Do you think a .com domain is absolutely necessary? I spent hours yesterday trying every possible combination of words to find an available .com with no luck.

Finally I said screw it and registered a one word .io domain that describes my product perfectly, as well as the [word]io.com domain. I hate to be too trendy, do you think users could learn to use a .io domain?

The general (US) population does not understand anything other than .com.

I feel that unless you snag a .com that's your exact name, you're screwed either way.

I ended up with [word].io, but I was deciding between that and [word][obscure animal].com . I think I made the right choice.

Fortunately, most of the traffic to my site will be from links and not casual mentions/word of mouth, so the tld shouldn't be a big problem.

Took me two weeks to find a .com that I could use recently. I always sleep on my choice before purchase too, so no quick grabs. It was hard work, and I went down some weird alleys looking.

Ultimately, I think the system is very flawed and domain squatting needs to be tackled as a priority. But where's the motivation for the registrars when they collect the same cash regardless of the use of the domain?

Good ideas! I just grabbed the Twitter account and Facebook page for my latest project. I hadn't thought of those.

Finding a domain that's available at any price seems harder to do these days. Squatters are just sitting now, waiting it out or waiting for a crazy offer they can't refuse.

Pretty awesome tips. I don't necessarily agree with the uppercase suggestion, though. If you strip the color from Google's logo the font isn't as identifiable as Twitter or Facebook (both of which are lowercase) so the combination of colors and capitalization of the first letter makes it stand out. Amazon's logo is all lowercase so I don't know if his example is 100% accurate.

The logo I made for Joystickers is all in lowercase precisely because it stands out. Had I used a capital J, it would have looked pretty plain. The lowercase j along with some GIMP magic make it a little more interesting.

I was actually not thinking about capitalization in the logo (which I'm fine with either way), but about the actual name as it's used in written form.

Amazon, Google and Facebook all use an upper-case letter to start their "official" name (if you see it in text anywhere).

Ahh, I see - good point. I misunderstood.

These are mostly good suggestions, but 8-10 seem a little trendy, especially the reasoning behind #10. I really doubt people will even be using Twitter in ten years; picking a shorter name for your company because it'll be easier for people to RT your links just smacks of social media bubble.

That's a fair point.

But, there are reasons other than twitter for shorter being better.

Great tips! I definitely agree that domain registration is a flawed system and cyber squatting is annoying.

I believe that a name is very important. It is how people identify with your business. If it is difficult to remember your business will have a hard time capturing that very valuable "word of mouth".

I would always suggest putting the money into trademarking your name because then you have a leg to stand on if you want to go after someone sitting on your useful domain.

These are good common sense tips. I think that my project Any New Books? (http://anynewbooks.com) scores pretty well on most of these points. What do you guys think? The question mark pisses me off at times, for example when it comes to using the site name in possessive form (e.g., Any New Books?' Blog), but overall I think its inclusion adds something to the name of the site.

I like ANB :)

'Also, stay away from clever domain names like del.icio.us.'

But, as the author states, the Libyan domain names are in vogue now: bit.ly, letter.ly, etc.

Forget the clever domain tricks, even just naming your company "craply" in the first place makes me get a little stabby. -ly, -ify, and any other clever lingual arrangements are going to be out of fashion in short order and you'll be the oh-so-trendy company with the lame name. My only consolation is that these companies will burn out as quickly as they arrive.

OK, that was quite bitter. For some reason I have a perhaps unusual emotional response to certain patterns of syllables, like a useless sort of synesthesia.

Absolute.ly :)

There are actually 18.... I'm sorry, that was uncalled for.