- Allison Ko
- Nov 30, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: Dec 2, 2025
The perfect domain is just a click away: claim your domain→
If you’ve ever searched website domain tips, you’ve probably been flooded with suggestions from all directions.
The problem? A lot of the advice floating around online is outdated, misleading or just genuinely terrible. And while a bad domain decision won’t crash your website overnight, it can quietly hurt your credibility or cost you thousands in missed traffic down the line.
In this post, we’re breaking down the worst domain name advice you should absolutely avoid—as told by business owners like you. So, whether you’re creating a website for the first time or looking to evolve your brand, our best advice is to ignore the following advice:
01. “Your domain doesn’t matter”
Let’s start with the basics. A domain name is a strategic decision, not an afterthought.
As Shannon Smith O'Connell, operations director of claims management company Reclaim247 discovered, “The worst domain advice I ever took was the idea that customers do not care what your URL looks like as long as your service is good…this could not be further from the truth. When people are already under financial pressure, they are scanning for anything that feels off. A clunky or unfamiliar domain raises doubt before they even reach the page.”
Adrian Iorga, founder and president of Stairhopper Movers also points out how your domain name isn’t just meant to impress customers. Rather, “Your domain name shapes every stakeholder's perception, even before they visit your website.
“Back then, I was told to focus solely on how customers would view the domain name, but the myth was soon busted when investors and partners shared their thoughts on the domain name. Turns out that the word 'stairhopper' appeals to both customers and stakeholders. It adds value by giving a graphic context of how efficient our crew (and services) will be.
“I learned to not make our domain name all about customers, but to make it brandable and to think of something that can serve as our corporate catchphrase.”
Keep reading: How to choose a domain name
02. “The more keywords, the better”
It used to be said that the strongest domains prioritize keywords. And while it’s equally bad advice to completely dismiss keywords, depending on customer habits, today, “Google and LLMs reward your authority,” says Calin Oancea, CEO of Oancea Media, whose team tested keyword-rich domains across 10 newly launched sites to see how they’d impact rankings.”The content and topic structure behind the domain matter far more than the name itself, as well as your EEAT and your brand sentiment.”
“I once heard that stuffing my domain with an exact-match phrase would magically boost traffic,” adds CEO of Publuu, Chris Mehl. “I picked a painfully long, keyword-rich variation during a testing phase (my team joked that the domain looked like a Wi-Fi password). I remember watching analytics for three months and seeing nothing move.”
Similarly, Caitlyn Stout, who owns a tent brand called Stout Tent, recalls thinking that having a “super descriptive company name would help people find us. When I was starting out, I almost went with something like CanvasGlampingTentsUSA.com because I wanted people to immediately know what we sold. Thankfully, I stuck with StoutTent.com instead.
“The real cost isn't just SEO myths—it's opportunity cost. We started selling tents, then added a massive event production side…and now we have 200+ wholesale clients across six continents. A keyword-stuffed domain would've boxed us in and made every pivot feel like we were fighting our own brand identity.”
Caitlyn’s two cents: “Pick something that can grow with you and sounds like an actual business people want to work with, not a search term. We've built a multi-million dollar company without a single keyword in our domain.”
03. “Pick a domain name that’s purely creative”
It’s often thought that a 100% original (and sometimes weird) name grabs attention. While in some cases, this might be true, there’s a fine line between being creative and being confusing.
JoAnne Loftus, president and owner of Archival Designs, can attest to this. “Someone told me that I needed a short, abstract domain name to make it ‘brandable,’” she remembers. “That was the worst advice I got.
“Consultants told us that names like ‘Archival Designs’ (our company name) were too long and out of style. They said we should be like Zillow and pick something short and catchy, even if it had nothing to do with house plans.
“We thought about it for a moment, but it didn't feel right. We've been in business since 1983, and people trust our name. So, we decided to stick with archivaldesigns.com. Sometimes, being clear is more important than being smart.”
Xian Li, founder of Mermaid Minds, noticed another problem with URLs that stray too far into creativity. “I fell for the myth that domain selection was purely about branding and creativity. When I chose yttomermaid.xyz for our SaaS tool, I quickly discovered that new domains are flagged as suspicious by email providers, which caused severe email deliverability issues. This forced us to completely rebuild our email infrastructure. I learned the hard way that a domain is not just a brand name, but a critical trust and communication layer.”
04. “Hyphens are harmless”
"I fell for the myth that using hyphens in a domain name would help me get the name I wanted,” admits Philip Stoelman, founder and CEO of Network Republic.
“Networkrepublic.com was already taken when we started. Someone told me to just sign up for network-republic.com instead. They said it would make it easier to read and that search engines would see the separate words.
“That was a bad idea. People always forget the hyphen. We would tell customers to go to our website, but they would go to networkrepublic.com, which was our competitor. It was also hard to talk on the phone because I always had to say, ‘That's network, hyphen, republic dot com.’
“In the end, we got networkrepublic.com. It was a costly lesson.”
05. “Only .coms are worth your money”
There’s no denying that “.com” has become the most globally recognized TLD. Despite this, VP of Premier Title Loans Jessica Chase, notes, “The worst domain-related advice I've fallen for is that .com domains are the only way to go when establishing an online presence.
“A few years ago, I paid a premium for a .com domain when I could have gone with a .org or .net for a tenth of the price,” she elaborates. “Yes, .com domains have more legitimacy, but that doesn't mean much if you've used up most of your marketing budget to purchase the domain.”
