Too Long?

How many characters are too many for a domain name. I want it to be as SE friendly as possible.

My main three keywords add up to 23 characters and would make a decent domain name, but I am considering going with something shorter to make it better for SEs. Is it fine to have such a long domain name, or is it a setback when it comes to ranking?

 

Shorter is not necessarily better for SEs. My domain name has 78 characters and I do fine in the SEs.

 

The longer the domain is, the less professional it looks.
Stick to short domains.

 

Domain name can have some bearing on serps, but the main problem with long ones come as fryman put it they are not very professional, not to mention who will remember exactly how to spell it?

If the domain is an easy to remember phrase however you may be alright, if you do it though also try to get any variations or plurals as well.

Forgot to add.
Another option is to get a 'short' name for the site itself, use the long domain for the serps. Transfer via a permanent redirect to the 'long' domain but have the site images, text, etc state the short domain for your users to come back to. This way you get the best of both worlds. I've used this method before with very good results. However make certain not to have the serps think you're trying to promote both, otherwise you may get a penalty.

 

I agree. also 23 characters is not that long

 

Dictionary type in words are long gone so we are left with innovative ways to get our sites remembered, long/short, don't think it matters, it's the content that counts. How many of you actually type in digitalpoint... not me, it's in my favorites.

Aprart from actual single words I do not believe short domain names help, you are better off with a longer name containing your keywords. I'd rather have "girls are smarter than guys. com" than "gastg .com" for serp value.

 

the name of the domain has nothing to do with serps.

 

I beg to differ, i think key words in the domain name help in SEO.

 

Thanks for clearing a bunch of stuff up.

I think I'll go ahead and register the domain.

 

Then explain to me why I still obtain #1 rankings by regng the keyword I want? Sure seams to work for me and has for years. Even with google once it accepts the domain name as the brand name for the search term. It has also shown very effective in msn and yahoo, but that's just my experience.

In my favs to, but some people do not use favorites us webmasters do Also helps being shorter when someone is at a party talking about that cool site they were on, but sucks when they can't remember how to spell it.