

Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty? - tpimental

In your experience, is it better to have a straight forward domain name like "carprices.com" or something witty, original and completely off topic like Google.com?
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tom
Things to considder no matter what.

1\. Is it short?

2\. a. Is it easy to spell / misspell?

2\. b. Can a person _tell_ a friend about it and is there a chance the friend
will actually be able to just type it in?

3\. Is the .com version available? If not, are you trying to do the delicious
thing?

4\. Is it really witty, or have you just convinced yourself that it is cause
it's all you could find?

5\. If you're going for the straighforward thing, is it really straight
forward? Or again, have you just convinced yourself it is.

Good luck.

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tpimental
Does short really matter? What if its something incredibly obvious, but still
relatively long... like "ISoldMyHouse.com"?

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tom
Yes, short matters. If you can say the same thing, with fewer syllables / less
letters, while keeping 2 - 5 in check, it's a no brainer.

Of course, if you can support your long domain, such as "ISoldMyHouse.com"
with hundreds of weekly radio placements featureing a "catchy" tune, you can
probably drive home a longer name too.

There are no hard and fast rules, but the guidelines that I mentioned above
are tried and true.

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fdschoeneman
I don't like straightforward names, as you've described them, period. For one
thing, they aren't really straightforward with the way human brains work. For
instance, is it carprices or carprice? Similarly, I'd recommend you stay away
from cute names like karprices.com or qarpricez.com. I realize that their
intention is to describe their business category, and let the user figure out
what the business is about from the name, but what you really end up with is
something generic, something that doesn't stick in the mind, and that is
vulnerable to a competitor with a memorable brand that can stick in a
consumer's mind.

Some specific advice would be:

1) Make it impossible to mis-spell. I know, this was said before in one of the
threads above. 2) Does the name have the potential to be used in a sentence,
like, "can you google that for me?" or "can you xerox that for me?" or "Did
you see x's latest twitter?" 3) Does the name suggest the business category?
For example, twitter sort of suggests what it is that the product does, if
only on a subconscious level? Same for a lot of Proctor & Gamble brands.

Probably the best thing to do is pick up Ries & Trout's "Positioning." I know
Ries has some newer stuff out that speaks directly to naming Internet
companies.

Good luck!

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jcl
If you look past the incredible success of its products, "Google" is not a
great name. It's only witty to math nerds; to the public at large, it's just a
nonsense word, unrelated to internet search, and not all that memorable. Its
saving graces are that it's short and sounds like a plausible verb. AOL and
Yahoo! both had much better names but inferior products.

Google was also fortunate to be early in the trend of nonsense/misspelled
domain names. The recent ones are largely forgettable. If you are thinking of
going this route, I'd suggest making the name at least tangentially related to
the site's function; reddit and flickr do this and are IMHO great names, short
and memorable... wufoo and meebo, not so much.

~~~
fdschoeneman
I disagree strongly with you on this. Google is a great name, better than all
the examples you've mentioned for one simple reason: How many times have you
been lost and called a friend and asked her to google an address for you? How
many times have you googled a girl you met to see where she works of if she
has any pictures you can send to your friends?

Back when Yahoo was the only game in town for search, nobody ever aked me to
Yahoo something.

Flickr is a great product with an easy to mis-spell name.

Reddit is good, though.

Regards,

Fred

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coglethorpe
I've seen two schools of thought on that, going for a keyword name (rent.com)
or going for a brand name (Google).

It seems to be the companies that choose a brand name, witty or not, and build
a great product or service associated with the name that do the best overall.
Those that get recognized will get more than enough search engine love to rise
to the top or the results anyway.

"How to pick a good brand name" is beyond the scope of this comment. :-)

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amrithk
Thats a hard one. Something witty will get you recognized if it sticks. But a
lot of startups these days have 'witty' unusual names and it doesn;t stand out
as much anymore. I would shoot for a straight forward domain name thats easy
to remember and is short.

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noodle
depends on your audience. if you're making a trendy, for-the-web-community
type of application, go original/witty. if you're looking to hook the grandmas
and the soccer moms, an easy, descriptive name is better.

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steveplace
Depends on who your target base is. Go for the hip and witty if you're looking
to attract the TC crowd.

If you're going for mainstream America, you probably want to go direct. It not
only conveys what you are trying to serve, but it's very useful in organic
seo. People looking for car loans will try car loans dot com or throw it into
google.

It's all subjective of course, and it depends on how you want to brand out.

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gm
"The TC crowd"??? What the hell is that? This is all about marketing... To
normal people who will be your consumers... Who the hell does a startup aiming
it at the commentators?

Face it, the TC crowd are people who like to watch things happen. Nothing
more.

If TC hates your startup, but it's a hit with consumers, who gives a $&&%??

Go to the corner until you realize that a business is about revenues and cash
flow. Commentators do not give you that, your market does.

The market rules everything. The market is the only thing that matters.

EDIT: LOL... modded down because you guys did noty like to read what I
typed... At least tell me where I am am wrong. Or are you guys all creating
startups to please the "TC crowd," whatever that is, and my post hurts your
ego?

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steveplace
It's not the content, it's the delivery.

