At least three times a day, I get a call or email from a reader that wants to know how to select the best possible domain name for their new real estate blog or website.  Selecting the right domain name for your real estate blog or website is essential to catapulting your new site out of the Google Sandox and into the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).  So, here is my Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Domain Selection. Hopefully this will take some of the mystery out of the process.

1. Always choose a .com extension. .com’s are the Cadillac’s of domain names. I know it can be hard to find an available .com name, but the time invested in researching is worth it. Most people assume a domain is a .com, so selecting anything other than a .com can actually prevent people from finding you even when they “know” the address.
2. Never include hyphens (-) in a domain name. Hyphens make your domain hard to remember for the average person and easy to mistype. Another very important reason why a blog should not chose a hyphenated domain is that Technorati and some other social networks can have a difficult time indexing new hyphenated domains. Technorati is a great way to get your message out so you don’t want to alienate it with a bad domain.
3. Keep domains short, easy to remember and easy to spell. Check out this old but good article on selecting memorable domains. This is especially important if you are selecting a domain with either your name or a farm area in it. If your name or farm area is difficult to spell, nix it from your domain! A domain name should be no longer than 25 characters not counting the www or .com.  Now, if you can keep the words simple and easy to remember, you can make it a bit longer, but try to keep it under 25 characters if possible.
4. Include keywords in the domain. Search engines love keyword rich domains.   Keywords specific to real estate are: your farm area, home, homes, home sales, house, condo, real estate, realty, rent, rentals, estates, etc. You can buy your name as a domain, but using it for your primary site isn’t useful from an SEO standpoint.   If you want a URL with your name in it use it as a redirect to a site with more SEO pizzazz so you can leapfrog out of the Google Sandbox and the domain itself is easier for the general public to remember.
5. Beware of including poison words. According to Aaron Wall of SEObook, poison words are words that are known to decrease your pages rankings if a search engine finds them in the title, description or in the url. They don't kill, they just bury pages in rankings. There is a huge list of poison words so I won’t post them here, but outside of the obvious curse, porn, medication and disaster words, terms like “blog,” “forum,” and “hurricane Katrina” are considered poison as well. There us a long list of poison words, so if you are choosing a domain soon and want a second opinion, email me and I will run a poison word check on it.
6. Always check to make sure you are not purchasing a domain that is blacklisted by Google. Use this blacklist checker tool before purchasing any domain. Needless to say, many times after a Realtor or company realizes their site has been banned, they let the domain lapse and it goes back on the market for an unsuspecting consumer to buy. If for some reason you found a really cool web name that is banned like we did in myrealtyblog, call or email me, it’s not easy, but I can get you off Google’s blacklist. However, I recommend staying away from those domains in general because you have no idea who else’s blacklist you may be on. To check to see if your new domain is banned for having sent spam, check with SpamHaus. If you are banned for spam, you will have trouble getting your email delivered to recipients, so all you have to do to get your domain reinstated by SpamHaus is call or email them and explain you get purchased the domain. Much simpler fix than the Google one.

So, what are my favorite tools for finding a domain?

I have to say the Daddy of all registrars is my favorite. If the domain you search for is taken, it will make helpful suggestions of other names you might like instead and their prices are very inexpensive.

Oh, I love this site. It will show you a list of websites that were previously owned (meaning they had some name value to someone) and are back on the market. You do have to be careful with these previously owned sites as they can be blacklisted, but overall I have had good luck with this site.

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