Choosing a Business Domain Name

This page represents a compendium of the best advice the ePostman has found on Business Domain names on the internet.

Getting the right business Domain Name registered is rather more urgent than registering a personal Domain, and the consequences of trying to register too late are more serious. Lose your Domain, and one day you might have to change the name of your company. Really!

The first step is to define what sort of a business you are. In general, very small businesses (particularly 'SoHo' types businesses) can follow the type of procedures recommended for choosing a personal or family Domain . So-called 'SME' (Small & Medium sized Enterprises) and larger corporates need to be more careful. The following advice should prove useful:

Firstly, you may need several names. If you think that the Internet is, or will one day be, a valuable source of custom for you then you need as many routes into your on-line presence as possible. Here's a simple example:

Your company name is Smith Wurke Ltd. Your strategy is not only to protect your 'core' name by registering it, but also to register the most popular international variants and the most likely miss- spellings. This last point is important. Many users of the internet will guess the address of a web site. Interestingly they are less likely to try to guess an E-Mail address. In order to multiply the chances of your site being found you need to consider what people might guess. Quite a good idea is to get a group of people who have never seen the company name written, and ask them to guess its web site address based only on hearing the name. You will probably end up needing to register:

smithwork.co.uk
smith-work.co.uk
smithwork.com
smith-work.com
smithwurke.co.uk
smith-wurke.co.uk
smithwurke.com
smith-wurke.com

You'll notice here that we are effectively filling in a matrix of possibilities involving different spellings, hyphenated versus 'elided' (because Domain Names cannot handle spaces) and different endings.

These endings (in the example above, .com & .co.uk) are quite important. Originally the .co.uk ending referred to UK registered companies, but more recently it just means 'some kind of UK entity' whether it's a person, a company, whatever. Many firms choose to register the .com ending versions of their Domains as well, even if they have no international business, on the grounds that it helps their 'findability and guessability' and can give an impression of international stature. The latest browsers (e.g.Internet Explorer 5) will fill in the www & .com if you just enter the rest of the name. There are also .net .biz .info .ltd.uk and .plc.uk endings which are available for companies. The .net usually denotes the company has something to do with the internet and like the .com ending has an international impression. (There is a .net.uk ending but this is reserved for Internet Service Providers.) The .ltd.uk and .plc.uk is reserved for UK limited companies and PLCs who wish to use their business name. The Companies House registration number is required to register a domain with a .ltd.uk or .plc.uk ending. The .biz and .info are new endings available from October 2001. The .biz denotes a business and has been introduced due to the congestion in the .com namespace. The .info is meant to provide information. The endings .org and .org.uk are only available for non profit organisations.

If the business really is international, you really need to register the .co.uk & .com version. And if you have offices and/or products available in a range of countries, you'll need to develop a full international portfolio of names. In fact there are over 200 alternative endings available in total, but advising on the how to structure and maintain such a portfolio, protecting your trademarks and brand names world-wide, is beyond the scope of this introductory guide.

Once you've decided which domains to register (and don't forget to register your brand names as well as your company name) then you'll need to decide what to do with them.

In general, advertise as few addresses as possible. If you just have one web site, arrange web forwarding so that all of your addresses 'point' to the same site

www.smithwork.co.uk
www.smith-work.co.uk
www.smithwork.com
www.smith-work.com    all forward to www.smithwork.co.uk
www.smithwurke.co.uk
www.smith-wurke.co.uk
www.smithwurke.com
www.smith-wurke.com

If you have separate UK and US sites, then forward all the .com addresses to the US site and all the .co.uk addresses to the UK site.

Only publish the 'correct address'. You don't want to confuse people by printing all these separate addresses, especially the miss-spellings. For example, if you only have offices in the UK and a web site in the UK, choose the address which you like the most. We would suggest

smith-work.com

because it's clear, short and easy to read. Then publish your web site address as

www.smith-work.com

and your E-Mail addresses as

firstname.surname@smith-work.com

What do I do if my Company or Brand name has already been registered as a Domain by someone else?

If it really matters, you can try to buy the name back, or possibly even take legal action to retrieve it. Neither of these courses of action are guaranteed, and both can prove expensive. Often it proves better to simply try thinking a little laterally. Using the example above, if you can't get hold of the Domain names you need because someone else has already registered them, you might try to register some kind of acronym, such as swl.com or swl.co.uk

The quick guide to choosing the correct domain names for your business, brands and products

short - users do not like to type lengthy names - and shorter names are easier to remember but you still might want your business name if it is long & that's what someone would guess.

sharp - your domain name is the key to your Internet presence, and should therefore be recognizable, easy to remember and relate to your business name, brand, product or activities.

where - if your company is located in the United Kingdom, it is recommended that you register a .co.uk domain name even if your business activity includes export trade. If you have an international presence, i.e. an overseas office or project then a Top Level Domain such as .com might be more suitable. Many businesses choose to register both, and we suggest doing so if you consider yourself international. All  addresses can "point" to the same email account and website.

intuitive - when users search the Internet for a particular product or service they often search by product or service, rather than business name. To increase the chances of them finding your site, you can register extra domain names that relate to your core business or products, e.g. a vineyard may choose wine.com or grapes.net as well as its company name.

which category - UK Limited Companies can register .ltd.uk domains as well as the popular .co.uk - there is a range of endings available, and we would be happy to advise if you'd like to email and explain your circumstances.

format - domains names are case insensitive. Keep it simple, we advise you to keep your domain in lowercase. UK domains need to be 3 to 64 characters long, but different rules apply in different countries - please call for advice.

punctuation - no punctuation is allowed except a hyphen which is normally perceived as a "space". If your company or brand name contains two words (e.g. John Smith PLC) you might choose to register both johnsmith.co.uk and john-smith.co.uk in order to further protect your brands and enhance your 'findability'.

numbers - if you wish, you are allowed to use numbers in your choice of domain. You might choose a domain name based around a memorable phone number.

too late? - if you company name has already been registered, why not try a slogan, brand name, acronym or even a phone number? Creative names can be very effective. Be aware that if you register a domain name which infringes another company name or trademark then they may take action to recover it. You can also try the .biz or .info domains