I am planning to devellop a web site with 10-15k budget for development and SEO. would you use a memorable short 3 letter .com domain name for this (10-15k value itself) or sell the name and register something like mynewproject1.com ??
Alex, If you have a very good 3-letter domain, why not leverage that *asset* and find the $10k or $15k you need? BTW, isn't that what your sig is about? Sam
Having a good domain is a big advantage. Great domains are easier to market. Their value rise over time and generally they attract more backlinks (looks like authority sites).
I believe a good domain is a valuable addon but not really important if you have excellent and unique content. I started on the Internet developing a website by the side of my cousins, which was a free subdomain under a European hosting service but being newbies to the Internet we did not consider a domain name. However, needing an easy to remember name we got a "premium.ws" URL forwarding service and from then onwards, that site has been the biggest Internet success we've have experienced for nearly 8 years. In fact we are still receiving visitors through such forwarding service, but it was basically a successful, rich-featured site which never received an advertising campaign.
It doesn't necessarily have to be 3 letters long. A good domain is one that can be easily remembered. Think of yahoo, google, microsoft, etc. Make your domain one that can be easily remembered. I do recommend getting a .com domain because .net will be not as great. Especially if word of mouth spreads your domain around and people go to type it into their browsers, then they will put .com at the end.