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How did you select your domain name?

S

silentrage

macrumors member
Original poster
I'm about to set-up a personal website for my professional research interests. The site will have a blog discussing my research interests, relevant links to professional organizations, a bibliography, info about me (nothing too revealing), and my school portfolio.

With that being said, the first decision to be made is a domain name. I'm debating about using my first name, a combination of first & part of last name, or just something totally generic.

What are your thoughts? How did you decide your domain name?
 
Yep, I had the same problem as well...

I made a website and then purchased webspace and needed a domain...

But I couldn't decide so it went to my dads business.
 
silentrage said:
I'm about to set-up a personal website for my professional research interests. The site will have a blog discussing my research interests, relevant links to professional organizations, a bibliography, info about me (nothing too revealing), and my school portfolio.

With that being said, the first decision to be made is a domain name. I'm debating about using my first name, a combination of first & part of last name, or just something totally generic.

What are your thoughts? How did you decide your domain name?
Click to expand...

Coming up with domain names is always tough (as are company names, for that matter). My current domain name was fairly easy as it's based on a nick I've been using on IRC for about 10 years, but if you don't have something similar to draw upon, it can be kinda tough.
 
I just signed up for mine a few weeks ago, and simply used my first and last name.

<shameless plug>www.craigotis.com</shameless plug>

😀 😛
 
iLikeMyiMac said:
Mine's not very creative. its just my first and last name like johnsmith.com
Click to expand...

Littleodie914 said:
I just signed up for mine a few weeks ago, and simply used my first and last name.

<shameless plug>www.craigotis.com</shameless plug>
Click to expand...

Are you not concerned about security/privacy when you using your first and last name? I checked into my firstname/lastname as a domain name and it is available. I just don't know if that is a wise decision. I do have a different first name and it is also available as domain name.
 
I used dimwell and selected a .net.

My last name is Brightwell, so the kids used to call me "not so brightwell" and that eventually morphed into "dimwell." I thought it was funny. It's also short and memorable, which is key to any good domain name.

I chose a .net because .com is overrated and .org is not nearly as well-organized as I'd like.
 
I used my wife's maiden name because mine is too common. It is short and seemingly arbitrary. www.magpoc.com

I guess my only advise is to keep it simple or, at best, memorable.

Good luck with your decision!
 
I took my three initials, state abbreviation, and a popular abbreviation for my profession and jumbled them all up into something pronounceable. Not the easiest for someone to spell, but oh well...
 
If the site would potentiallyhave any commercial value, try to find an available domain name that embeds at least one keyword into it. The domain name should give first time visitors a pretty good clue what will be inside the site. johnrsmith.org doesn't do that.

What's a keyword? It's whatever your intended audience types into Google to find your site. Do some searching and find your closest "competitors" in your research/knowledge area. The search terms that reliably bring up the most-similar existing websites to yours, are the key words you want to have.

So: if you do research into osteoporosis, for example, osteo, osteoporosis, bone, research, & maybe aging might be top key words. Then make a domain that is both pronounceable (and spellable after one hearing) and incorporates keywords. osteo-forum.net bone-research.com osteoporosisinfo.net whatever, then search domain names to see that there are not too-similar names in use already. Try to keep it short, although virtually all of the one-word domains are already taken.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
EveryRose.com
 
mine was pretty ez. Emo is my nickname, and it's my online site, so EmoOnline.com 🙂.

scem0
 
I have several domains that all pretty much go to the same place... here they are, and the reason for each:

clayjohanson.com - my name
clayj.com - my e-mail address at my job was "clayj", and many people call me that (pronounced "clayjay")
arsnovum.com - I thought at one point about opening an Internet-based art gallery... "ars novum" is Latin for "new art"
johansoncollection.org - a domain specifically for my art collection
starsallshine.com and aquilacombine.com - two domains I bought to go with a screenplay that I wrote

If you can get your name, do it. Shorter domain names are better, .com addresses are better than weird TLDs like .biz.
 
silentrage said:
Are you not concerned about security/privacy when you using your first and last name?
Click to expand...
You can dig up this info about every person that has a domain registered (WHOIS).

Personaly i have a generic domain name. Thought of a word of which i liked the contents/meaning and then searched for a translation that sounded nice.
In the end i went for some australian aboriginal translation.

Cheers
 
CanadaRAM said:
If the site would potentiallyhave any commercial value, try to find an available domain name that embeds at least one keyword into it.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
EveryRose.com
Click to expand...

Thanks, fortunately my site will not have commercial value. It is mainly a site to explore my research interests.
 
I've got a bunch, but one of my favorite is a five letter word, made up, that has an 'x' in it. Just so I would have a short domain name that has an 'x' in it 😀

D
 
clayjohanson said:
If you can get your name, do it. Shorter domain names are better, .com addresses are better than weird TLDs like .biz.
Click to expand...

My first name isn't that common and is still available. If I don't decide to use it for my site I wonder if I should purchase it just because...
 
I don't think you should worry much about the privacy issue. There are some things you can do to prevent certain personal information from getting out, but as someone who's had his name associated with a Web site for many years, I can assure you that little comes of it. I also know people who are more "famous" than I am, and have URLs based on their name, and still have no privacy concerns.

If you are someone who is going to be a professor, for example, then the name recognition will only help you later on. Think of it: universities list professors on their Web sites, and nothing comes of that.

I'd guess the biggest precaution might be to not include your street address, though indeed, I'm not sure what the problem there is either. Anyone who wants it can just look it up in the phone book.
 
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