owners.

(or is that too many whatevers?)

Would it be better to be awhatever.co.uk or 1stwhatever.co.uk or allwhatever.co.uk thus you get listed alphabetically first in pretty much any listing? (I suffer from being alphabetically challenged where once there were just 3 in my line of business and I had the only ecommerce shop back in January 2000, now I'm at least on page 3 and usually last)

[leehack]

If you buy all sensible variants of the domain name as has been recommended, that cannot be a problem.

[RuralWeb]

get listed alphabetically first

Its another of the many considerations you must make when selecting a domain name. For many business's its the hardest part of getting online as if you make a mistake it will be with you for years or take alot of effort to get it changed.

[george]

Easier to remember a non-hyphenated name though...

joe bloggs dot co dot uk

or

joe hyphen bloggs dot co dot uk


Hell yeah.. its rock n roll... get both!


Living `on the edge` in the Actinic Community. Whatever(.co.uk) next?