Domain name importance in SEO

Domain names are very important for surviving in the competitive Cypriot market. A domain name provides an online identity for your business, organization, or service. Selecting a suitable domain name for your web site is the very first step towards building your presence in the internet market of Cyprus. In order to sell your product online or for online business, you need to build up your credibility. Having proper domain name is the first step in that process.

Search engine optimization is a crucial element for every web site. You need to make your site popular and attract organic traffic from search engines. The SEO process starts by choosing a significant domain name for your web site. Domain name is one of the key factors to improve your search engine ranking.

The University of Cyprus is the official registrar for the CY TLD (top level domain). The CY top level domain (the Register) is divided into thirteen secondary level domains whose eligible registrants should fall within the definition opposite same:

• com.cy - Public domain
• ac.cy - Academic and research institutions
• net.cy - Internet or Network service providers
• gov.cy - Government (as interpreted at the international level) institutions/departments/organizations
• org.cy - Not for profit associations or societies which have been registered at the Registrar of Associations and Societies
• pro.cy - Professional organizations and associations
• name.cy - Names of natural persons
• ekloges.cy - Organizations or individuals affiliated with elections
• tm.cy - Trademarks officially registered at the Registrar of Trademarks
• ltd.cy - Private and Public companies with limited liability registered with the Registrar of Companies
• biz.cy - Any other business which have been registered with the Registrar of Companies
• press.cy - Press related organizations and entities
• parliament.cy - Cyprus House of Parliament and related entities

Search engine robots (crawlers, spiders) value the age of your domain name. Google considers a domain name that has been paid for more than one year a more reliable domain than a nearly purchased one. It also checks for how long has the domain name been paid for in years and how many web pages your web site has (one page is not good).

The following are a few things you need to consider when acquiring a domain name:

• Make a short list of keywords related to your business and services. If your products are more popular than your company name than you should consider a domain related to your product or brand.
• Try to avoid a very long name for your web site. If you are unable to get a short name of your choice, you must consider long domain names that have keywords in it to gain a plus in SERP (Search Engines Results Page).
• Since there is a CY TLD available, we advise purchasing .com.cy instead of .com (it proves your business is related to Cyprus).