What makes a good domain name is simple to say and hard to find: a name people can hear once, spell correctly, remember a week later, and type without help. It should also be legally yours to use, match handles you can actually get, and still fit the business five years from now. If you are asking what domain name you should choose, run every candidate through the 10 checks below before you pay for anything. Each one comes with a real company that got it right or learned it the hard way.
The 10-point check for a good domain name
A good domain name passes all ten of these checks, and a name that fails two or more usually costs you money later in ads, lost email and confused customers. Score each candidate pass or fail. Compare at least three names side by side.
1. It has only one obvious spelling
If you have to spell your name out loud, you will spend years doing it. Words with more than one common spelling (night or nite, light or lite, thru or through) and dropped vowels send visitors and email to someone else. Our 2011 post on how memorable your domain name is asked the same question: does the name sound the way it is spelled? Test it by texting the name to five friends as a voice note and asking them to type it back.
2. It passes the radio test
The radio test asks whether someone who only hears the name can find you. Amazon nearly failed it. Jeff Bezos first filed paperwork as Cadabra, Inc., and dropped the name because people misheard it as "cadaver," as CNBC recounted from Brad Stone's book on the company. Say your name over a bad phone line. If the first reaction is "what was that?", keep looking.
3. It is short enough to read at a glance
Shorter names fit on a sign, a logo and a business card, and they leave fewer places to make a typo. There is no magic length, and word count matters more than letters. Two words usually beat three, a point we made back in 2010 in our look at 3-word domain names, and our newer guide to one, two or three word domains covers the trade-offs in detail.
4. The extension fits the audience
For a US business, .com is still the default people type. It held about 166.6 million of the 401.6 million registered domains at the end of June 2026, according to Verisign's quarterly figures reported by Domain Name Wire and Business Wire. Tesla is the clearest case of what the exact .com is worth: the company ran on teslamotors.com for years, then moved to tesla.com in 2016 after buying it, as Fortune reported. Other extensions work when the audience expects them (.ai for AI startups, a country code for a local business), but every one of them leaks some traffic to the .com owner. Fads cut both ways too, as the recent .si domain boom shows.
5. It does not step on a trademark
A domain that copies or closely imitates someone else's mark can be taken from you. Trademark owners file complaints under ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy, and if they win, the domain is transferred to them. Even sound-alikes cause trouble. In 2004 a 17-year-old Canadian named Mike Rowe handed MikeRoweSoft.com to Microsoft after the company objected to it, in a settlement covered by The Register. He was treated kindly (an Xbox and a trip to Redmond), but he still lost the name. Search the USPTO trademark database for your name and close variations before you buy. Our guide on how to name a business walks through that search step by step.
6. The social handles are free, or close
Your customers will look for you on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and X, and a mismatched handle splits your name in two. X caps usernames at 15 characters, so a long domain may not fit there at all. Check each platform by hand. If the exact handle is gone, a short consistent suffix (such as "hq" or "app") used everywhere is better than a different workaround on every network.
7. It means nothing bad in other languages
A name that works in English can be a joke or an insult somewhere else. Mitsubishi sold its Pajero SUV as the Montero in North America, Spain and Latin America because "pajero" is a vulgar slang word in Spanish, as its Wikipedia entry notes. You do not need a linguist. Paste the name into a translator for the languages your customers speak, search it on Urban Dictionary, and ask a native speaker or two.
8. No hyphens, no numbers
Hyphens and digits fail the radio test almost every time. People forget the dash, and "4" could be four, for or the digit. Every visitor who drops the hyphen lands on the unhyphenated name, which someone else owns. The exceptions are terms that always include a number, such as 3D or 24/7, where the digit is the word people expect.
9. It leaves room to grow
Names tied to one product or one town get outgrown. Dunkin' Donuts dropped "Donuts" from its name starting in January 2019 to put the focus on coffee and drinks, as CBS News reported. Big brands can afford the change. A small business usually cannot, so avoid locking a city name, a single product or a year into your domain unless that is the whole point.
10. The price matches the value
A hand-registered name costs a regular annual fee. A premium or already-owned name can cost hundreds, thousands or far more. Facebook bought fb.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation in 2010, and Farm Bureau officials later said domain sales had brought in $8.5 million, as TechCrunch reported. You will not spend that, but the logic is the same. Compare the price with what a weaker name costs you in extra ads and lost referrals over several years, a case we made in 2011 in why a good domain name is critical for your business. If the name you want is owned already, read our guide to buying a domain that is taken before you make an offer.
Where people go wrong when choosing a domain name
The most common mistake in choosing a domain name is falling for a clever name before checking it. Founders pick a pun, buy the .com, print cards, and only then find a registered trademark in the same industry. Run checks 5 and 6 first, because they are the ones that can force a rebrand.
The second mistake is stuffing keywords. A name like best-plumber-denver-co.com reads as spam, fails checks 3, 8 and 9 at once, and does not rank better for being exact. Search engines care far more about the site than the words in the address.
Frequently asked questions
What domain name should I choose for a small business?
Choose the shortest .com you can get that matches your business name, has one spelling, and passes a trademark search. If the exact match is taken, add a short, clear word such as "get," "shop" or your trade rather than a hyphen or a number.
Is .com still better than other extensions?
For a US audience, yes in most cases. It is the extension people type by default and the largest by far. Other extensions work when your market expects them, but expect some visitors and email to end up at the .com.
Should my domain match my business name exactly?
Ideally yes. When it does not, people guess the exact match first and land somewhere else. If you cannot get the match, consider whether the business name itself is the problem before you settle.
Do keywords in a domain help SEO?
Not much on their own. A keyword can help people understand what you do, but a brandable name with a good site will outperform a keyword-stuffed one with a weak site.
Can I lose my domain over a trademark?
Yes. A trademark owner can file a UDRP complaint or sue, and if they show you registered and used the name in bad faith, the domain can be transferred to them. Searching the USPTO database first is the cheapest protection there is.
Run the check before you pay
Take your three best names and score each against the ten points: spelling, radio test, length, extension, trademark, handles, other languages, hyphens and numbers, room to grow, and price. Drop anything that fails the trademark check outright. Of what remains, the name that passes the most checks wins, even if it is not your favorite. If you are still at the idea stage, our 2010 guest post on ways to dream up a great domain name that is still available is a good place to generate better candidates.
References
- CNBC, "3 of billionaire Jeff Bezos' secrets to success," Catherine Clifford, July 5, 2019. cnbc.com
- Domain Name Wire, "Internet tops 400 million domain names," July 27, 2026. domainnamewire.com
- Verisign via Business Wire, "DNIB.com Reports Internet Has 401.6 Million Domain Name Registrations at the End of the Second Quarter of 2026," July 2026. investor.verisign.com
- Fortune, "Tesla Just Dropped a Hint That Big Changes Are Coming," July 19, 2016. fortune.com
- ICANN, "Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy." icann.org
- The Register, "Sir Bill of Seattle settles with Mike Rowe," Lester Haines, January 26, 2004. theregister.com
- USPTO, Trademark Search system. tmsearch.uspto.gov
- X Help Center, "Help with username registration." help.x.com
- Wikipedia, "Mitsubishi Pajero," checked November 7, 2026. wikipedia.org
- CBS News Boston, "Dunkin' Donuts To Officially Change Name," September 2018. cbsnews.com
- TechCrunch, "Facebook Paid Farm Bureau $8.5 Million To Acquire Fb.com," Alexia Tsotsis, January 11, 2011. techcrunch.com