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I'm working for a non-profit company, and I was wondering what your thoughts are on the following options for the primary domain name:

thexyzalliance.org txyz.org thexyz.org

Originally, I was going to use the shortened domain names to forward to the longer domain name, but I'm not sure if I should just stick with one of the shortened domain names as the primary. This way, I can also have shorter e-mail addresses, such as [email protected]. So I guess my question is, what's the best practice?

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    What is the usability implication you're trying to solve?
    – dnbrv
    Commented Apr 28, 2012 at 14:47
  • Not trying to be mean, but questions like this need not to be asked, since the answer is obvious.
    – Andy
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 12:13
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    Why is it obvious? Think it completely depends on the demographic of your primary users. Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 12:25
  • There's nothing to stop you using one domain for the site and another for e-mail addresses.
    – TRiG
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 14:02

2 Answers 2

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The shorter the URL it might be easier to remember for those people who tend to memorize URL's but if people relate to an URL with the name of the organization then you might have problems since people would struggle to figure out what the url of the site was by using the name.

For example, I helped out a non profit called Getting to know cancer, we did have a choice of using gtkc.org but we eventually decided to go for gettingtoknowcancer.org since it resonated better with people and gave an idea about the mission of our non profit.

Of course,if your non profit is well known or if you building a site for a well known organization such as the WWF (world wildlife fund) or UNESCO, then you wont have to worry about long URL's

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The shorter you can go without causing confusion the better. If you can get thexyz.org then I'd say use it. It's a catchy URL and easy to remember.

The longer a URL, the better the chance of a user mistyping or messing it up.

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