As a person who loves spicy hotdogs...

myhotdogisreallyhot.com sounds like a fabulous name for a website.

lol, yeah that would be a pretty good domain name

This article is written by someone who doesn't have the experience or knowledge of the full range of reasons and value of a domain name.

Your domain name is your most important link to the internet buying and visiting crowd. A long domain name isn't necessarily a bad domain name. If a domain name describes a specific product or service EXACTLY, then sometimes the domain name can be as long as 25 words with no problems in promoting that domain. Take "OnlineAuthentication.com" which is 20 letters long, but represents important security services and products worth millions of dollars. It's a great brand and people will "typein" that domain in their browser bar to see who owns it, expecting the best sources of "online authentication" processing and products to be located there.

Defining your company's service or products is also paramount in boosting your online presence, even if you have a domain name that represents your company already. Let's say you have a domain of your company name, "XYZhomeloansInc.com". You're company operates in Minnesota. If you're trying to bring in new customers who never heard of you, they may not remember the advertising of your company name and services. But what if they're looking for "minnesota home loans" so they type in their browser bar "minnesotahomeloan.com" which if you owned, would point to your website. You are now having that domain name promote your services by leading people looking for home loans in Minnesota to your site.

Domain names are one of the most appreciable marketing assets in the world. You can pay $100,000 for a good domain name that the following year only costs you $8 to renew, but that domain name will bring you thousands of visitors BY ITSELF every day of every month all day and all night long for as long as you own the domain. For $8 a year after your initial purchase. Think of what one client lead can bring you for a profit, and then consider that if only 100 people typein your generic descriptive domain name, like "cashadvancer.com" and become regular customers. This is why thousands of people and companies pay as much as $7 million for one domain (vodka.com is one example).

I advise anyone seriously wanting to get into the domain investment business, or to enhance their marketing dollar by owning powerful descriptive domains that represent your company's business and services, to invest in some consulting advice and do a lot of reading up on the domain industry at some of the industry news sites such as http://www.dnjournal.com and blog sites (like my own) http://www.successclick.com, and http://www.Conceptualist.com.

Do your homework and you can do very well as a buyer and seller of domains.

well stephen, if you see this post, you can clearly see that this is meant for novices. Not experts. And for domaining business I would like to add that people tend to purchase smaller domain names. Go to sedo and check it yourself. People wont buy your large domain name until and unless it has a good PR.

PS: Please don't promote yourself here.

I happened to find this article through Google Alerts and would like to offer more info on the subject. Buying Domain Names has become an industry just like Real Estate only on the web. Check out the DNJournal.com , just to see some of the prices folks are paying for top dictonary domains.