Many search engine optimisation (SEO) experts will tell you that if you want your website to succeed, you need a generic (or "keyword-rich") domain name. The market certainly seems to agree: it's the most generic of all Domain Names, such as business.com and wine.com, that sell for millions of dollars in the domain resale market. Speculators go crazy for these keyword-rich domain names, snapping them up as soon as they become available.

But are they really worth the money? The SEO experts argue that a keyword-rich domain name is an important part of optimising your website; if you sell used cars, usedcars.com is the best domain you could have. It is true that search engines take domain names into account when ranking pages in order of relevance, but they are certainly not the be all and end all. The fact that Business.com is a not-unusually-successful web directory says it all: even with the most expensive domain name on the planet, your online business is not necessarily bound for success.

The vast majority of the top 20 most frequently visited websites on the web today do not have generic domain names. The domain names may touch on the content of the website – Blogger.com, MySpace.com, Wikipedia.org – but they are all extremely brand-orientated. They are memorable and have become inextricably associated with their own product or service.

A quirky, brand-focused Domain Name is far more memorable than a generic one. Generic domains may get some type-in traffic, if you go for a really obvious name, but no one is just going to type "surreyusedfordcars.com" into their browser address bar on the off-chance that such a website exists. You may experience a marginal boost in search engine traffic because of a keyword-rich domain name, but it's not guaranteed to get you into the number one spot, or even the first page.

If you can grab a relevant keyword-rich domain name for the normal domain name registration fee (rather than from a reseller), you may as well go for it, and use the domain to redirect search engine traffic to your website. But don't spend thousands of pounds on supercheapstainlesssteelcutlery.com; you'd be far better off give your business a name you can brand, and using tried and tested SEO techniques such as establishing back links and providing keyword-rich, unique content, in order to improve your search engine positioning.

By Natalie Catchpole