Looking to start setting up my personal photography page, with the view to maybe promoting myself and maybe taking on a few jobs etc… I do a lot of travel photography, so I consider myself a 'seeker' of images… so I thought the word 'seek' would be nice to tie in with my business. Two domains I'm thinking of:

http://www.seekimagery.com
http://www.seekphotographic.com

or maybe both? maybe a hyphen in there would make sense?

unfortunately seekphotography.com is taken, I wonder if I'd be treading on his/her toes re. trademark etc? Ideally I would've liked seekbeauty.com but it's taken as well 🙁

http://www.yourname.com

Unless you're going to a graphic design agency, setting up an proper brand with logos, headed paper etc etc etc i see no point in owning or trying to create a brand.

Plus, youname.com has the added benefit of 'getting your name out there' so to speak

unfortunately some other 'Simon Graham' has already taken 'my' domain 🙁

Well, in that case

seekphotographic

Actually, no, go for the imagery one!

any other votes?

If you're eventually going to try and make money from this, I would suggest thinking about what terms will people to use to find you using a search engine. A good domain name will go a long way to making this easier for you to get on the all important first page of results (presuming the rest of your website is also up to scratch).

Regardless of how you see yourself, would someone type "seek" as part of a search to find a photographer or photographs? Would they use "imagery" or a word related to photography (you've probably noticed that Google already searches for synonyms)?

I'd avoid hyphens, if I were you.

http://www.wowpic.com isn't taken yet 🙂

cheers SFB… maybe you should grab that one? 😉

cheers SFB… maybe you should grab that one?

Surely you mean http://www.arsepic.com

EDIT: That's as in the anatomy, not the quality BTW. 😆

I was thinking along those lines 🙂

http://www.hubbatottybum.com ?

I'd avoid hyphens, if I were you.

I don't particularly like it, but you should use them to separate words for search engine optimisation. http://www.arse-pics.com will rank higher than http://www.arsepics.com in a google search

but you should use them to separate words for search engine optimisation

since you're not privy to the rules they use you cannot know this

I don't particularly like it, but you should use them to separate words for search engine optimisation. http://www.arse-pics.com will rank higher than http://www.arsepics.com in a google search

That's kind of what I was thinking as well… though makes it harder for folk to just 'remember' the url…

I can know this because I read it.

I can know this because I read it.

you mean you can read other people's wild guesses 🙂

I wish I could remember where now! It was at work so was probably a reasonably legit source. It stuck in my mind because I thought it was stupid at the time – people don't remember hyphens in URLs. But thinking about it, a machine is will know for sure that each word in a hyphenated URL is a word, therefore that URL will rank higher than the equivalent where it's having to guess where one word stops and another begins.

But thinking about it, a machine is will know for sure that each word in a hyphenated URL is a word, therefore that URL will rank higher than the equivalent where it's having to guess where one word stops and another begins

A machine will be able to seperate multiple words concatenated together, because it has a dictionary built into it.

therefore that URL will rank higher than the equivalent where it's having to guess where one word stops and another begins.

if the letters of the URL signified anything in search rankings which I believe is not the case…

We have an experienced SEO team (half our business is natural search generated), they say hyphens do nothing to help SEO, do a bit to confuse users. I'll go with their advice 😉

I'd avoid the word imagery as people will spell it wrong and you'll end up having to buy typos to make sure you don't lose email or hits.