Smart Elf recommends that our clients stick with the first 3 traditional domain extensions: .com, .net, and .org since these are the most widely recognized by internet users. However, because of their newness .biz and .info have many short high-quality names still available for registration.

The goal in acquiring a domain name should be simplicity and logic: it is best to avoid alternate spellings, hyphens, and numbers in one's domain even though these are legal characters. The shorter the name the better it is typically.

We do not recommend registering all available extensions of your desired name unless you fear identity theft by a competitor or believe it to be extremely valuable. In other words if you have a .com it is not necessary to register the .org and .net also unless they are of inherent value.

There is no steadfast rule that your extension must be an accurate descriptor. In other words, a commercial organization can use either .org or .net extensions even if they are in reality neither a network nor a non-profit organization. This is commonplace on the internet, especially since quality dot-coms are a scarce resource, but quality .org and .net names are still in plentiful abundance.