SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Choosing a Website Name
If the Website name contains a well known brand, the rankings will be good when
a search is made on that brand name. Usually a combination name is needed - one
that informs users of what the Website is all about, and is easy to remember. You
may need to use hyphens between the individual words. Keep the Website name as short
as possible.
If you would like visitors to return to your Website, then the selection of the
Website name is important. But if you rely solely on the Search Engines to steer
visitors to your Website, the naming of the Website becomes less relevant.
The competition for single and even two word Website names is fierce. There are
now 1 million .au Website names registered. The perfect descriptive name for your
Website is most probably already taken, and you need to be inventive. Use Google
initially to see if the chosen name is unique. To check whether an Australian name
is available, click on http://www.ausregistry.com.au/domain.php.
If local visitors are required, make sure that the Domain Name specifies the country.
For example, use www.example.com.au instead of www.example.com, for
a better chance of being found in Australia. The website does not have to be a dot
com. However, it is best to acquire the dot com in addition to the local site. This
will avoid the problem of domain hijacking (cybersquatting), as well as increasing
search engine hit rates.
URLs explained
The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a resource on the Internet.
The URL contains the protocol of the resource, a host name, a domain name, and the
address of the resource. For example, a page on the internet may be at the URL http://www.example.com/somefolder/default.aspx.
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http://
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is the protocol
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www
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is the host name
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example.com
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is the domain
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/somefolder/default.aspx
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is a pointer to a file on the server.
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The Domain Name explained
A Domain Name is used to identify and locate a computer on the Internet. It is used
to provide an easy-to-remember Internet address, rather than a number like 192.168.15.1.
The top-level domain can be two or three letters. Three letters indentifies the
type of organization:
- .com (commercial)
- .edu (educational)
- .net (network operations)
- .gov (government)
- .mil (military)
- .org (organization)
Two letters represents the country:
- .au for Australia
- .uk for the United Kingdom
- etc
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