I get questions about domain names all the time.  In fact, it’s probably the question I answer most when I start working on a project.

“I own companynameindustry.com and industrycity.com – which one should I use for my website?”

“Can we point industrybuzzword.com to my website?  Will it help with Google?”

Five Things to Consider When Choosing A Domain

1. Keep it short.  People will tend to type a short URL directly into the address bar, but they’ll forget longer domains and end up Googling.  Do not use dashes.  Nine times out of ten, a potential visitor will forget the hyphens and end up visiting your competitor first (the guy who got the same domain without the hyphens).
2. The domain should be the name of your website, if possible.   The company Facebook uses . .  wait for it . . . Facebook.com.  So should you follow in their footsteps.
3. .com is always better than, well, anything else (for businesses).  People will not remember any other extension and will end up at your competitor (again, who got the domain you wanted) or will end up Googling your domain with your city or some other identifying specific.  .net, maybe.  But .info or .biz?  Forget about it.  (.org is reserved, though truly only through an honor system, for non-profit entities and the others you’re probably familiar with, .gov and .edu are, well, pretty self-explanatory I think.)
4. When you’re able, buy an old domain.  Older domains are considered of a higher quality – even if you just bought it.  The age of a domain is more important to Google then pretty much any other domain-related item (like keywords in the domain or length of registration – both factors, but not as important as age).
5. Consider domain/keyword match.  A domain match can be very powerful. If you have a domain name that matches your keyword, you’ve got a huge boost in search rankings. Search engines classify an exact match to a domain as a navigation query. For instance, if someone searches for “catering in Tampa Bay” and your domain is cateringtampabay.com, search engines may classify this query as a navigational one, thus showing you as an authoritative listing.
   • A domain match is also known to increase search and pay per click CTRs.
   • Keywords in a domain are also great for incoming links (anchor text) – since most people don’t use actual anchor text and link the URL directly, you domain can work as anchor text.
   • If an exactly matching domain is in a non-competitive market, sometimes the name is enough to rank on the first page, coupled with a few links and some content. If, on the other hand, you’re entering a crowded field, expect to invest much more time and money in content and links. An exact match won’t produce magic in competitive market place, but it increases your chance.
   • The domain match strategy doesn’t work well with new domains. Regardless of keyword proximity, Google doesn’t trust new domains, so to really make the domain match strategy work, you need to find an old domain name.

In general, domains should be easy to remember and have no dashes. They must be easy for someone to type into the address bar (dashes complicate things) and easy to cite on the blog or a page. It should also be easy to convert a domain name into a brand, so the shorter the name the better.

Again, older domains are still going to outweigh new domains with keywords. Age is everything.