

Ask HN: Do long, [funny], descriptive URLs help? - cjrd

Looking at sites like<p>wherethefuckshouldigofordrinks.com<p>evenjesuswouldbuythis.com<p>Does this novelty effect _actually_ help ideas? I&#x27;m considering trying this &quot;ploy&quot; with some of my little side projects. Can anyone with experience running such a site provide feedback?
======
bramgg
Don't use such URLs for your business or products. You want your name to be
short, memorable, and work with social media.

Long novelty URLs help micro content sites go viral, just make sure to include
some prominent share buttons. The trick is to make many of these novelty
websites that relate to your main product, and then link to that in the
footers.

An example of someone who's used this technique multiple times before is
TheOatmeal[0], though the only one I can remember off the top of my head is
ThingsBearsLove[1].

[0] [http://theoatmeal.com/](http://theoatmeal.com/)

[1] [http://www.thingsbearslove.com/](http://www.thingsbearslove.com/)

------
insky
Just be careful...

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2012/nov/22/...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2012/nov/22/twitter-
susan-boyle-susanalbumparty)

~~~
cjrd
Ha, true. Or maybe
[http://www.whorepresents.com](http://www.whorepresents.com) ?

~~~
insky
You could actually have quite a bit of fun with this kind of wordplay.

------
minimaxir
Considering that such links are gimmicks and have little staying power
otherwise, I would say that it does not help.

It's hard to quickly mentally parse such phrases in URLs too.

------
vtd
The long URLs are fine by me. See
[http://uniformresourcelocatorelongator.com/](http://uniformresourcelocatorelongator.com/)

