Thanks for your posts. This thread is now read-only due to continued link abuse.

For me, I would prefer to change my domain name instead of changing my extension.

Thanks for this very informative conversation,  I been looking for this kind of conversation for a long time, the tips and tricks that you gave is a treasure to me, Thanks to the one who made an effort to brought this out. Know I have an idea on how to register for a domain.

These are all great responses, I just want to add another tool that could help with choosing a great domain name. Do a google search for Wordtracker and use their free service to find out how many times a specific keyword is searched for on the different engines each day. So if you are looking to have a domain name built around a certain keyword, do the research to see if that keyword is being searched for. If it is great, if not you may want to re-think your domain, because having a domain name based around a keyword with a high amount of traffic and a low amount of serps is the best way to go. Good Luck!

Seems to me all to often the entrepreneur or 'domain buyer' picks an obscure name or a name that only conjures meaning to themselves. The web is a big place and picking a relevent name is key. I also, through experience have found keywords are important.   One point I'd add is that concentrating to much on 'keywords' from an SEO perspective will likely garner a bunch of noise traffic. Concentrate SEM along with SEO and enjoy better conversions over the long haul.   Just My $.02,   J. Crawford Home Business Ideas

Also...don't be afrad to buy a domain. Some are key-word rich and under $500.

OK lets say I found the desired domain name but is not available in .com. What should I do. Are there any other extensions worth considering?

Thanks for all the 'agrees', yall make me feel like I know what I'm talking about....lol.  Realy, I'm just a guy who has bought a lot of domain names and made a LOT of mistakes along the way.  THE most important thing you can take away from this thread is NOT the name of your domain, the keywords you decide to use in it, the length of the name, or even the TLD (.com .net .org..etc) that you get.....The most important thing you can do is make sure you add content daily or at least weekly. I wish I had known that when I started fooling with all this stuff....Content folks!  If your a plumber, write about common things you find in drains, what not to do yourself, what kind of water your community has..soft, hard..etc.  If you can do that on a regular basis, you can call your plumbing website sillystickblob.com and it will still rank high in the search engines when people are looking for a plumber in your area....I know this is a ramble and that some of you might disagree with me on the sillstick.... name but my point is simply to make sure you are the authority on your subject and you will be found.....that's what the google says...lol  By the way, why isn't search.com as powerfull as google? 

one other underestimated factor in domain names is looking at how easy it will be to actually write compelling anchor text to. Good anchor text is one of the important factors in effective link building but it's more than just for seach engines - it's also a way of directly drawing people to your site. For example the domain 'loans illinois chicago quote' .com will be tougher to write effective anchor text for than 'Loan Quotes Chicago Illinois' .com in some cases you're better to go for a more logical combination athan one that gets a higher search volume.

I think the most important thing if used for affiliate marketing is to have the domain name as your top keyword and also use .com or .org, they have worked best for me