Saturday, April 20, 2024

Can Domain Names Have Numbers

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When To Use Numbers In Domain Names

Everything You Need to Know About Domain Names

Many people will tell you to never use numbers in your domain name. But weve been in the domain industry since 1999, and we can safely say that there are cases where numbers work in domain names.

So, yes, you CAN use numbers in your domain name. However, you need to make sure it makes sense to your brand.

Dont mismatch your brand and domain

Take, for instance, the company Barn2Doors website is barn2door.com. Its not confusing as their brand name and domain name match. If their brand name was Barn-to-Door and domain was barn2door.com, this could confuse the user.

Users wont know whether they should use the digit or spell it out when they try to visit your site.

It could also make it harder to rank on search engine results pages .

Using common words with numbers

There are certain terms that are used commonly that have numbers in them like mp4, B2B, and B2C.

If you want to use these terms in your domain name, you should ideally pick the commonly used spelling.

Imagine if your site was classicmpfour.com, people may not make the connection to mp4. In this case, classicmp4.com would work much better

Make sure it works for your brand and doesnt make you look like a spam website.

Buy both domain versions

If youre registering a domain with a number in it, you could lose traffic if people type out the spelling instead.

For example, if your brand name is Secret Seventeen, visitors may go to secret17.com.

Use a Domain Name Generator

Choose the Right Domain Extension

.surf.cn.win

Find A Domain Name Registrar

The non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers oversees the entire system of domain names, and it allows outside companies, called domain registrars, to sell and manage domain names. You will need to register your domain name through a registrar.

Some of the most popular domain registrars include GoDaddy, Bluehost, and Domain.com, although there are many more to choose from. Be sure to carefully consider pricing and policies for each one before choosing your domain registrar, as it will be managing your domain name.

Example Of Idna Encoding

IDNA encoding may be illustrated using the example domain Bücher.example. This domain name has two labels, Bücher and example. The second label is pure ASCII, and is left unchanged. The first label is processed by Nameprep to give bücher, and then converted to Punycode to result in bcher-kva. It is then prefixed with xn-- to produce xn--bcher-kva. The resulting name suitable for use in DNS records and queries is therefore xn--bcher-kva.example.

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How Do I Find A Domain Name For Myself

Hostinger offers a domain name search tool to help you find a suitable domain. Simply enter a domain name of your choice in the search box and press Enter. Our system will then display a list of available TLDs or extensions based on your suggestion.If your preferred domain name is already registered, choose another extension or try coming up with different variations using your brand name. Once you find your unique domain name, you can claim it by proceeding with domain registration.

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Can A Domain Name Not Be A Com

The Ultimate Guide to Choosing and Buying a Domain Name in 2020

Domain names are not actually company names. Domain names are created by a company to represent a specific type of business or product. They are not associated with a specific location or company.

The domain name is registered with a company and then is used by the company. The company is not associated with the domain name. Domain names are also purchased and not leased. A domain name is not a type of business or product.

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Nine Millions Of Domain Names Are Just Numbers

While I was surfing over some article regarding SEO recently, I got somehow to this article: One in seven new gTLD domain names are actually just numbers. I found it very interesting and having our database on my hands I decided to go a bit deeper than Kevin Murphy and analyze all types of gTLDs, not only the Donuts, new GTLDs ones.

It is really a pretty weird reverse thing to use just numbers in domain names, while the whole domain system was built to get human-friendly address system instead of IP addresses, which are basically just numbers again

So, to go deeper we need to:

  • Filter the registered domain names list, and get the list of containing only numbers
  • Find out the scale of disaster and do some analytics around it
  • Create a crawler and go over them to obtain useful data about those websites
  • Analyze the obtained data, and communicate the results
  • We have four points in the plan, and the first two points look like a pretty fast implementable thing, which we can do right here, right now.

    They Are Hard To Communicate

    A good rule of thumb for registering domain names is that they should be short, meaningful, memorable, descriptive, and unique.

    One way to ensure your domain meets these criteria is to apply something called the radio test. Essentially, if your domain name would be easy to say over the radio and be remembered by someone listening, then it passes the radio test and thats a pretty good sign that it meets these criteria.

    Fundamentally, the radio test is a reminder that on the phone, in meetings, doing presentations, at a bar, in an Uber, or in a Zoom call, youll be communicating your domain name verbally, so including weird spellings, numerals, and non-verbal symbols like the hyphen, can trip you up when youre providing your domain name to people, and can make it hard for people to remember.

