
When Google Hates Your Name: Why We Renamed Our Startup - robg
http://www.masschallenge.org/blog/when-google-hates-your-name-why-we-renamed-our-startup
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danilocampos
Sounds like the author had some human-centric reasons for changing the name of
the business. It's worth noting that Google can be taught to like invented
names in a pretty short amount of time, though.

Three of my four iPhone projects shipped with invented words for names
(Oddage, Tallymander, Globejot). Even after the sites were live and indexed,
Google would do its "did you mean..." or worse, showing results for the word
it thought I meant by default.

So, searching for Tallymander, for example, would give you "Showing results
for Sallymander" for the first two results.

With any amount of press or other web conversation that generates inbound
links, though, this problem ends up taking care of itself. About a week after
launch, Google recognized each word as legitimate _and_ I enjoyed top ranking.

~~~
richardhenry
I found this pretty quickly with Cursebird.

~~~
danilocampos
Did you mean custard? Showing results for custard. Click here to see results
for cursebird.

Ah, Google.

~~~
richardhenry
I assume you're joking? If not, let me know.

Here's what myself and most people see: <http://cl.ly/2SzP>

Interestingly, if you search for "cussbird" it will correct you to
"cursebird": <http://cl.ly/2TPX>

I'm not logged in, and people in the U.S. see the same results.

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seldo
While much of this is good advice, the "name that says what you do" is tricky.
_Product_ names should say what they do, but _companies_ sometimes find it
more useful to remain vague.

Consider: Yahoo, Google, eBay, Amazon. None of these words had, when invented,
any associations in the public mind. This allows those companies to grow and
change their brands and their focus.

Imagine if Amazon had been called "Bookery". Or if Google were called
"Searchio". Great names for what those companies started doing, completely
misleading now -- especially in Amazon's case.

~~~
ig1
One of the biggest mobile phone retailers in the UK is called "Carphone
Warehouse" - people don't think twice about the name. People treat the name as
a brand rather than a literal interpretation of the words that make up the
brand.

~~~
barrkel
However, they seem to think the understandability of the name is important.
Internationally, they are more likely to be known as "The Phone House".

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matrix
I feel the blame is very much misplaced; Google had nothing to do with the
viability of "Cadio" name. It was inevitable that people would confuse it with
"Cardio", whether Google auto-suggested it or not.

That said, I do sympathy for the difficulty in finding short, easily spelled
domain names. It's been downright ridiculous trying to find good names in
recent years.

~~~
bryanh
I spend weeks and weeks deciding on a name. So far I've had Rankiac and
BitBuffet, both of which were almost 80% completed before I ever had the
domain. EveryMentor wasn't available and I had to WAIT for the domain to
expire for about 20ish days (it was pending deletion).

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quizbiz
I am doing SEO consulting for a company called South-Pak that makes custom
travel and road cases. Obviously, the business owners don't want to change the
name and obviously Google thinks it's a misspelling of South Park (if you
query South-Pak, you must then click on the link to confirm that you are
looking for results for South-Pak.

Combatting the fact that many are searching for the name of the company and
getting frustrated, I'm working hard to associate South-Pak with the word
cases. As a result of the anchor text, et al, when one types in South-Pak you
should, South-Pak Cases should be one of the options generated by Google
Instant.

As long as you have the .com domain though, Google can't hurt you much.
Fundamentally, you want to have the .com domain, have a name that is difficult
to misspell and easy to explain on the phone.

If people that don't know about your name and they are looking for you, they
should be able to find you on Google. That's what Google is for. If that's not
the case, it's probably you, not Google.

~~~
jacquesm
> easy to explain on the phone

So many people forget about that one, it's _really_ important. Of course all
the rest is also important, but one of the major drivers of viral traffic is
still people telling other people about your product, in person or on the
telephone.

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philfreo
Domize (<https://domize.com/>) and Wordoid (<http://wordoid.com/>) both seem
really useful

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fghjhgbvf
Also ask yourself:

Can spell it out to somebdy over the phone without resorting to phonetic
alphabet?

Do you use numbers in the name - worse do you use them to be cute ?

Do you mix words that sound like letters eg. "see" and "c" in the name ?

Does the name contain a joke/pun/double meaning that only makes sense written
down or read outloud?

~~~
jacquesm
> fghjhgbvf

I rest my case ;)

Good advice otherwise though, another one is make sure that the people in the
major markets can pronounce the word in an unambiguous way.

~~~
quanticle
I don't know, I like fhqwhgads more
(<http://www.homestarrunner.com/fhqwhgads.html>).

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wheaties
When I read your name the first time I read "locality" and then I realized it
was something different. You might run into yet another human centric reason
for not liking your name.

