i was reading a newsletter where the the author listed most well known domain deals in the past few years:

Amount Year Domain
12,000,000 – 2006 – sex.com
7,500,000 – 1999 – business.com
5,500,000 – 2003 – casino.com
5,000,000 – 2002 – asseenontv.com
5,000,000 – 1999 – korea.com
3,500,000 – 1996 – worldwideweb.com
3,350,000 – 1999 – altavista.com
3,300,000 – 1999 – wine.com
3,000,000 – 1999 – eshow.com
3,000,000 – 1999 – loans.com
2,750,000 – 2004 – creditcards.com

good domain name costs millions.

but good short crispy domain name is hard to find nowadays. in the past, i recommended clients to always consider keyword rich domain names when short one-or-two-word domain is not available.

for example, if webhosting.com.sg is taken, and yes it’s taken long time ago, go for singaporewebhosting.com, if singaporewebhosting.com is taken, you can even consider bestsingaporewebhosting.com. you get the idea.

the reason was, keyword rich domain name is descriptive and may help search engine ranking a bit. it’s long and ugly, but the problem is, the shorter ones are taken. since you have to get a long domain, why not make it keyword rich?

now things have changed. and i’ve changed my mind.

always go for a brandable domain name. something easy to read out loud, easy to type into the address bar, easy to remember, something short.

so instead of bestsingaporewebhosting.com, get, for example, i did not check availability of domain name below, hostingstudio.com.sg, wehost.com.sg, mysghosting.com, trustedsg.com, etc. or maybe your unique company name which does not include “web” or “hosting” at all.

why? provide clients convenience and quality service, not anything else. brandable domain name is good for visitors, and in the end will be good for your business.