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Need domain name advice, please

by LeeLee
11 replies
I am looking for opinions/expertise regarding domain names with numbers in them.

For example:

I can't get the domain name "now and before . com"

But I can get "now and be 4 . com"

Any pros/cons to using a number in the domain name?
#advice #domain
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    If you want to rank with the keyword "now and before" then using "now and b4" as your domain name will lower your score. Have you tried nowandbefore.net or nowandbefore.org? That should be your next option.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      If you're quick, now-and-before.com is available. Hyphens don't affect SEO at all, according to Google's Matt Cutts - and he's a pretty reliable source of information.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zack Lim
    Hi Lee,

    I will strongly recommend you to get a domain name that contains full English words unless you are planning an event for that particular year.

    For example like LeeMarketingEvent2011.com if you are going to create your own event in the 2011 and it will not be repeated again.

    As Mike has mention above, if you want it to be rank on the Search Engine, then the number included in the domain name will not be useful in SEO.

    I will personally try as much as possible to get a .com domain. However, you might want to take note that if you are planning to drive traffic to your website with other methods besides using the SEO method, you can simply just purchase any domain name and just focus on marketing it.

    Hope my humble contribution is useful to you

    Zack
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  • Profile picture of the author Anthony Lex
    Have you thought about going for a different suffix such as .net or .org as opposed to going for the .com. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has allowed for the creation of suffixes in greater quantities than ever before.

    So we will soon start to see suffixes in different languages and greater variety than ever before. I think that the notion that you must have a website ending in .com is becoming old hat and five years from now less emphasis will be placed upon having a .com.

    As long as you get your site to rank well in the search engines for your keywords, I would go for the "now and before" domain with a .net or .org suffix rather than having to compromise with the "now and b4 . com" domain name.
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  • Profile picture of the author Debra Barrow
    I think numbers in domain names may be alright in certain situations. For example; are you targeting younger people who may consider it a "cool" website name?

    On the other hand, you may find yourself constantly spelling it out for someone over the phone; is it "4", "four", "for", fore?
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  • Profile picture of the author LeeLee
    You guys are the best. Thanks for the quick responses. Now I can try and get some sleep.

    @Mike Baker - call me old fashioned but I just like the dot com and prefer to work around it - as it was, dot net and dot org were not available. The really aggravating thing is they are just parked, not even for sale. I was afraid it would lower score as you stated.

    @Zack Lim - your contribution is most useful. Thank you.

    @Anthony Lex - I am looking forward to new extensions but I don't think the "civilian" public is ready to give up the panache of the dot com just yet.

    @Alexa Smith - thanks for reminding me about hyphens. I actually meant to check that out and it was available. (you know I wasn't looking for 4, right? lol)

    @Debra Barrow - I don't think many teens will be interested in my site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Numbers can be problematic. If you tell someone your website, it's difficult to tell (verbally) whether it is "4" or "four" or even "for". You might want to register all three variations just to be sure.

      I would go for a brandable name. I am not of the opinion that a keyword loaded domain is any better than a non-keyword loaded domain.

      Check out the top 25 websites (as ranked by Top 1000 sites - DoubleClick Ad Planner ):

      1 facebook.com
      2 youtube.com
      3 yahoo.com
      4 live.com
      5 wikipedia.org
      6 msn.com
      7 blogspot.com
      8 baidu.com
      9 bing.com
      10 microsoft.com
      11 qq.com
      12 ask.com
      13 taobao.com
      14 adobe.com
      15 wordpress.com
      16 twitter.com
      17 youku.com
      18 soso.com
      19 sohu.com
      20 163.com
      21 windows.com
      22 hao123.com
      23 tudou.com
      24 amazon.com
      25 apple.com

      How many of those are keyword-rich domains?

      NONE.

      Dig down further, and there still aren't any with keyword-rich domain names.

      Content is king. If your content is highly relevant to your niche, it doesn't really matter what your domain name is.

      I would try to stick with a .com name and avoid numbers (even though 2 of those 25 sites do use numbers).
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  • Profile picture of the author Gene Pimentel
    Dan, there is a flaw in logic to compare the top 25 websites with keyword-rich domains. Those websites got there by extensive, aggressive mass advertising. The purpose of a keyword rich domain is to have the best shot at ranking high without having an "amazon" advertising budget.

    There are far more keyword-rich domains that rank higher than 'brandable' domains for a particular keyword phrase.
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    • Profile picture of the author Domainate
      Originally Posted by Gene Pimentel View Post

      Dan, there is a flaw in logic to compare the top 25 websites with keyword-rich domains. Those websites got there by extensive, aggressive mass advertising. The purpose of a keyword rich domain is to have the best shot at ranking high without having an "amazon" advertising budget.

      There are far more keyword-rich domains that rank higher than 'brandable' domains for a particular keyword phrase.
      Gene is correct. There are times when you may want to use a brandable and times when a generic keyword domain would suit your goals better. Both kinds of domains have merit and not everyone is trying to be the next Google or Facebook.

      To answer the OPs question, don't get NowAndBe4.com. Be4 = before is very rarely used and that name would lose a lot of people's interest. Go back to the drawing board and come up with other options OR contact the owner of NowAndBefore.com to buy that. He does have it listed for sale on Sedo.com.
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  • Profile picture of the author LeeLee
    Thank you to you who subsequently posted.

    @Dan C. Rinnert - I am not as hung up on exact keyword domain names as some people are. If I do get an idea in my mind that I like, I hate to give it up easily and will do what I can to work around. I am not ready to brand a domain like yahoo dot com but I do think it is interesting that your list is all dot coms.

    @Gene Pimentel - great point Gene. That is one of the neat things about the internet. A little guy can grab the top spot from a multi-billion corp.

    @Nametrader.com - I'm glad for all this expert advice. I have toyed with the idea of using a number before. I won't ever again. The domain I originally wanted was just parked and not for sale. Nowandbefore was something I made up as an illustration.
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  • Profile picture of the author YonghoShin
    Hey LeeLee,

    I recommend sticking to english words only, because it later becomes a pain-in-the-butt when, for example, you are on a teleseminar and driving people to a website as your sales call to action. It may confuse people and (most importantly) may make you lose sales.
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