Domain Names can be 67 Characters Right? Think Again
I've mentioned this in the past, but we continue to get questions about it so
I thought it would be wise to re-iterate it. Many Web marketers will purchase
extra long domain names so that they can include more keywords within it. Some
engines are believed to boost your ranking if your keyword also appears in your
domain name. The "official" domain name size limit is 67 characters if you count
the ".com" or other extension at the end. However, you should NOT register any
domains exceeding 59 characters. There's two reasons for this:
1) Netscape browsers are known to throw fits over URLs that exceed 59
characters.
2) AltaVista has been reported to reject URLs that exceed that same length as
well. However, domains under 60 characters seem to be fine.
On the same topic, I'd be wary about using any domain name that is
ridiculously long. Including three or four keywords should be fine. However, the
search engines could, if they saw too much abuse in this area, discriminate
against URLs that are excessively long. I've not seen hard evidence that this
has occurred. I'd be interested in hearing feedback from users on whether they
have documented anything good or bad regarding extra long domain names.
If you're looking to register a new domain for whatever reason, you can do so
at many locations on the Web.
Note: The information presented here adapted, under license agreement, from FirstPlace Software. |
