GMChost.com Webmaster Guide

I've mentioned this in the past, but we continue to get questions about it so I thought it would be wise to re-iterate it. Many Web marketers will purchase extra long domain names so that they can include more keywords within it. Some engines are believed to boost your ranking if your keyword also appears in your domain name. The "official" domain name size limit is 67 characters if you count the ".com" or other extension at the end. However, you should NOT register any domains exceeding 59 characters. There's two reasons for this:

1) Netscape browsers are known to throw fits over URLs that exceed 59 characters.

2) AltaVista has been reported to reject URLs that exceed that same length as well. However, domains under 60 characters seem to be fine.

On the same topic, I'd be wary about using any domain name that is ridiculously long. Including three or four keywords should be fine. However, the search engines could, if they saw too much abuse in this area, discriminate against URLs that are excessively long. I've not seen hard evidence that this has occurred. I'd be interested in hearing feedback from users on whether they have documented anything good or bad regarding extra long domain names. If you have comments, reply to this e-mail.

If you're looking to register a new domain for whatever reason, you can do so here or at many locations on the Web

In conclusion regarding doorway pages, apply the concept of a doorway page since you must have search engine friendly pages to be found. However, if you e-mail questions to the search engines, avoid using any search engine marketing terminology whether it be doorway pages, gateway pages, hallway pages, or even "informational pages." If you're reporting a problem with your listing, describe how correcting it would benefit their users. The search engines care about providing relevant search results to their users, but they are not necessarily concerned about how you as an individual rank. Keep that in mind and you'll be better equipped the next time you communicate with them.