Owners of small and medium-sized enterprises overestimate the importance of domain names when setting up a retail website, according to one expert.

According to business IT consultancy CC Technology (CCT), testing domain names may not be the best idea and businesses should simply purchase a web address without worrying too much about its relevance.

Dave Allen, managing director of CCT, said: "If I thought of a [domain] name and I didn't think somebody else had thought of it … I'd just try and snap it up," he said.

He added that anyone who was unsure if a domain name would work for them should seek advice but said that many businesses and websites have been successful despite having a seemingly meaningless name.

"Bebo is a massive success, and that's just a strange name … You could think of a lot of names that sound a little bit like Bebo, that are memorable but don't mean anything. So, I think [domain names are] maybe less important than people think."

According to figures from webhosting.info there are now over 3 million domain names registered in the UK and over 98 million worldwide.

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