Domain Length - How Long Is Too Long

25 replies
Hello,

I've found a .com key word rich domain that perfectly describes my product/service in an extremely competitave niche "BUT" it's long.

It reads well (makes perfect sense) and sounds good but contains four-words.

Not counting the "www." and ".com" it has 28 characters.

Is 28 characters too long?



#domain #length #long
  • Profile picture of the author EvcRo
    Imo no. 28 chars is to much only if your strategy involve creating a brand name, easy to remember and propagate through word of mouth.
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  • Profile picture of the author GoGetta
    Yes, it depends on the use!

    If its a keyword you want to rank for I would say there is no limit!

    But, if you want to create a brand out of the domain then it could be an issue. Then you have to take into account, the amount of words within it, how they are spelt and could they be confused with other spellings and ways of typing words.

    Branding - Could be an issue!

    Keyword Related - No issue!


    GoGetta
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  • Profile picture of the author duia
    That all depends. In my eyes, the meaning of one domain name is more important than the leangth of the domain.
    Of course, usually, a shorter domain name means that it can be remembered it easily.
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  • Profile picture of the author eaglechick
    If you want to go for keyword - take it - nothing beats the keyword in the domain. My domain got the exact keyword in it and has 32 characters, (without www. and com) reads easily and is doing very well! .com is always the best option!
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  • Profile picture of the author Ernie Mitchell
    Thanks for the insight everyone.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lou Diamond
    Hello,
    I have owned this long domain forever:
    trytotakeovertheworld.com
    I get emails all the time from people that want to buy it from me.
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    Something new soon.

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  • Profile picture of the author BH_Winchester
    I think the thing to remember with the domain name length is first off how easily readable is it? One of the worst domain names I ever saw was a company branded AcerAcer.com everyone thought there site was AceRacer.com big problems obviously with brandability.

    The next question is how memorable is it? Is it a sentence/English words; or is it a series or letters that mean something to you and no one else?

    If you are only using it for SEO Keyword purposes then any length is fine in fact longer can be better to target your long-tail keywords. However, if you are using it for organic traffic or a brand then follow this rule of thumb:

    1 sentence OR
    4 words OR
    4 letters

    The human mind works in packets of four much like an ip address - we can remember a sentence as its meaning breaks down into four structured parts - we can remember any random four words in a row so a site like bookdog-lemoncat.com would be a great domain, and we can remember any random 4 letters in a row for example dyyo.com

    Basically the length is dependent on what your URL means to your users and what purpose you are trying to serve with it.

    Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author jaiganeshv
    IMO 28 char domain is not fit for use. may be based on the name you can auction it it fancies someone..

    thank you.
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    • Profile picture of the author BH_Winchester
      Originally Posted by jaiganeshv View Post

      IMO 28 char domain is not fit for use. may be based on the name you can auction it it fancies someone..

      thank you.
      There are so many uses for a domain name though that you can't just turn it down on that. The uses for a long-tail keyword domain name can turn you over thousands of dollars if you know how to use it.
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      • Profile picture of the author jaiganeshv
        Originally Posted by BH_Winchester View Post

        There are so many uses for a domain name though that you can't just turn it down on that. The uses for a long-tail keyword domain name can turn you over thousands of dollars if you know how to use it.
        Yes you are correct i even have some big domain names. but still 28 letters aren't too big??

        one such i have is howtoremoveblackheads.info
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        • Profile picture of the author BH_Winchester
          Originally Posted by jaiganeshv View Post

          Yes you are correct i even have some big domain names. but still 28 letters aren't too big??

          one such i have is howtoremoveblackheads.info
          For a while I used howtofightcancerwithacaiberryjuice.info - my traffic was in the surplus over nearly 10,000 unique a day after only a week due to the long-tail keyword niche
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  • Profile picture of the author richgrad
    If you notice... the top websites in the world have domain names that are 10 chars or less...

    google
    facebook
    youtube
    yahoo
    live
    wikipedia
    baidu
    blogger
    msn
    qq
    twitter
    amazon
    etc.

    I rest my case.
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  • Profile picture of the author awmi
    If the 4 words together is a fairly common search term I would use it.

