Whenever you create a website or a blog it usually can be accessed either through “http://www.domain.com” or “http://domain.com”. While this feature might appear useful at a first sight (since people can type whatever version they prefer) over the long run it will harm your search engine ranking.

The problem arises because Google and other search engines view the two versions as two distinct sites, even if they have the exact same content (technically, in fact, the “www” denotes a subdomain that could point to different content).

Search engine ranking is based, among other things, on the number of incoming links to your site. If you keep the two versions available some people will link to “http://www.domain.com” while other people will link to the “http://domain.com”, basically splitting your backlink count.

Having two different versions might damage you in popular lists and social bookmarking sites as well. The picture on the right was extracted from Populicious, a site that lists the most popular sites on Delicious. If you take a look you will notice that Digg is listed both at the 7th and 10th position. This happens because the list treats “http://www.digg.com” and “http://digg.com” as two different sites. Shoud only one version be available the combined number would place Digg on the first position of the list.

How do you solve the problem for your blog? The easiest way is to set up a “301 Permanent Redirect” from the “no-www” version to the one with “www”, or vice-versa. Once the redirect is in place every time a visitor types http://domain.com he will automatically be redirected to the “www” version.

By the way, if you are wondering whether you should go with or without “www”, it does not matter. The important thing is that you pick one and stick with it.

Update: Check out the article “How to setup a 301 Redirect“

One of the best things you can do to improve your blog is buy your own domain. Free blog platforms like Blogger are fine to get a first contact with the blogosphere, but as soon as you decide that you will invest time in your blog I highly recommend that you buy a domain.

Once you decide to buy a domain you will need to search for domains that are not registered yet, but where exactly should you go? Below I will list 3 useful services for someone looking for domain names.

Who.is: you type the domain name and the server will check the availability with most of the extensions (.com, .net, .org, .biz, .us, .tv and so on). The advantage of this service is that, if the domain is already registered, it will also display the details of the registration (date, registrant, company, etc.).

Instant Domain Search: this site checks the availability of .com, .net and .org domains only. The advantage is that it reports the results in real time. As you type the domain you will see whether it is free or not, letter by letter.

Domains Bot: if you are having trouble finding a suitable domain this service will certainly help you. All you need to do is type one or more keywords and it will generate hundreds of suggestions.

If you ever tried to register some domain names you probably know how difficult it is to find something that has not been registered yet. You start with an idea for a cool website (excitement), then you narrow down a couple of keywords (more excitement) and suddenly “Damn! Who the heck registered that already!” (anger)…

One of the most effective ways to find a free domain name that is relevant to your site is to grab a keyword and add prefixes or suffixes to it, until you find something unique. Suppose you want to launch a blog about marketing, all you have to do is pick the word marketing and start adding prefixes like “emarketing.com”, “promarketing.com”, “polimarketing.com” or suffixes like “marketingspot.com”, “marketingvox.com” or “marketingpulse.com”.

Below you will find more than 200 prefixes and suffixes, so just grab your keyword and run through the list, sooner or later you will find some unique combination that no one has registered yet. Good luck!

Update: If you like this list, consider purchasing my book “Killer Domains.” It has an even bigger list with over 400 prefixes ans suffixes, and many tools and techniques to find good domain names.

Classic suffixes:

• house
• central
• point
• home
• place
• garden
• site
• spot
• park
• dome
• bay
• web
• net
• cave
• base
• heaven
• portal
• world
• camp
• network
• county
• street
• city
• alley
• depot
• valley

Other suffixes:

• now
• resources
• tools
• source
• review
• system
• book
• guide
• talk
• data
• vision
• load
• box
• focus
• beat
• voice
• share
• cafe
• nexus
• zone
• sight
• link
• lab
• insight
• vine
• board
• flow
• signs
• network
• wire
• cast
• ville
• nation
• egg
• cove
• news
• today
• future
• fun
• watch
• story
• fever
• coast
• side
• road
• heat
• bite
• insider
• club
• connect

Classic prefixes:

• the
• my
• i
• me
• we
• you
• e
• top
• pro
• best
• super
• ultra
• all
• cyber
• simply
• free
• 1st

Other prefixes:

• meta
• re
• metro
• urban
• head
• hit
• front
• techno
• ever
• rush
• think
• solo
• radio
• vip

Adjectives that can be used as prefixes:

• hot
• smart
• cool
• hot
• fast
• fresh
• sleek
• first
• daily
• best
• sharp
• light
• classic
• fast
• great
• quick

Latin prefixes:

• ubi (when)
• bis (twice)
• ad (to, towards)
• ambi (both)
• inter (between)
• liber (free)
• mono (single)
• poli (many)
• tele (distant)
• omni (all)
• exo (outside)
• extra (addition)
• hyper (over)
• hypo (under)
• intro (within)
• proto (first)
• intra (within)
• micro (little)
• macro (large)
• multi (many)
• neo (new)
• iso (equal)
• mono (one)

Latin words that can be used both as prefix and suffix:

• io (I in Italian)
• virtus (virtue)
• ego (me)
• vox (voice)
• ex (out of)
• ideo (idea)
• novo (renew)
• novus (novelty)
• pax (peace)
• rex (king)
• velox (fast)
• verus (true)
• vivo (alive)
• nova (new)

Multipliers prefixes:

• pico
• nano
• micro
• milli
• kilo
• mega
• giga
• tera
• peta

Scientific prefixes:

• aero
• cosmo
• deca
• eco
• geo
• hex
• oxy
• uni
• poly

Words that work both as prefix and suffix:

• media
• direct
• access
• ez
• easy
• info
• interactive
• biz
• buzz
• bit
• byte
• up
• tech
• on
• out
• auto
• pulse
• x
• venture
• trend
• life
• retro
• secret

Sometime ago I wrote an article titled “WWW or no-WWW“ where I explained that most sites can be accessed either through “http://www.domain.com” or “http://domain.com”. Leaving both domain versions working is not optimal because it might split your backlink count and consequently damage your search engine rankings.

Apart from setting a “301 Redirect” you can also use a Google featured called Webmaster Tools to inform Google about what domain version you prefer. This will make sure that Google handles the backlink count correctly and also that the right version will be displayed on search results.

Here is a quote from Google’s help center:

The preferred domain is the one that you would liked used to index your site’s pages (sometimes this is referred to as the canonical domain). Links may point to your site using both the www and non-www versions of the URL (for instance, http://www.example.com and http://example.com). The preferred domain is the version that you want used for your site in the search results. Once you tell us your preferred domain name, it may help us determine PageRank for your site more accurately.

Via: John Chow

SEOmoz has has a great list of rules to follow when coming up with domain names, check it out:

1. Brainstorm 5 Top Keywords
2. Make the Domain Unique
3. Only Choose Dot-Com Available Domains
4. Make it Easy to Type
5. Make it Easy to Remember
6. Keep the Name as Short as Possible
7. Create and Fulfill Expectations
8. Avoid Copyright Infringement
9. Set Yourself Apart with a Brand
10. Reject Hyphens and Numbers
11. Don’t Follow the Latest Trends
12. Use an Ajax Domain Selection Tool

Most of those rules are straight forward, but you can read a complete description of them here.

Domain tasting refers to the practice of registering up several domain names to test whether they receive type-in traffic and then dropping the domains that do not. This is possible because most domain registrars offer a 5 days refunding period.

This practice should not affect the general public, but lately people are reporting that some domain search data is being sold to domain tasting companies. In other words, when you search for a certain domain someone might be collecting that information and selling it, possibly making you lose that domain.

The DailyDomainer has an interesting article titled “Who is monitoring your domain searches?“, outlining how domain tasting work and how one could protect himself against it. There are three simple tips to avoid losing a precious domain to tasters:

1. Delay the search for domains until you are ready to purchase them
2. If one of your searched domains gets registered by a domain taster you should wait 5 days and check for availability again (make sure to not visit the domain during that period)
3. If you are in doubt about several domains buy them all, choose and then drop the ones that you will not use