

Ask HN: Does domain name affect success? - hinoglu

English is not my native language, and suffered from this issue when picking domain names in the past. One was almost meaning "a gay hookup central" instead of poker fans community site...<p>Anyway. Finding a domain name for my latest "next big things" is the hardest part of the projects.<p>Looking at monster.com, omegle.com, amazon.com i.e. names are not related to the content.<p>So i wonder if i chose some bogus or completely irrelevant name for my -say- joblisting site, would it affect the success in any way? Of course the shorter/the sweeter/the nicer/the easier the better, but they don't exist out in the wild anymore :)<p>thanks
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Revisor
As an abstaining domainer let me sum up what I learned:

The shorter the name the better.

Don't use hyphens nor digits.

Dot com is the king for any international project.

In many countries their CCTLD is better than a .com (eg .de in Germany).

Do three tests:

\- Radio/phone test. Say the domain name over a phone. There should be no
problem spots you should repeat.

\- Writing test. Look out for any easy typos: repeating letters and language-
specific grammar problems.

\- Association test. Ask your friends for their first impression and what
occurs to them immediately after they hear the name.

Made up names are ok.

A good rule of thumb is: Make sure there is only one thing the users have to
remember.

Eg unusual TLD + a made up name = 2 things to remember. Reduce to just one.

IMO the domain name doesn't really affect success, there are far more
important things like founders' skill and passion.

However not observing the above-mentioned rules can make the success harder to
reach.

------
bgraves
Here's a few sites I use when trying to pick a new domain name.

1\. Best list of tools available at Domain Groovy [<http://domaingroovy.com/>]

2\. Create domain name suggestions with Dot-o-mator
[<http://www.dotomator.com/>]

3\. Find short domain names at NXDOM [<http://www.nxdom.com/>]

4\. Quick whois search and domain 'hacks' (like del.icio.us) at DomainTyper
[<http://domaintyper.com/>]

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matthewphiong
A good, short, memorable domain definitely gives a startup a greater advantage
in marketing & branding.

Kumo -> Bing, TheFacebook -> Facebook, GetDropbox -> Dropbox

I do agree that find a good domain name for a project/startup is hard
especially you dont have lots of cash in hand (to acquire registered domains)
but I don't agree with you that other shorter/sweeter/nicer domains didn't
exist anymore in the wild. This might be true for 4-char, one syllable name
but not all. I think it's fine if your domain is not directly related to the
service/content of your project as long as it's reasonable/logical (e.g. if
your project is about news don't use a domain like tropicaljuice.com)

You can always go for 5-7 chars, 2 syllables name. You can use tools like
Dotomator or Domainr to find a good, fresh name for your project.

BTW, if you are willing to tell HN your "next big thing", we are more than
happy to help you brainstorm a good name.

Good luck with the name!

~~~
hinoglu
Thanks Matthew,

my next big thing is..uhm.. basically a job listing site :)

I'm in the process of tidying up the environment, fixing obvious bugs and
dressing up the site a little bit before going public. When done, will be back
here requesting for critics :)

I believe that, as you've also mentioned, when product becomes well known, an
upgrade to domain name will not be that problematic. what i fear is a way
wrong name at the beginning might prevent it from gaining public liking.

I guess I'll stick to a simple general name, then will try to rename if it
still bothers me.

Thanks

~~~
josefresco
From an SEO standpoint changing your domain is always a headache. Even with
tools from Google/Bing to facilitate the transfer your listings can go offline
for a while before they re-index and _hopefully_ pass your PageRank along.

If SEO is not a concern and you're strictly talking about your brand, I think
you have more flexibility as many people will simply be unaware of your
service until your achieve a certain level of visibility.

~~~
hinoglu
rentacoder has changed it's name to vworker, yet still keeping rentacoder name
and domain and related links pointing to vworker. Of course i'll not be
updating the name every two weeks, but may be in time it might be a necessity
to rename the service.

Also i'm seeing this solution for "how to not postpone the project for not
finding an awesomely awesome domain name" problem. So seo is not a main
concern for now, before going public :)

thanks

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percept
I believe it does, but not enough to worry about if your domain name isn't
perfect. Releasing a product and acquiring customers (or vice versa) is more
important.

At the same time, I recommend putting some thought into your domain name. You
might make a list of keywords related to your product, based on your market
and research to determine what potential customers are searching for (Google
provides tools for this). Then work on short variations. Phrases seem to be
popular now (past years saw "online," "web," "net," "central," "hub," "app,"
Swahili words, etc.).

I'm surprised to find that short, memorable domain names are still available--
you just have to be a bit more creative to find them.

You might find the following blog(s) helpful (IIRC some older posts there were
particularly good):

<http://www.igorinternational.com/blog/>

~~~
hinoglu
i think beginning with a simple name, then changing it if it still bothers me
might be a possible solution. well indeed "somethinghub" was what i had in my
mind, but i may be somewhat late for it :)

thanks for the blog link, time to read.