    According to Google Keyword Tool these example are worth acquiring:

    internet search engine marketing 40500 local 22200 global
    business to business marketing 33100 local 18100 global
    internet marketing affiliate program 18100 local 12100 global
    (VERY LIKELY THESE ARE UNAVAILABLE)
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  • Profile picture of the author RichardDean
    Hello,

    I think this is a little long...

    how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

    Richard
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    • Profile picture of the author BH_Winchester
      Originally Posted by RichardDean View Post

      Hello,

      I think this is a little long...

      how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

      Richard
      Actually thats quite a bright idea
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    • Profile picture of the author Oscar D
      WOW, now that's just a little to long

      Originally Posted by RichardDean View Post

      Hello,

      I think this is a little long...

      how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

      Richard
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      -> FindNewDomains - Domain Finding Service WSO - BONUS: Free Domain Name Included!
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      • Profile picture of the author BH_Winchester
        Originally Posted by Oscar D View Post

        WOW, now that's just a little to long
        Not really - the point of that domain is that if anyone type in on google:

        "how much wood could a wood chuck chuck?" or anything of the sort it comes up on the listings quite high - by being a strong backlink, and a high SERP on other keyword you actually help your main keyword.
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    • Profile picture of the author edcole
      If it is easy to read and you think that people will and can remember it quite easy, then go for it.
      In my opinion 28 characters are way too much.
      Short and representative names are way easier to remember.
      I think that a shorter domain name would be a better choice though...
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  • Profile picture of the author Lance K
    Have you purchased it yet?

    If not, go buy it. A good keyword rich domain in a competitive niche, is worth more than the registrar is charges.

    If so, why not post it so we can see how it reads (unless you're secretive about your niches).
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  • Profile picture of the author FreddieJones
    If you could tell us your domain than we may can help you better.

    However 28 words domain is not really long if its easy to read and rememeber and in sequence not a random text.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lance K
      Unless the domain is in a niche where you expect a bunch of repeat, type in traffic, who cares how long it is? Even then, the url should be logged in your visitors browser history. Once they type in the first few letters, your entire domain will be displayed (along with similarly spelled ones). There are way bigger fish to fry than worrying about a long domain name.
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      "You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want."
      ~ Zig Ziglar
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  • Profile picture of the author tryinhere
    Something i have worked on from a mathematical point of view for some time, it was originally named the bakers dozen / 13 letters as the optimum length but after some more study it was changed to 15 letters as your optimum length.

    The maths based on this calculation stems from promoting your name on-line afterwords in adwords and in short you have 35 character spaces to fill, take away 5 spaces for this part .com/ and it leaves 30 spaces, divide it by 2 and you get 15

    this leaves an ultimate 15 letters to promote using a sub url and covers 99% of anything you wish to do / promote

    you can put a 5 letter variance to give a optimum range being <10(15)20> letters.

    You must also have these things if possible

    it is easy to say, easy to spell, easy to remember, has a good customer impression or feel to it, and is better when often it describes your business in some way but only at a base or generic level.

    If possible add a power word to a generic base for example a furniture store would have a base of

    furniture, then add a power word keeping our 15 rule in place so you may get for example

    uniquefurniture.com/ = 15 letters , plus the 5 .com/ we can then start to market that in many many ways , one example

    UniqueFurniture.com/CarpetGuarantee = 35 allowed spaces

    not for everybody but works well for those who do wish this angle, if you don't plan to market the site then use anything because a text link covers most urls anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Louis Monk
    I think a long domain name is OK especially if it easy to remember and does not contain hyphens which complicates it. Alas when you want a specific domain name it is invariably taken already

    If you intend to advertise it in Adwords then you do not want to exceed the limit to the number of characters in URL address line.

    Funnily enough my first website holidaycottage-northwales.com did not rank at all well so I changed it to holidaycottagesnowdonia.co.uk The competition is fierce for these three keywords and I do not rank as high as I would like on Google, yet for Slate Miners Cottage I have been ranking number one on Google though non of those keywords are in the URL. This goes to show the benefit of dominating in a small niche (and they do not come much smaller).
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    David

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  • Profile picture of the author Bon-Bon
    I have a domain teachinginterviewquestions.org (26 letter) which seems to be doing well on the first page of google.com. Guess, google have no issues with long domain names . Just recently i have also bought a 36 letter word domain which is yet to be launched. Lets see how it goes.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Originally Posted by Ernie Mitchell View Post

    I've found a .com key word rich domain that perfectly describes my product/service in an extremely competitave niche..."

    From an SEO standpoint your own statement answers the question. With decent content you could be looking at page one or two very quickly. I'd go for it.
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