I was wondering what people think of abbreviations in domain names; for example the site I'm buying a domain for ends in industries (don't know if I should say the name of the site) but ******industries.com is taken so I was thinking to register ******ind.com (ind. is short for industries if anyone doesn't know) this would also make it way shorter which is a huge plus. What do you think?

As long as it still sounds catchy and gives the same impression, I would use it.

I don't see why not use an abbreviation in this case, makes the domain shorter which makes it easier to avoid spelling mistakes for visitors. As SwarmHost has said though, does it still sound catchy?

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to go with the abbreviated version, it sounds pretty catchy

You must not use the abbreviated name if perhaps you want to achieve good rankings on Google, and other search engines, for that full name. SEO side of things will suffer if you choose to abbreviate it.

I am not fond of abbreviated names either. I haven't seen many popular website using such names. The only popular site I know is IMDb.com, which stands for the Internet Movie Database.

Abbreviation and acronym are different.

Abbreviation is taking Industries and shortening to IND.

Acronym is taking Limited Liability Corporation and making it LLC.

There's plenty of sites out there with acronym's - look at any of the news stations (abc, nbc, cnn, cbs).

My problem with using the same name as another site (only shorter) has to do with the market that you're in. If it's for a local market and your clients are in New York and the other company is in Texas, then you should be ok. If you are a national company or have national clients, then you run the risk that someone will go to your competition when they look it up in Google.

You all gave me a lot to think about. And I think I'll be going with the abbreviated form (*******ind.com) it just seems to make more sense and I don't want a .net for this site. And I can always buy the longer version as well
Thanks for the help

I am glad to see you went with the .com. Always a much better choice in my opinion.

Thanks, I actually think I might just buy the abbreviated .com and the full name .net, I plan to be expanding this site in the future so it might be worth it to get it while I still can.

The examples you have provided are established brands. When you mention ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, PBS... ...almost everyone knows who you are talking about.

It really all amounts to brandability.

In the OP's situation I don't know if using "******ind.com" would have the same brandable recognition. If "******industries.net" was available and did not collide with a know trademark, I would be tempted to use it over "******ind.com." And perhaps if the acronym of the company is available "***i.com" might be the best choice. But not knowing all the details it is just speculation on my part.

I'd go a step further and say it depends on the length and complexity of the name also. If you advertise as your full name as Steve mentioned then the url should include for full name for SEO purposes however if you advertise with the acronym then the reverse would be more applicable.

ultimately it depends how you want your brand to come across too your clients for example UK2.net stands or means very little however they are a large group of successful hosting companies. Taking that example further, we use CSN-UK.net however that is an acronym for "Central Server Network-UK" however we advertise with CSN-UK rather than the longer/full name as such the abbreviated url works for us.

Keep in mind your target audience, especially if they are world-wide. Just because you know that "ind" stands for "industries" doesn't mean that people from a different culture/country would as well when they are looking for your site.

I fully agree here. I think that using an acronym can be very beneficial in some instances, so long as you are using a unique name to begin with. You certainly don't want to be too similar to any other site. Branding will take you a long way in the end.