Founder of Deep AI, Kevin Baragona, adds, “In reality, clarity, memorability and cleanliness in searchability matter much more, especially in the technology and AI industries. I have seen firms with unusual TLDs dominate over legacy .com brands, simply based on a stronger positioning, product and content.”
On the flip side, CMO of Crosslist, Daniel Nyquist, warns against defying convention just for the sake of being unique: "The worst thing we did was use a trendy, strange domain extension to make our site stand out…we quickly figured out that this was a mistake. When people look for a website, they automatically type .com.
“We were losing direct traffic because people who might buy from us couldn't find us. They would type ‘crosslist’ into their browser, and it would go to the .com site, which we didn't own at the time.”
Further reading:
06. “If you build it, they will come”
Regardless of what naming approach you take, your domain alone doesn’t create legitimacy. That’s what Pouyan Golshani, founder of GigHz, realized after building multiple products and companies across the med-tech, AI and real-asset investing fields.
“People obsess over finding the perfect name or the perfect .com and assume the domain itself will pull in traffic. It won't.
“A great name is only as good as the attention you bring to it. Without marketing, distribution and a clear value proposition, the domain just sits there looking pretty and doing nothing.”
Ian Gardner, director of sales and business development at Sigma Tax Pro, found that even snatching an expired URL with established domain authority can’t promise instant traffic.
“[We were going to grab a] recently expired domain, which had a decade of domain history in the taxation niche. The decision was almost final before our SEO specialist scanned the backlink profile. That’s when we discovered the domain was a digital graveyard, with spammy links pointing to casino and adult websites. We would have started at a negative 50th level in authority and organic rankings.”
07. “Start with a cheap domain—you can always upgrade later”
“The poorest domain-related advice I ever took was best expressed in the situation where I was a founder and was encouraged to do what everyone launching a brand at the time said to do, which was: ‘Just get the cheapest domain you can—you can always upgrade later,’” recalls Chunyang Shen, founder of Jarsy Inc.
“Our first domain was cheap, low quality and difficult to memorize, which confused our customers and compromised our brand name. We were forced to rebrand the company after a few months.”
In the same vein, Riken Shah, founder and CEO of OSP Labs, made the mistake of going with an unbranded cheap domain name from a low-cost provider.
“I thought it was a good move to save money,” says Riken, “but that decision came with hidden costs, poor customer support, frequent downtime and lack of security features. Those issues not only caused operational headaches but also hurt our brand's credibility.”
Read more: How much does a domain name cost?
08. “You don’t need privacy protection”
When you’re registering a domain, the best domain registrars will offer domain privacy protection. Don’t skip this, advises Kyle Sobko, CEO of SonderCare. “I used to think domain privacy protection was just optional and that it was okay for my contact info to be public, but that quickly changed.
“We handle sensitive client information and card details, so keeping domain registration private is a must. In the past, I ran a small site without privacy protection and started getting strange emails and phishing attempts aimed at our payment info. Turning on domain privacy almost immediately stopped the flood of spam."
Resell Calendar’s COO, Ryan McDonald, also remembers skipping privacy protection to save $10 a year. “It seemed like a harmless decision at the time, but within just a few days, we began receiving an overwhelming number of unwanted phone calls (spam calls) and emails from what appeared to be SEO experts and domain brokers.
“It made me realize just how important it is to protect your domain registration information, even if it costs a small amount extra. It's a small investment that pays off in terms of reduced spam, increased security and peace of mind.”
09. “Once you buy a domain, it’s yours forever”
This simply isn’t true. “You only keep a domain if you renew it on time,” explains Richard Dalder, business development manager of Tradervue. “If you forget, someone else can register it.”
But before you click “auto-renew” for your domains, read the fine print, says Dmytro Sokhach, co-founder and CEO of Editorial.Link.
“Sure, if this is your primary business domain and the renewal price is predictable, auto-renewal is a best practice. However, some companies hook clients with an extremely low registration price and then charge catastrophic renewal fees if you forget to check the renewal cost,” Dmytro elaborates. “That's how I got charged a cosmic amount for a .space domain renewal. One year ago, I purchased a .space domain. I paid less than two dollars in total. It was set to auto-renew, and I didn't care too much about it because it's common practice. However, one month ago, I was shocked to see I was charged a crazy amount—$2,500 for automatic renewal.
“So, I highly recommend turning off auto-renewal and manually renewing your domains until you make sure they won't charge you four figures for that."
10. “Protect your brand by buying every possible variation of your domain”
In certain situations, it can make sense to buy a few variations of your main domain—but don’t go overboard just to reserve them all.
"When we were building out The Event Planner Expo brand, I pushed hard to buy every domain variation I could think of, like .net, .org, .biz and hyphenated versions,” says EMRG Media's VP of marketing and sales, Jessica Stewart. “I thought it would ‘protect our brand’ and prevent competitors from snatching them up. This cost us a few thousand dollars over the years.
“The reality hit when I looked at our analytics after five years: a hundred percent of our traffic came from the main .com domain, social media and search. All those extra domains just sat there costing renewal fees. We were paying for digital real estate that didn't exist in anyone's actual behavior.”
CEO of TailoredPay, Daniel Kroytor, further notes, “You can purchase every available TLD out there, but it still won't protect you from someone making an exact match copy of your website and trying to scam people. We purchased about 10–12 different TLD variations, and the only effect was that we had to keep track of renewals. The people that did make a copy of our website didn't even use the same domain name. They just copied it on a completely new domain.”
Master the basics: