

Ask HN: Importance of website name? - corin_

Here's my question: how important do you feel the name of a website is. Obviously it helps slightly on the SEO front, but that doesn't really matter.<p>Should the name/domain be descriptive of the service/content provided. For example, if I was starting a news website, should I chose "news.com" over "gawker.com", on the logic that people will find it easier to remember (thinking just in terms of if it is relevant, not easy of spelling, length etc), and on the logic that when chosing a new site to use, people will pick the domain that seems the most logical.<p>My belief is that it is not important, and the success of sites like Yahoo, Google, Gawker and so many others backs me up, in my opinion.<p>Do you agree or disagree with me?
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lylejohnson
My hunch is that "short, and pronounceable, is preferable", but other than
that, I think there is a sufficient number of examples (including the ones you
mentioned) to make the case that a web site's domain name need not be
descriptive of the site's service or content. The challenge is to do whatever
it takes to build up name/brand recognition, but I think that would be true
regardless of what sort of name you went with.

