How to choose a domain name: 7 simple rules

If you are wondering how to choose a domain name, the short answer is: take the shortest, clearest name that matches your business, with no hyphens or numbers, on .bg or .com, and register it in your company's name. It sounds simple, but this is where mistakes are made that cost you for years: confused customers, lost emails and an address you cannot change without starting over. Here are seven rules to go through before you pay.

What you are actually choosing

A domain has two parts: a name (for example salonmaria) and an ending (.bg, .com, .eu…). You register it for a set period, usually a year, and then renew it. If the difference between a domain and hosting is still fuzzy, start with domain and hosting explained.

Your address will be on your sign, your business cards, your van, your email and your Google Business Profile. So choose it like the street you are going to live on for a long time.

7 rules for a good domain

1. Short and easy to type

The best test is the phone: say the address out loud to someone and ask them to type it. If you have to spell it letter by letter, it is too complicated. Shorter is almost always better, as long as it is still clear whose it is.

2. No hyphens or numbers

Hyphens and numbers are the most common reason people get an address wrong. "With a hyphen or without?", "The digit 3 or the word?" Every one of those questions is a customer who may end up on someone else's site, or nowhere. The only exception is when the number is part of your company's actual name.

3. Your business name, not a list of keywords

Many people believe an address like cheap-renovation-sofia-bg will push them up in Google. Google itself says otherwise: keywords in the domain name alone have hardly any effect on rankings [1]. Its advice is to pick the name that is best for your business. Rankings come from content and a well set-up site; see SEO for a business website: where to start.

4. The right ending: .bg or .com

Google explains that a country-code ending (like .bg) is a strong signal to both people and search engines that a site is meant for that country [2]. If you work mainly in Bulgaria, .bg is the natural choice. If you also serve customers abroad, .com is more neutral. In many other cases the ending does not matter to Google at all [1], so choose for your customers, not for rumours.

If you work in several towns, one domain with a page for each town is better than a pile of separate addresses: website pages by city and local SEO.

5. Check the name is not someone else's trademark

A free domain does not mean a free name. Before you pay, search for the name in the trademark database of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the WIPO Global Brand Database, where you can search trademarks from many countries at once [3]. For Bulgarian trademarks you can also check with the Bulgarian Patent Office. WIPO handles disputes where someone has registered a domain matching another's trademark in bad faith, known as cybersquatting, and the trademark owner can get it back [4]. You do not want to spend years building an address that could one day be taken from you.

This is general information, not legal advice. If your name is close to a well-known brand, ask an intellectual property specialist.

6. Buy the close variants too

People make typos. There is even a name for registering misspelled addresses to catch other people's visitors, typosquatting, and legitimate owners sometimes buy those variants precisely so nobody else can use them [5]. For a small business that does not mean buying twenty domains, just a few sensible ones:

• .bg and .com for the same name
• the Latin spellings people actually use for Bulgarian letters: "ц" as ts or c, "ж" as zh or j, "я" as ya or ia
• the name with and without "bg" at the end, if you are unsure

The extra addresses simply redirect to your main site.

7. Register it in your company's name

This is the most important rule. The domain should be registered to your business, and you should have access to the account at the registrar, not just your web designer. Turn on automatic renewal and use an email address you actually check. If someone else is building your site, put this in the contract: what to check in a website contract.

A good domain is short, easy to say out loud and in your name. Everything else is detail.

How to check and register a domain, step by step

1. Write down 5–10 name ideas and cross out any with hyphens, numbers or tricky letters.
2. Say the rest out loud to two or three people and see which ones they type correctly.
3. Check availability with a registrar. .bg domains are registered through Register.bg and its partners; .com through any major domain registrar.
4. Search for your favourite in the trademark databases [3].
5. Check whether the same name is free on the social networks you use.
6. Register the main address and the close variants in your company's name and turn on automatic renewal.
7. Write down where it is registered, who has access and when it expires.

Common mistakes

• A name that is too long because the short one was taken. Adding a word like your town or trade is better than adding a hyphen and a number.
• A domain in the designer's or a relative's personal name. Transferring it later is a headache; see how to move your domain to a new website.
• A name that only works in Cyrillic in your head, while nobody knows how to spell it in Latin letters.
• A forgotten renewal. An expired domain means a website and an email that stop working.

Once you have it

Your new domain is the foundation for everything else: your business email, your website, your SSL certificate (what is an SSL certificate) and your Google profile. If you are building your first website, also see what to prepare before a new website.

If you would rather not deal with registrars, DNS records and renewals, the Studio V1 monthly plan includes the domain, hosting and SSL certificate, with a real person looking after them. If you want to talk through your name ideas, get in touch.

References

1. Google Search Central. "SEO Starter Guide." developers.google.com
2. Google Search Central. "Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites." developers.google.com
3. WIPO. "Global Brand Database." wipo.int/en/web/global-brand-database
4. WIPO. "Domain Name Dispute Resolution." wipo.int/amc/en/domains
5. Wikipedia. "Typosquatting." en.wikipedia.org