Domain names can be grouped into two main categories: those which are aimed at describing the content of the website with which they are affiliated, and those which are not. When you think about the websites you remember best, you'll probably notice that they fall into the second category. The word "Amazon" doesn't give you any hint about the site's business in selling books, CDs and other products, and the name "Google", despite having now become synonymous with search engines, doesn't actually describe the site's function. Other examples are Yahoo!, eBay, Flickr and del.icio.us. Names like these can be highly memorable and you have the advantage of a good chance that your desired name will not already have been registered, especially if you make up a word.

That might make a random, brand-orientated name seem very appealing. But then think about what you're likely to type into your browser address bar if you're looking for a certain site. People are likely to type things like "used cars" or "business" into the address bar when they're looking for specific information, products or services, so a generic domain name like business.com can also be extremely useful for your company. (Business.com is thought to be the most expensive domain name in the world, sold for a cool $7.5million in stock options when it was sold in 1999.)

If you're a small business in a competitive market, a descriptive domain name is probably the way to go. At a pinch, type-in traffic might come your way, and keywords in your domain name can boost your search engine rankings considerably. Also, your customers will find your domain name easy to remember if it relates to your business in some way. A name like johnsmith.com is pretty worthless if John Smith is a plumber, whereas yourlocalplumber.com is far more memorable and indicates the purpose of the website. In general, if you are using your website as more than just a calling card, using your name in your Domain Name is a waste of time unless you're really famous.

If your new website is truly innovative (as eBay, Amazon and del.icio.us all were when they began), a weird and wonderful name could well be the way to go – peculiar names are memorable, and, if you have the marketing budget for it, easy to brand. You stand a good chance of finding a short and snappy name, rather than a lengthy and forgettable one, or one modified with prefixes and suffixes. After all, if your website idea is brand new, people won't be searching for it anyway, so keywords in the domain name are less important.

Choosing between brand-orientated and descriptive domain names is not strictly necessary: DomainMonster.com is a great example of a keyword ("domain") and a brandable idea ("monster") combined!

By Natalie Catchpole