

Same domain name, company name necessary? - dlitwak

I have come up with a lot of great names for my company, but common consensus seems to be that before you settle on a name, you need to make sure the domain name is available, the twitter handle is available, etc. There are certain startups like Square (squareup.com) that get away with having a different domain name, when do you think it's appropriate to do this?<p>Thanks!
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steventruong
It is preferred that the name you want is available (especially as a .com) and
in other areas (such as twitter or facebook) as you have mentioned. It is
particularly important to make sure it isn't trademarked.

That said, it's preferable, not required. Obviously a lot of companies don't
use a .com, don't necessarily have the exact domain (delicious being an
extreme case originally) and can still make it work. It's all about branding.
The main thing you would lose is organic type-in traffic.

There's still room for creativity though.

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DevX101
Have you ever heard of Obvious Corporation?

No? Well they've got a little web app I can guarantee you you've heard of and
probably use.

~~~
dlitwak
that's irrelevant though, Obvious is an idea incubator, but they launch
separate companies/entities (dunno the exact legal structure but that also
doesn't matter), and one of them, Twitter, has its own domain name. Unless you
are referring to something else . . .

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glimcat
The major issues are avoiding confusion and SEO. They don't need to be
identical, but there needs to be a strong mapping.

[http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-
na...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name)

