My mom is starting a business this fall. Unfortunately the domain for the business name is parked by some dude that wants way too much money for it.
The company name is already 6 syllables long, so we figured we would add a keyword related to her business that was a single syllable. Unfortunately the best fit, was also taken, by yet another domain park and wait dude asking for thousands.
The next relevant keyword was two syllables long, making it 8 syllables and 4 words long. And the key word doesn’t flow as well, so it kinda feels tacked on. Which means most people might simply type the first 3 words (the company name) and get the parked domain we don’t own instead.
So how long is too long for a domain name?
I think we might go with the 8 syllable 4 word domain, and add an acronym + single syllable domain that redirects for promotional materials, which might actually be a bit confusing for clients… ARGH! There shoudl be a law about having to use a domain name to own it
How many characters are you looking at? If it’s three words of even moderate length I would definitely not want to type in the whole thing. Maybe you can make the company name into the acronym and then add your keyword?
I had to buy a super long domain name for my client once and I spelled it wrong while registering. I told her we’ll keep both and point both to her site since someone is bound to misspell it too!
It was 4 words and 9 syllables. We decided that if people knew her business’s name, it was easier for them to remember that and type it in than to remember some sort of acronym or complete other phrase.
We really wanted the acronym but it was not for sale.
Although I do think domain names should be reasonably easy to remember, think about when is the last time you typed one in from scratch. About 90% of the web pages I go to are either bookmarked, or I get to them with a search. Needless to say, Google made a huge impact on how people find things on the 'Net.
There is, kinda. There is a law that says you can’t register a domain name that is someone else’s trademark with the intention of doing so to sell it to the trademark holder.
That is not quite what is going on in your case, though, since the business hasn’t even launched yet. That suggests to me that the name of your mom’s business might not be too original. Is this an Internet-based business, or one that will do transactions on the web? If so then you may want to rethink the business name from scratch to come up with one that has an available domain name.
Mine is 5 syllables (15 characters) long, and it’s not unusual to not have enough room to write it, when filing out forms. I really wanted a shorter one, but someone else got it first.
The website is really just the online presence of the business. The business itself is service based and entirely brick and mortar. Otherwise, yeah I would have rethought it.
I would provide the actual domain names we were thinking about for your comments, but it will be a commercial site, so I think it would go against the board policy, no?
Board policy prohibits using this as a platform for advertising or otherwise shilling for a business. But that’s not what you’re doing. It’s fine to include a business name if that’s part of a legitimate discussion.
It’s at your discretion.
ETA: My interpretation of the rules. IANAM but I’ve been on the board for a while.
OK. Hopefully the mods won’t send the hamster death squad after me.
So my mom’s business is a spa/massage/aromatherapy center for women. The business name she picked is Awaken Your Senses. The domain name we sought was AwakenYourSenses.com. Which is not available. The keyword we originally wanted to use was spa, but that too was taken.
I’m purely a consumer of the web, but my advice is to go with the long one. Everyone is just going to google it anyway, so why not use a name that makes it clear what you are, as opposed to something that could be the website for the American Youth Soccer Skills Performance Academy ?
My brain sees the long version as “four” segments because they are easy words. My brain sees the “aysspa.com” as “six” segments because it treats each letter individually. I would have a tough time memorizing it.
I vote for awakenyoursensesmassage.
Does the dn have to be exactly the name of the business? Both awake.com and awakemassage.com appear to be available.
AwakenYourSensesMassage is easy to remember. It’s a lot of characters, sure, but it’ll stick in people’s minds. Plus Quercus is right; people are going to Google it anyway. AwakenYourSenses would have been better, but what you’ve got isn’t bad, and is better than the acronym.
OK, you guys convinced me.
I also ran a little experiment based on something I read online:
I told some people the domain name, had a nice lengthy chat, then later asked if they’d remember the url. And they did. So I guess it’s not hard to recall.
As I understand your request, there are two issues here:
[ul]
[li]Is there a technical limitation to domain name length?[/li][li]Is there a practical, commonsense limitation to domain name length?[/li][/ul]
