2 Silly questions regarding url and url shortners

[Andreaa]

I am sure someone else has thought of this..

Which is better for a url a number spelled out or just the number? like six or 6

Then the second question is do you still get links from social media if you use a service like tinyurl.com. I never really thought about it but they are used often with Twitter. So, I was wondering do they count as links..

[AlexNewell]

6 is certainly shorter than six and easier to read too! There's no right or wrong here just choose the one you're happiest with but usually people online are scanners not readers and 6 is a tad easier than six.

Alex

[retta719]

Any time you have a domain with a number in it, you're going to have to explain whether it's spelled out or not in conversation. "Yeah, sure you can visit my new site, Sam. It's www.newsite6.com. Oh, by the way, that's the number six, not s-i-x."

On paper and on screen I think the numbers are easier to read than the spelled out versions, especially if the domain is already kind of long.

I would still buy both and just redirect the additional one to the one you're using.

[Lynn Terry]

Good questions.

You could actually do a split test and see which domain gets the most click through's, or whether it makes a difference at all, though most people wouldnt go through the trouble. Registering both versions is a good idea, and you'd want to redirect one of them as a 301 permanent redirect to the other.

As for social media sites, they are as much about traffic as they are links - if not more so - but I do try to use actual URL's instead of redirects where possible. I use a shortened version of blog post URL's for example, instead of TinyURL.

See section 2 of this tutorial where I talk about creating permalinks that make that possible:

http://www.clicknewz.com/1993/how-to-write-a-blog-post/

[Getagrip]

For the first question, why are you using a number in a URL? I would only include a number in a domain or URL if it was part of an actual keyword phrase someone was typing into a search engine.