A domain name is the address of your website, for example, hostsearch.com is the domain name for HostSearch. Choosing a good domain name can mean the difference between being a Google or an Amazon.com and out-of-business. Following are some guidelines for choosing a good domain name that will help you gain visitors to your website. While there is a lot of information here on domain names, to avoid over-analyzing just remember to make the name memorable. The names Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay might not provide a clue as to what these websites are about but they are catchy and easy to remember.

Let's start off with a few things that you should avoid doing when picking your domain name and then move on to the things that will give you an advantage.

First off, avoid choosing a domain name that is a trademarked name for another company. You might be able to jump on a famous person or company's domain name quickly and use that fame to draw a lot of traffic but you'll likely end up in legal trouble as well, thus losing all your hard-earned work when you have to give up the domain name.

In the same vein, you should also avoid choosing a domain name that is very similar to another popular website's domain name. While Yahooo.com might get some traffic for you when people mistype yahoo, more likely than not is people won't remember your domain name. They will remember the more popular website's name and then wonder why it has changed or they can't get to the content they're looking for when they type in that popular websites URL.

Because domain names don't allow spaces you should avoid choosing a name that can be read to form words you don't intend. For example, Jeffrey Jack Associates might be a fine company name but when it's in the address bar jeffreyjackassociates.com may have visitors to your websites laughing about 'that Jeffrey Jackass site'.

There are only so many words to describe a website and when every combination of book and store have been taken you may want to consider using a hyphenated name like book-store.com or using a different extension like .net or .org. It's a tough call. With being memorable as our goal, hyphens, .net and .org just don't cut it but if you're faced with taking a great name that is perfect if you just take .net along with it, then go for it. It's better than some random name that you hate.

Before you pull the trigger however, you may also want to consider using an article like 'a', 'an', or 'the' or a plural. If thebookstore.com is available it's likely going to do better than bookstore.org. The plural, bookstores.com however is going to be hard to remember as it's not really grammatically correct if your site is an online bookstore.

Don't get too far out with combinations though; thebook-stores.org is simply terrible as a domain name.

With that said, the first 'to do' of our guidelines is naming your website the same thing as your domain name. If your domain name is thebookstore.net then displaying a huge Joe's Online Bookstore graphic at the head of the homepage is going to leave visitors remembering the wrong name when they go to type in the URL of your website the next time they want to buy a book.

There is some debate about using short vs. long domain names. If you can get cars.com then great, but if you've got to go with a longer name just make sure that your visitors will be able to remember it for when they're telling a friend about it or going to type it in to the address bar.

If you're going with a longer name, it's a good idea to use words that people are going to use in a search engine to find the things that are on your site. If you are selling web hosting then jackswebhosting.com or sharedwebhosting.com will do well on a search engine when someone searches for 'shared web hosting' or just 'web hosting' even if the URLs are a bit long.

To get a domain name that's really going to stand out in the mind of your visitors, use evocative words. Words that are onomatopoetic or that relate to the human senses or bring out a strong feeling are the best. Ask yourself, does the domain name you're thinking of choosing 'feel' fun to say?

However, you should choose a domain name that targets the respective audience for your site. That is, even if you're selling Bibles you need a catchy name for your site but sexyvirgin.com isn't going to attract the right crowd to your site no matter how well the name draws traffic or how 'hot' you think Jesus' mom was.

You may slowly grow your website to contain content about a broader variety of topics than you start with so plan for the future when you choose your domain name. If you work hard to establish your icecreamcone.com site and it's reputation and then you decide to sell hot dogs too and you change the name to dogsncones.com you will have lost all the momentum you built up on icecreamcone.com. You can always redirect visitors to the new site but in terms of building a name for the new domain name you are starting from zero.

While we're on the subject of having 2 domain names, it's a good idea to register several domain names and point them all to your main site and domain name. For example, if you're going to start a website for your New York based Tai Chi club you may want to purchase taichiclub.com as well as any number of other domain names that apply such as taichinewyork.com, newyorktaichi.com, newyorktao.com, newyorktaoist.com, etc. Microsoft regularly purchases domains relating to their new products and redirects them to it's main site, like windowsvista.com. This prevents others from lampooning them and in many cases may keep competitors from gaining a good search engine ranking even if they have a superior site. Don't use multiple copies of a site though with multiple names though as search engines frown on duplicate sites.

Lastly, once you have picked the perfect domain name, make sure to register as the administrative contact for your domain. That gives you legal ownership of the name which will be critical if you want to switch web hosts. For some reason some web hosts and domain registrars put their own name in as the administrative contact for a domain name which actually gives them legal ownership of the name although the domain registrar or web host is typically listed as the technical contact. If you aren't sure how to check if how your registrar will be registering your site then ask them. When it's all said and done you will be glad you did.