Though most of us harp on the advantages of a good URL strategy, not many actually know what a URL is. For a change, let’s take a look at the basics before moving strategically. A URL, which is rightly your business’s Internet address, is expanded as Uniform Resource Locator. It is a way to locate a particular document or file on the Internet.

Consider this example: http://www.choosewebaddress.com/index.html

The various parts of this URL can be labeled as

  • Protocol: http
  • Host Computer Name: www
  • Domain Name: choosewebaddress
  • Domain Type: com
  • File Name: index.html

While such web addresses are human-recognizable, machines find them baffling. Hence when a user types in a web address, the Internet’s Domain Name Server (DNS) first translates this alphanumeric message into machine-readable binary format and then navigates to the right website. The URL now takes on the format of a set of four numbers separated by periods.

Having said all of that, let us ponder a bit more over the human-recognizable format of web addresses. The format is human-recognizable because it is easy to read, understand and remember. The most dynamic component in this format is the domain name. As an entrepreneur trying to boost web presence, failure to employ the “RUR” tactic in domain name selection would be a cardinal error.

An easy-to-read domain name would be one in plain language avoiding numerals and hyphens as far as possible. Numbers cause mix-up and hyphenated words make typing hard. Inclusion of either of these in domain names makes verbal communication of the name difficult.

A domain name has the flexibility of being as long as 67 characters. I would say: short is sweet but too short may turn out stupid. Something memorable and of reasonable length that compliments your business should work fine.

Some do advise on choosing the company name as the domain name. This holds good for superstars or mega players who are well known and need no introduction. If yours is a relatively younger concern assaying to increase the market share, it will be best to have a name that aptly describes your services.