Instant Domain Tool

Google is the premiere search engine in the world and a powerful tool for those who know how to use it. Google will even tell you what is the best domain name for your website. Using Google’s Adwords system you can let the market tell you which is the best domain.Here’s how to do it:

Take the several domain names that you have narrowed your choices down too. Register them with a registrar such as Godaddy or your domain registrar of your choice. Now don’t starting whining about the cost. If you are serious about your web site then the few extra bucks it costs to buy a few domains is well worth it and if you don’t do the work now, it’s very hard to go back later when you realize you didn’t use the best domain.

Create a web site using one of those domains you have chosen. If you already have a web hosting account, you may be able to add this domain onto your current account or you may have to purchase a web hosting plan. Again, no complaining about the costs now. You are planning on running a website right?

The site you create does not have to be extensive or even pretty. At this point you are only concerned about how a user gets to your site and not what they do after they arrive. Put some basic information on a few pages and make sure your links work. If you fail to provide any content on the page, Google may make it difficult to run your test.
Then access your domain registrar control panel and mask each domain toward that one hosting account you setup. When a user clicks on the ad, the browser will show that the user is at the domain name the ad was showing but all traffic will go to the one site.

These images show what Godaddy’s control panel will look like and other registrars will probably be similiar in function.

Now this is where the test begins. You need to access a Google Adwords account or create an Adwords account if you don’t have one already. Adwords is the advertising program that allows you to place advertisements at the top and right hand side of search result pages and on individual web sites. It’s very simple to open an Adwords account and you need to do it if want Google’s help in picking a domain. Once you are in the Adwords account, setup a campaign and create a text ad as though your site was already setup and you were ready for visitor/customers/users. If you are a newbie to Adwords, don’t be turned off by what you just read. It really is quite easy and Google has online chat help that I have found to be the best I have ever experienced.

After you have created your first ad copy go back and create almost identical ads for each domain name you registered and are considering on using. The ONLY difference between each ad should be the display URL and the destination URL. Create an identical ad for each domain you are considering, except make the display URL and destination URL unique to each domain.

Now while Google is reviewing your ads, edit the Campaign Settings as the default for Adwords is to show your ads on the search network (Google, AOL, Ask) and the content network ( ads on individual websites). If you choose to run your test with the content network on, remember that your audience will be less targeted than if you just ran the ads on the search network and your results will be a more broad and potentially not as precise. So select or deselect the networks you want your ads to run on.

Second, and last last thing you need to do in the campaign settings is to make sure the option to ‘Rotate ads evenly’ is selected. This has to be selected or your test results will be skewed.

Now the test has begun. Depending on how much traffic the keywords you bid on get will determine how long the test will take to create some conclusive results. Keep an eye on the clickthrough rate (CTR) for each ad you created. If all the ads are identical and the only difference is the Display URL, then you can assume that the differences in clickthrough rate are related to the domain name. The domain with the best clickthrough rate is very well the best domain for the audience you targeted in your ads. Now make sure you have a decent amount of exposure before you make a decision. 100 ad impressions and 10 clickthroughs is not a great enough sample to be reliable. Use a split tester tool to help you determine how confident you can be in your test results.

By testing your domain names this way, you are allowing the market, your actual intended customers, to tell you which domain name they like the most. It’s a very inexpensive test considering all the time, effort, and money you may put into your site, you may as well have the best domain to base it all on.