
Five Reasons Domains Are Getting Less Important - tortilla
http://evhead.com/2011/06/five-reasons-domains-are-less-important.html
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alanfalcon
Hacker News is a good example of a terrible domain name with a memorable
product name. But I still think it's kind of a problem: I probably sat down at
a computer and typed "Hackernews.com" a dozen times when I first started
visiting this site. (Which then screws up the auto complete when using that
computer the next time). It's just how my brain works and how I use the
internet (and it's never been much of a problem with other sites in the past)
... In fact, it wasn't until I discovered hackerne.ws that I stopped having a
problem, because I'd automatically start typing "hackernews" and catch myself
and add the period before the "ws".

Mostly unrelated, but since the article praises Chrome's Omnibar, can anyone
answer why Chrome's autocomplete is so much slower and crappier than Safari's?
Again, it's partly a problem with how I choose to use the internet, but I've
visited the google search for "da" a few dozen times when trying to access
Daring Fireball in Chrome since I need to pause for a full second before the
auto complete catches up with what I want. I never had that issue in Safari.

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jamesbkel
I'm not a regular Safari user, so I'm not 100% if this is true. But if I
recall Safari doesn't return search results alongside the "most frequented
sites" in autocomplete.

Maybe pulling up likely searches from Google adds some time than the locally-
stored list of frequented sites.

That said, I'm purely speculating here.

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alanfalcon
True, in Safari I get "Top Hit", "History", and "Bookmarks" returned
(instantly). I'd prefer it Google returned local results immediately and then
added the search results as those came in, but I guess that just means my
browser preference in this case is Safari.

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jamesbkel
I agree, it seems silly not to pull the local stuff immediately. Of course,
that doesn't exactly align with Google's goal of getting you to their site.

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staunch
> _The last reason getting the perfect .com is less important than it used to
> be is simply because others have proven you can succeed without it._

This seems to be the core thought behind the idea that domains aren't very
important. It's the worst reason of them all too.

You _can_ succeed with all kinds of hindrances. You don't _need_ great design,
technology, marketing, or anything else to succeed. There are really no
prerequisites to success. There are examples of success in every permutation.

The job of the entrepreneur is to increase their odds by doing everything they
reasonably can. For 99% of startups that means getting a high quality .com
domain name.

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larrys
Agree with you 100%. If little things don't matter swimmers wouldn't shave
their body hair and movie studios WOULD solely rely on social media to
publicize the next hit.

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showerst
Isn't there still a strong SEO advantage to having a good domain?

My understanding was that a big part of domain 'authority' comes from having a
topic-relevant domain of a reasonable age, but my SEO knowledge is a few years
out of date so that may not be true nowadays.

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abrudtkuhl
Yes - having an aged keyword rich domain does impact SEO (although it's only
one ingredient)

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abrudtkuhl
That being said - you could have a (somewhat cuz it's not that old) aged
keyword rich .co domain with quality inbound links and good content and likely
rank the same.

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Drakeman
They mention bit.ly as a success and helping popularize alternative domains
for startups. But isn't this a bad example? There have been domains seized by
the Libyan government
([http://www.circleid.com/posts/libyan_government_has_seized_v...](http://www.circleid.com/posts/libyan_government_has_seized_vbly_domain/))

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larrys
Think twitter would have gone as viral if it was called "smsdispatch.com" or
"sms.com".

It wouldn't have.

Names fit a particular purpose. What is good for one purpose (selling to the
corporate market for example) then "sms.com" might be worth the money. Another
situation, maybe not.

Naming and branding is important because based on psychological principles and
things that have been around forever it is important. (Sorry that I don't have
time to point to the underpinnings of the research and basis for this
statement.)

Ev's argument is also like saying the name of a movie is less important. You
can always find isolated cases where the name wasn't that important like "the
social network" and counter it with movie names like "goodfellas" "godfather"
"rocky" the list is endless.

As John Gotti Jr. said to the interviewer on 60 minutes "la cosa nostra" like
the way that rolls off your tongue? The fact is people do like cool names.

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itswindy
It doesn't matter only you reach Google, Verizon, Twitter or Amazon status.
Let's face it, very few will reach it and there's a lot of money to be made by
others.

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itswindy
Someone domains names maybe like cheapgreenshoes.com, but shoes.com is
rocking.

