POLL - Himalayan Imports New Domain Name

beoram

beoram

Joined
Nov 27, 2001
Messages
1,780
Seeking input on a new domain name for the Himalayan Imports web-site. Since part of what search engine evaluate is the domain name, it seems ideal to include likely key-words (e.g. 'khukuri', 'kukri', 'nepal', 'knife', &c.) as part of the name. I don't think we want something as unwieldly as 'nepal-khukuri-kukri-knife.com', so trying to determine what might be best. Here's some possibilities I've thought of:


a. www.himalayan-imports.com
b. www.hi-khukuri.com
c. www.hi-kukri.com
d. www.nepal-khukuri.com
e. www.nepal-kukri.com
f. www.nepal-knife.com
g. www.nepal-knives.com


Other suggestions are most welcome too. (www.khukuri.com, www.kukri.com, www.himalayanimports.com are already taken).

My thoughts: (a) is appealing as it is the company name, but doesn't offer much in the way of advantages for searches, as people who know HI already aren't the ones we need to 'target'; (b) & (c) make sense, but aren't particularly attractive to me; (d) is what I'm leaning towards myself, as it offers both the keywords 'khukuri' & 'nepal'; (e) is like (d), except that there could be an advantage is the more common spelling of 'kukri', but I like (d) better myself; (f) & (g) offer the advantage of possibly drawing people who do a search under 'knife' or 'knives', but I feel rather against them on the grounds of the lack of 'khukuri/kukri' in the title.

These are what I came up with, but I thought that other people might have better ideas, and/or comments on the possibilities I've suggested.

thank all,
--Ben
 
I think using the most common spelling somewhere in the name is the best way to go. It'll grab more people doing searches. :o
 
Ben,

I was under the impression that the search engines looked at the meta-tag names during their search and not just the domain name. I know that is what it was like a few years ago when I put up both of my sites at least.

If that is still the case, then www.himalayan-imports.com would work--keeping the company name out there, and then placing all of the other discriptive names in the meta-tag section of the header code, it should show up in a search of those names.

Just my .02 (before taxes :) )

Alan
 
Seems to me that www.HIGhurkaknives.com would be the best from the point of view of search engine hits. It gets the company name and the most common (mis)spelling of the knive into one compact form.
I have noticed that many of my favorite engines respond to main page phrases, to the extent that many sites have a 'footer' containing a multitude of key words and phrases calculated to correspond to a search string.
Ken
 
Many thanks for the input all.

I hadn't thought about more than one domain name, good idea. And I like www.himalayan-khukuri.com .

So my revised thoughts are, if we choose only 1 name:
www.himalayan-khukuri.com

For 2 names:
www.himalayan-imports.com or www.himalayan-khukuri.com
& www.gurkha-knife-nepal-kukri.com (hits all the key)


From some 'research' I found that search engine evaluate domain names as well as meta keywords.

Oh, originally I was told that http://www.melbourneit.com.au was the best domain name broker (US$35/year), but I stumbled across http://www.marketposition.com/domainnames.htm (US$15/year). Anyone know anything else?

--B.
 
I've been on the net for 6+ years now and I've always been frusterated when domain names are not the same as the company name. Name recognition is everything in advertising..

www.himalayan-imports.com is the only way to go, imho
 
www.himalayan-imports.com

I'd grab www.himalayan-import.com and other likely misspellings too, for the benefit of the scatterbrained and fumble-fingered.

Or
www.himimp.com - nice and short.

"khukuri" in the name runs the risk of bing missed by those who think it might be khukri or kukuri.

Concerning registration: what about hosting services - Web space, bandwidth, etc.?

If I were doing this for myself I would look into "The World" www.theworld.com, they've been in the business for years. But it (the whole package) would cost quite a bit more than $15/year.
 
Even if kukri is incorrect I think it should somehow come up in any search done for khukuris.
When I first came to the forum I wasn't real sure if khukuri and kukri were the same thing, but I took a chance and here I is.;)
 
Good choices so far. You might want to include a reference to Indian/Asian knives.

n2s
 
Why don't we include "nifes" too? :)

It all sounds good. I like the idea of having the main site as a variant on the company name and having a couple of redirects.
 
Originally posted by Vicks
I've been on the net for 6+ years now and I've always been frusterated when domain names are not the same as the company name. Name recognition is everything in advertising..

www.himalayan-imports.com is the only way to go, imho
Click to expand...


Vicks' suggestion is best. because you can always add keywords into the website's metatags to boost search engine ranking. Name recognition is key. How many of you go to television.com? Yet, I bet most of you have been to cnn.com, or cbs.com, or abc.com... :) Same thing goes for computers.com, watches.com, knives.com, friends.com, email.com, and even sex.com (one fine exception to this trend is cars.com)

It's a myth that just having the product name in your website will get you visitors. Exposure gets you hits...period.

If you really want to make yourself marketable, buy at least 3-4 domains and have them "point" to the one with your actual website on it.

My recommendation:

Main website:
www.himalayan-imports.com

Additional domains:
www.khukuri-knives.com
www.khukuri.biz (see below)
www.ghurka-knives.com
www.nepal-knives.com
etc, etc, etc


by the way, you should check here first to make sure that these names are not taken already:

http://www.whois.net

Another caveat -- hopefully, posting these names here will not encourage others to snatch them up and then offer them to you at a higher price... :( :mad: :(

Go here to get 3 years of registration for the price of 2: ($70)

http://www.networksolutions.net
(plus no hidden fees)

Also, you should consider getting a .biz name as well. This suffix is reserved solely for businesses. ie. you can't have IHateDanRather.biz ;) It has to be a legitimate business. It was just released last October and within a year or two it will become the standard for reputable small businesses.

If you need hosting, you can get you $7.95 a month (including a shopping cart, no setup fees, no transfer fee) here:

www.ipowerweb.com

Hope this helps.

Email me if you need more info, etc.

Dan
 
Finally, a topic that I'm actually qualified to comment on ;) In real life, I'm a DNS administrator at a large semiconductor mfg company in the great state of Texas. I help manage about 75 or 80 domain names that we own, plus I've registered a personal domain name - dhuff.org.

The only way to go is to register all of the good names you come up with. Make himalayan-imports.com your main one, then setup your web server to allow "virtual hosts" for all the other names. Same sort of thing if you decide to run your own mail server, just configure it to answer to all the domain names (e.g. so that email to <tt>UncleBill@whatever.com</tt> gets sent to <tt>UncleBill@himalayan-imports.com</tt>).

There are good domain name registrars out there that'll sell you domain names at $10-$15 a year per name. For dhuff.org, I use GKG.net and am quite happy with them. You could also look at Joker.com, Dotster, or directNIC. I'd stay away from Network Solutions (Verisign) - they're expensive and their customer service leaves alot to be desired, IMHO.

Uncle Bill, if you'd like more info or help with this process, please feel free to ask. I'd be delighted to assist :D <br>
 
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