Choosing a good website domain is a key step for your internet presence. Using a provisional name and changing it later can cause all sorts of headaches: people who already know you keep searching for you by your previous domain, loss of indexing with search engines, not very robust as a brand etc.

With this in mind, here are some tips to help you find the best domain name right from the start.

Got your own name?
If you’ve got a business or a project with its own name, that’s a good start for creating your .barcelona domain. The first thing you need to do is check if it’s available. How? Easy. On the .barcelona website you can check by using the registration section and putting the domain name in the search field. If it’s available, it will appear as such and you can register it. If it’s taken, a message will appear showing that it’s unavailable.

If the name you want is unavailable, think about the key words which define your project and try various combinations to see if they’re available so you can choose the one that suits you best.

Make sure it’s not too similar to other domains

If you’re fortunate enough to find the name you want is available, don’t rush things. Search the internet and check if anybody else has got a project with the same name. If you see projects appearing with the name, but which rather than using a .barcelona domain use others such as .com, .cat, .es, it might be a good moment to think the name over again before registering it.

The shorter the better
If you can come up with a short name which is easy to memorise, it will be much easier for people to remember your domain and access your website spontaneously, or for people to remember your website domain when they see it written somewhere.

Easy to write
A good domain name is one that is easy for people to share verbally or in writing, and which is easy to understand. It’s important that you also consider whether your potential users speak just one language or various languages. If the latter is the case, you’ll need to take special care to find a name which is easy to write and understand in any language.

Avoid hyphens and numbers
While we might often choose a free email address by adding full stops, hyphens and numbers because the combination we initially wanted is unavailable, when it comes to domain names it’s not advisable to use the same strategy as it may lead to errors.

We only recommend the use of numbers or special characters if they’re included in your brand name.