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    The Question In Detail

    There are various forms of the question. One version has the reader asking me whether he should geta domain name of the form hereisamultiplewordedexample.comor here is a multiple worded example.com. Others asked if a domain likehere.is.a.multiple.worded.example.com might be superior to a name where all the wordsrun into each other.

    For those wondering what a domain name is, it is just a name like thesitewizard.com. It forms the address of yourwebsite. You get one by registeringa name of your choice with a domain name registrar. This is usually the first step one takes whencreating a website.

    Can Domains Have Accents

    What is DNS (Domain Name System)?

    Domain names can have accents that belong to international languages, for example, übèr-dmâíñ.com However, when registering such a domain, you cannot register it as is. You would first need to convert it to its ASCII equivalent, which is xn--br-dm-7qa1b7bxb3gr9b.com, by using an online converter.

    Your browser will be able to read and decode the internationalized domain name when you type it in the address bar.

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    Why Do Domain Names Have Numbers In Them

    Domain names have numbers in them to help people remember them.

    For example, www.domainname1.com would be remembered as 1.com because the first letter of the domain name is 1.

    Similarly, www.domainname2.com would be remembered as 2.com because the second letter of the domain name is 2.

    Domain names also have letters in them, such as www.domainname1.com and www.domainname2.com.

    For example, 1.com and 2.com would be remembered as 1.com and 2.com because the first letter of each domain name is followed by a letter that is the same as the letter in the other domain name.

    Most Popular Numeric Domain Names Have 3

    Summarizing, most popular numeric domain names have 3-4 digits length, same time there are 76 longest ones registered in ccTLD zones, 50 in gTLD zones, and 94 in New gTLDs. And here we are talking about something like this:

    012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012.net012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012.asiaOr666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666.xyzand so on.

    Whats the next step? First of all, in the next article, we will do zones filling analytics, but for numeric domains only. We will combine the list of available numeric only combinations and by comparing it with the most popular ones will find out in which zones they still are not registered.Then, Im going to crawl the most interesting zones to found some data about websites itself, to figure out what they used for, why the name contains only numbers, make some assumptions and predictions.

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    Determining If A Domain Name Is Available

    All domain name registrars provide tools for checking the availability of a given domain name. For example, Go Daddy has a tool that allows you to check whatever domain you might be interested in including all of the less common extensions. Once you find a domain that you want to buy, you can buy it anywhere you want you arent limited to Go Daddy or any of the many other domain name registrars.

    Ii Using A Domain Estimation Tool

    How to Select the Best Domain Registrar (Our Recommendations)

    There are a lot of estimation tools available on the internet that will give you an accurate idea of what your domain is worth. These tools will estimate the worth by taking into account all the factors that affect the value and comparing your domain to the data of recently sold similar domains.

    In short, these tools will do all the heavy lifting for you, giving you an accurate estimation of the worth of your domain name. The most widely used domain estimation tool is EstiBot. You just have to enter your domain name into the tool, and voila! Youll get an accurate report of how much your domain name is worth.

    Beyond the general estimation, these reports will provide you with other relevant data as well, like, similar domains recently sold, search volumes of those domains, keywords, and much more.

    Also Read: Why Should You Renew Your Domain Before It Expires?

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    Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Domain Name

    If you decide to build a new website, and you want it to be successful, you will need a good domain name. The domain you choose, however, may not be very appropriate, or it may be quite hard for people to remember. You may find this out only after the site has already been launched and it may be too late you will have to rebrand the site, while any ads or print materials you may have already paid for will probably go to waste.

    Below, you will find the ten common mistakes people make that you should avoid when you choose a new domain name.

    1. Do not use numbers

    Using 2 instead of to or 4 instead of for or four is something you should avoid. While you may find it witty to use numbers, many people will most likely find it difficult to guess what you had in mind when you registered the domain. It will be frustrating if they want to visit your website and cannot figure out what the right domain for it should be.

    The above is valid for using numbers in general, not only when you replace a preposition should visitors spell the word or type the number? They will either go to another site that uses a similar domain, or will see an error in their browser if they dont guess the right spelling, or vice versa.

    You should use numbers only when they are a part of a brand/event name, like str8.com or worldcup2020.com, for example, or if the name is clear enough for visitors to know what exactly to type in their browser.

    2. Do not use hyphens

    3. Do not use trademarks

    Use In Web Site Hosting

    The domain name is a component of a uniform resource locator used to access web sites, for example:

    • URL: http://www.example.net/index.html
    • Second-level domain: example

    A domain name may point to multiple IP addresses to provide server redundancy for the services offered, a feature that is used to manage the traffic of large, popular web sites.

