: Is it a bad practice to register sntsh.com if my name is Santosh? My name is Santosh but I can't register a santosh.com because it is already taken. Most extensions for Santosh are already

@Odierno851

Your SEO will not be affected, as content and on-page optimization is much more important than the URL.

That being said, NEVER use an abbreviation in a domain name, unless it is an extremely common abbreviation. Personal abbreviations are too complicated for others to remember and will be easily forgotten.

This may be overly simplified, but why not register your full name instead of just one name?

Regarding the legal question, and I'm not a lawyer, but in the US, if Santosh is your legal name, you can use as you wish for business/personal without repercussion from another business.

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@Angie530

as said by @toomanyairmiles I think its mainly content that drives SEO, however if you look at most top SEO sites, they have SEO in the name somewhere. I believe keywords in domains are becoming less and less important though.

One thing you may wish to consider is if your telling someone about your website... sntsh.com is a touch clunky when trying to describe/ remember it. Had you thought of giving it an abstract name or adding something obvious to it e.g. santoshdesign.com

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@Caterina187

It shouldn't create an SEO problem for you it's the content that creates the ranking, not the domain name.

So far as copyright and legal problems go, so long as you don't steal content from other similarly named sites there won't be a problem - you name is santosh and you have as much right to use that domain as anyone else.

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