How to choose your domain name

What you'll achieve

• choose a name that is easy to remember and to spell correctly;
• check that it is available and that it isn't someone else's trademark;
• know which variants are worth getting as well.

The simple rules

• Short. The shorter it is, the easier it is to type on a phone and to remember. A name of 6–15 letters is comfortable.
• Easy to dictate. Say it out loud to someone who doesn't know it and ask them to write it down. If they ask “with an i or a y?” or “as one word or with a hyphen?”, keep looking.
• No accented letters. Write brutaria-ana.ro or brutariaana.ro, without letters such as é or ü: many people don't know how to type them, and email addresses with accented letters don't work everywhere.
• A hyphen, only if it helps. ana-design.ro is easier to read than anadesign.ro, but on the phone you have to say “with a hyphen”. Two or more hyphens, never.
• No digits that can be mistaken for letters (0 and o, 1 and l) and no doubled letters where words join (firmaaurie.ro).
• Your company or brand name, not a list of keywords. A domain like instalatori-ieftini-bucuresti-non-stop.ro doesn't help you on Google and looks like an ad. What helps is your website's content (see Pages for the cities you work in, without doorway pages).
• Think ahead. tort-ciocolata-cluj.ro gets in your way if, two years from now, you also make pastries in another city.

The steps

A. Make a short list

1. Write down 5–10 options: the company name, its abbreviation, the brand name, the name plus a word that says what you do (for example ana + foto).
2. Cross out the ones that fail the dictation test above.
3. Keep 2–3, in order of preference.

B. Check whether they are available

4. Type the name in the search on the Domains page: it shows you the price of the extension. We check availability with the registrar before you pay.
5. If you want to check yourself: for .ro, the WHOIS on https://www.rotld.ro; for .com and the others, https://lookup.icann.org. If a registrant or an expiry date shows up, the domain is taken.

C. Check that it isn't someone else's trademark

6. Search for the name in the trademark database of the Romanian trademark office, OSIM (https://www.osim.ro), or of your own country's office, and in TMview (https://www.tmdn.org/tmview/), which brings together trademarks from across the EU.
7. Also search for it on Google and on social media. A name identical to that of a well-known company in the same line of business can cost you the domain later, in a dispute.

This guide is not legal advice: if the name is close to an existing trademark, ask an intellectual property attorney before you buy it.

D. Decide on the extension and the variants

8. Choose the main extension (see .ro, .com or .eu: which extension you need).
9. If your budget allows, also get the variants that could cause you trouble in someone else's hands: the same name on .com if your main one is .ro (or the other way around), the version with or without a hyphen, a very likely misspelling. Point them all to your main website (see Redirecting to HTTPS and www, the section “Another domain to your website”).
10. Order the domain (see How to register a new domain through NBT Host). Until it is registered, an available domain is not reserved for anyone.

If something doesn't work

• The name you want is taken. Look at what is on it. If there is no website, the owner may be willing to sell it, but they set the price. It is often simpler to choose another variant or another extension.
• The name is available on .com, but taken on .ro (or the other way around). You can take the available extension, but consider whether people looking for you might end up on the other website.
• You bought a name and no longer like it. A registered domain cannot be returned. You can get another one and point the old one to it, for as long as you keep renewing it.