• Search Engine Guide , Thursday, September 4, 2008 1:16 PM

"The domain name is part of the identity of your business," says Stoney deGeyter. "The URL chosen can have a significant impact on brand identity and in a lesser extent, keyword ranking performance. However, how your site domain name and page URLs function can have significant impact on the crawlability of the site as well as overall visitor and traffic performance."

And with that, deGeyter serves up a list of domain and URL features that search pros should stay on top of. First, try to keep the domain name short and simple--avoiding unneccesary dashes, extra words and underscores--and use targeted keywords whenever possible. Make sure that company emails end in the same domain (as opposed to a free provider like @gmail.com).

Longevity is also a factor, so try to keep your domain registered for five to 10 years instead of renewing annually. And don't forget to 301-redirect alternate or misspelled domains that you may have purchased back to the primary domain, or to redirect "site.com" to www.site.com."

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