What is the average length of a domain name?  Or more importantly, what’s the average length of a popular domain name?

A few people have tried to answer the question based on the top 500 or so alexa sites and every time the answer is LESS THAN 10 Characters.  Here’s some data:

On Domain Names, Size and Quality DOES Matter! (includes alexa data and Digg data)

Domain Name Length of Top 500 Websites (Average Length: 6)

The impact of domain name length on website popularity (uses the top 97 alexa sites)

Incredible.  Recently i mentioned wanting to start a real estate website and I hope it would crack the top 500 alexa websites ;)  So then, the 4 word, greater than 15 character domain name I had in mind is going out the window.

After looking at that list I’m thinking of taking the word “home” and mixing it up a bit to something brandable and less than 10 characters, if possible, or at least going shorter with the domain name now.

Next time you have aspirations of breaking the alexa top500, keep it short.