How to choose a domain name when building a website?

Only by understanding the past can we see the future more clearly. In fact, this is an old article written 12 years ago, which originated from a speech that Xiaolin gave on the theme of "Website Building Experience Exchange".

It is divided into two parts. One part talks about search engine optimization, and the other part talks about domain name selection. There are three pages of PPT in it, which give examples of four types of domain names. Of course, the later domain name classifications are far more than these. Because many people did not listen to it in person, they could not understand it by just looking at the PPT, so Xiaolin wrote this article later. Yesterday's article "Domain Name Investment: Don't Take Hometown "Feelings" as "Business" Nose" caused a heated discussion in the domain name investment circle. Today, I will post another tweet related to domain names, and Chi Yuan and Li Ye, two domain name investors, have very wonderful comments, which are specially attached to the second and third tweets for everyone to read.

A good website should have a good domain name, so that it will be twice as effective with half the effort. Otherwise, it is very likely that you will work hard but get "half the result with twice the effort". Many people often ask Xiaolin how to build a website, how to promote it, etc. One of them involves choosing a domain name.

Xiaolin personally divides domain names into four categories, namely Keywords Domain Names, Short Domain Names, Traffic Domain Names and Keypad Friendly Domain Names. In fact, in the field of domain name investment, there are various classification methods without any restrictions, usually based on theme domain names, such as: city domain names, digital domain names, industry domain names or combination domain names.

The reason why Xiaolin defines domain names into four categories is that they have a certain connection with website promotion. First of all, let's explain what keyword domain names are. In fact, we can understand it from the literal meaning. Accuracy is the core meaning of keyword domain names.

Keywords Domain Names

For example, the domain name "ChinaMobile.com" can actually be seen as "China Mobile" from the keywords, which is both true and easy to remember. People who are accustomed to and understand the meaning of domain names usually enter "ChinaMobile.com" directly to enter China Mobile's website. Even those who are not very good at it can easily find it on search engines. In fact, many links have firmly combined "China Mobile" and "ChinaMobile.com".

Another example is "PhoneCard.com", a phone card is a commodity. Whether you enter the domain name according to your habit or search on a search engine, you will find that the URL is so similar to what you need. At this time, the hit rate will be many times higher than that of an ordinary, difficult to remember or meaningless domain name.

The two examples mentioned above are actually relative to the international level. In China, there is also a kind of "Pinyin domain name", such as "LianMeng.com", which means "Alliance". The effect is the same as the English word domain name, that is, the keyword domain name mentioned by Xiaolin above, especially in the domestic market.

Short Domain Names

The second domain name choice, short domain name, is also as the name suggests, and easy to remember is the core meaning of short domain name. It may be okay for ordinary users to remember one domain name, but it is usually not easy to remember multiple domain names, especially when the main body of the domain name is composed of English letters, which is more difficult for Chinese people.

"P.cn" may be the shortest domain name in the world. A single-letter domain name can only have 26 letters at most in a domain name suffix, and 36 letters if 10 numeric domain names are added. The letter "P" itself is very imaginative. Now this domain name is used as a personal portal to take the meaning of the first letter of the English word "Personal Portal".

If a single letter has unlimited imagination, a domain name like "GZ.com" means a clearer meaning, and its noble status gives people a feeling of a century-old store. You can often see companies with two-letter domain names at some international exhibitions and conferences. You must not underestimate these companies, as they may be Fortune 500 companies.

The digital domain name "265.com" is short and easy to remember. Generally speaking, domain names within 5 digits can be regarded as short domain names, especially digital domain names for Chinese people, which are easier to remember than letters.

Traffic Domain Names

The third type of domain name is traffic domain name, which has natural traffic without promotion, and its core meaning is to save money. This type of domain name can be divided into innate and acquired. What is innate? It means that it has been meaningful since the day it existed. For example, "MP3.com" can be defined as innate. Even if there is no website, people will try to visit it every day.

"GZINFO.net" can be defined as acquired. This domain name used to be the website of "Guizhou Information Port". There was a music channel on it that was once famous throughout the country. Many people went there to download music. However, due to poor management, the domain name was registered after it expired, and the various link resources and old users acquired by it were received by the new domain name holder. The cost of registering a domain name is not high, but the traffic value brought is quite considerable.

There is also a kind of confusing domain name, such as "SINACOM.cn". This is some domain name investors who use the natural traffic brought by thousands of people who enter the wrong website due to missing a character or sequence when entering the domain name of the website. Therefore, after some websites become big, they usually have the concept of protecting domain names to avoid users missing out.

Keypad Friendly Domain Names

The last type of domain name is called Keypad Friendly Domain Name. Everyone knows that the 3G mobile Internet era is coming. In fact, have you noticed that it is not convenient to enter a website domain name on a mobile phone? Especially for mobile phones that only have numeric keypads instead of QWERT standard keyboards, users may give up half of the time after entering a domain name.

Maybe when you use a mobile phone, personal digital assistant or various mobile terminals, you will find that it is very easy to enter some domain names, such as "PDA.cn" handheld computer, but some domain names are very awkward to enter. That is because the letter annotations of the 8 keys on the numeric keypad are "ABC" next to the number 2, "DEF" next to the number 3, "GHI" next to the number 4, "JKL" next to the number 5, "MNO" next to the number 6, "PQRS" next to the number 7, "TUV" next to the number 8, and "WXYZ" next to the number 9.

Another example is typing "WAP.com" for wireless Internet access, but there are not many combinations of keyboard-friendly domain names. They must be easy to remember, have the same meaning, and happen to be the first letter next to the number, so that they are convenient to input without switching. Although there are some intelligent input methods, they often make mistakes and require multiple selections.

In addition to the above two options, there is also a more special keyboard-friendly domain name that can be considered, such as "466453.com". On the surface, it seems nothing special, but in fact, this is a high level of user experience research. This domain name is an alias of "GOOGLE.com". Use reverse thinking to correspond the letters listed next to the 8 numeric keys back to the numeric keys, and many mobile phones have built-in shortcut inputs such as "www." and ".com".