    Web hosting services, on the other hand, run servers that are typically assigned only one or a few addresses while serving websites for many domains, a technique referred to as virtual web hosting. Such IP address overloading requires that each request identifies the domain name being referenced, for instance by using the HTTP request header fieldHost:, or Server Name Indication.

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    Truth In Domain Names Act

    In the United States, the Truth in Domain Names Act of 2003, in combination with the PROTECT Act of 2003, forbids the use of a misleading domain name with the intention of attracting Internet users into visiting sites.

    The Truth in Domain Names Act follows the more general Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act passed in 1999 aimed at preventing typosquatting and deceptive use of names and trademarks in domain names.

    What Types Of Characters Can Be Used In A Domain Name

    Lec-76: Domain Name System (DNS) in computer Networks

    In general, only the following characters may be used in a domain name:

    • Letters a through z . Note that domain names are not case sensitive. This means there will be no distinction made between upper case letters and lower case letters
    • The numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and/or 9
    • The hyphen character

    There are limits on how you can use hyphens:

    • A hyphen cannot be used to start or end a domain name
    • Two or more hyphens cannot be in consecutive positions

    Basic Characteristics

    Domain names must:

    • Be at least 2 or 3 characters long, dependant on the extension, EXCLUDING the extension. For example:
    • z.com is invalid as the length of the domain without the extension is only 1 character
    • yes.com is valid as yes is at least 2 characters long
  • Be no more than 63 characters EXCLUDING the extension
  • Contain only letters, digits, and hyphens. For example:
  • Its-1-Bad-Domain.com is invalid as it contains illegal characters
  • its1gooddomain.com is valid as it does not contain illegal characters
  • its-1-good-domain.com is also valid as it does not contain illegal characters
  • Not start or end with a hyphens. For example:
  • -1-bad-domain.com is invalid as it begins with a hyphen
  • 1-bad-domain-.com is invalid as it ends with a hyphen
  • baddomain.com is invalid as it contains consecutive hyphens
  • 1-good-domain.com is valid as it does not begin or end with a hyphen
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    What Is The Best Option To Get A Free Domain For My Business Website

    While companies, such as Freenom and Dot TK, offer free domains, they are not secure nor do they look professional. For a free business website, your best bet is to sign up with a hosting provider or website builder that offers a free domain to new users. Keep in mind that the free domain is usually just for the first year or the length of the initial contract.

    Symbols Allowed In Domain Names

    The range of acceptable symbols used in domain names is limited for two reasons. Firstly, varying registers of who has the rights to use which domain name need a common system to make sure the same name isn’t assigned twice. Secondly, the domain name system, which translates domain names into an IP address, needs to know which characters are and which are not part of the domain name.

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    Is Net A Good Domain

    In most cases, the web is not a good option for your businessThe « com » in the . .com domain name means « commercial » website. This can cover business websites, websites that want to make money online, personal websites, blogs, portfolios, and more. net domain name extension stands for « network ».

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    How Do Computers Identify Each Other

    Beginners Tutorial: What is a Domain Name and How they Works ...

    Computers identify each other using long strings of numbers identification numbers we call IP Addresses. These numbers are generated by the computers themselves according to algorithms and systems which guarantee they will be unique. Much like telephone numbers, there are tiers of uniqueness many people may have the number 867-5309, but only one phone within the 321 area code has that number, and there is only one 321 area code within the United States.

    IP Addresses, like phone numbers, make it easy for the computers to communicate with each other but again, much like phone numbers they are not particularly meaningful to humans. You might be able to memorize a phone number (especially if you set it to music, but it is much easier to use a phone book or directory.

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    You Already Own The Other Version

    Finally, you might want to register a domain name with a hyphen in it because you own the non-hyphenated version. This is especially important if youre looking to protect your brand name or other intellectual property, or if you just want to avoid confusion.

    In that case, we suggest you register the hyphenated version of the domain and forward it to the non-hyphenated version.

    Ultimately, in general, we agree with the common sense that you shouldnt register a domain name with a hyphen. This is a good best practice to have.

    But its important not to treat domain name best practices dogmatically. This is a good example of a rule thats really just a shortcut for the more important, big picture, which is: consider your future website visitors when you register a domain name. If its going to be complicated to explain to them and complicated to remember your domain name if you include a hyphen, dont include it. Otherwise, feel free to register a domain with a hyphen in it. And finally, if you have the budget, getting both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of a domain name is a good idea for brand protection, and for traffic generation.

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