Short is better if you want your visitors to easily memorize your url. Btw if you want to have an url based on keywords, you may choose the two keywords, that will help you a little on search engines ranking.
It's Good to have a short domain names for easy remembrance. But Now a days it's very hard to find a short domain names with .com .net suffix. I agree with some of the above saying to chose the keyword as the domain name if branding not the main issue.
Go for VERY long domain names...google loooves very long domain name. I mean like 20+ characters should do it.
I have a blog in IM niche with a very specific keyword in the domain (3 words), I haven't got time to manage it but last time I checked it ranks #2 in google with just "Hello world" post! I haven't done anything yet except giving it a few plugins, so it's gotta be the domain name that got me ranked.
The shorter, the better. All the time. Why? Because people will remember. And companies would pay big bucks for it.
that's fine, short domain is only good for the visitor to memorize it less than 16 letter will be fine
long name for SEO purposes, to include keywords. short name to make a brandable website, easy to remember
No doubt that keywords in domain name helps a lot, but short domain name are very worthy in long term.
Domain names should be short and easy to remember. Another important thing to note is, you don't always need a keyword in your url. Just look at Mashable.
Try having maximum keywords in your domain that will be a plus for your seo efforts as we can achieve faster rankings for keyword rich domains.
1) One word domain is the best - choosing a dictionary word is always good, if it is your keyword than that is even better. IF NOT 2) Use two words choosing dictionary words or your keywords. IF NOT 3) If you still can't settle with two keywords then in a rare case go with three but NEVER MORE. Avoid use of dashes etc.
For SEO purposes, ideally you want the domain name to be identical to the main keyword that you are going after. For example, purpleandbluewidgets.com is good if you are going for the keyword "purple and blue widgets" Also, in my experience, adding a hyphen does not penalize you as much as a letter does as you are not altering the intent of the search. Example. "purpleandblue-widgets.com" is better than "mypurpleandbluewidgets.com"