~~~
charlief
I agree, also on the pronunciation front, I am assuming: Low-kate-LEE

Try saying that 10 times fast, the ending in the last two syllables make it a
bit of a tongue twister.

What about other possibilities that seem like often-occurring interpretations?

Low-Kate-{soft eh}-LEE

Low-CAT-{soft eh}-LY

~~~
losvedir
Interesting. It jumps out at me as low-KATE-lee, growing up speaking
California English. (If by caps you're indicating putting the emphasis on that
syllable.)

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Nate75Sanders
I'll make no comments about the SEO viability of the name, but I find these
ending-in-"ly" names (I've seen a few of them recently) atrocious. An "ly" is
one of the strongest markers in the English language for a part of speech: an
adverb. When you make an adverb out of something that shouldn't be, you get
something that sounds like it was uttered by a 3-year-old.

~~~
daychilde
I feel agreely with you.

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DotSauce
Why do these articles never mention the aftermarket? It's like businesses
refuse to acknowledge that good domains are available to purchase. Sedo?
Afternic? BuyDomains? Auctions? Personal portfolios? Wake up! This is where
the real gems are.

Domain finder tools are dead. They don't work.

~~~
chc
It's like bootstrapped businesses don't want to pay $10000 for a marginally
better name.

~~~
DotSauce
<http://auctions.godaddy.com> \- $5 bargain bin

<http://sedo.com> \- "Make an offer" on thousands of keyword names

<http://freshdrop.net> \- Filter and sort pretty much every marketplace.

<http://BrandStack.com>

~~~
chc
Yes, you can get cheap domain names, but they'll usually be _worse_ that
whatever nonsense you think up. Look at those links you just posted. Anything
near the going price of a domain name is going to be absolute crap. Here's the
first page of the Godaddy auctions page:

formenti.tv, live960.tv, news18.tv, kamerali-sohbet.info, jeong-vs-
jpmorganchase.com, watchmadmenonline.info, randy-orton.org, tvlima.tv,
youngshemales.info, 3wolves.us, specialq.mobi, b2bmarketplace.us,
straightdaddies.com, epiphonesheraton.com, schooltools.tv

The only names that look remotely useful for any conceivable purpose
(youngshemales, b2bmarketplace and schooltools) are all in spammy-looking
TLDs.

~~~
drewvolpe
We bought Locately.com. I don't know if we're not creative enough, but it was
much better than anything we were able to come up with which wasn't
registered. And having a better name is definitely worth the small amount of
money we paid for it.

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jasonkester
As to the Pronounceable, Spellable, Memorable bit... That can't be emphasized
enough. Actually, I bet you can find me personally emphasizing it a half dozen
times if you do a search here.

But I don't buy the Google part.

I personally run a little startup that had no trouble ranking for its own
name, despite the fact that the first Google search we ever did for the name
resulted in "Did you mean _Twiddle_?" That only lasted a few months.

Now we've crowded that poor word completely off the results for our name, and
we've even kicked it out of the top slot when searching for "twiddle". I won't
be surprised when Google starts coming back with "Showing results for Twiddla.
Search instead for Twiddle" for that search.

It just takes a bit of time and exposure.

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brc
I made all these mistakes as well, but continue to soldier on with my original
name. Google has grudgingly accepted it and the mis-directed traffic is quite
minimal now.

One thing the author didn't mention was that when you're getting a lot of
mispell traffic, it plays havoc with your traffic stats, and it gets very hard
to move the needle testing different content because you might have 60-70% of
your traffic in the early days boucing immediately.

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maguay
My site Techinch.com came up first for "techinch" with no problems on Google
until they switched to instant search. Now it says "Showing results for
techniche. Search instead for techinch" Grrrr

So would you recomend sticking it out, or trying for a new name? Just a small
blog right now, but I definately want it to grow...

~~~
drewvolpe
If you like your name then I wouldn't switch. Techniche is not that common a
search term and as you start to get more traffic and mentions, you should be
able to overcome it quickly.

In our case, "cardio" is a very common search term. Also, we didn't like our
name for the other reasons given (hard to pronounce, doesn't say what we do,
not memorable).

~~~
maguay
Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, I like it, and think I'll stick with it. I
can defiantly see why your former name could have problems in search, and it
turns out that Techniche is a tech conference in India this year ... who knew?
So hey, should work itself out over time.

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greg_holsclaw
It is tough acquiring a short (under 8 letter) meaningful domain name now. I
am curious to know how much it cost just to buy that domain. Sometimes you can
make a nonsensical name stick with enough effort/branding: see zillow.com, it
is all in the sub title.

~~~
iuyhgtfvgbhjn
Supposedly the 'internet generation' are now savy enough to know this.

If you launch a site called "sport.com" or "music.com" young people know that
however hip and trendy your graphics you must be a bank/$Bn corp to own that
name. So to appeal to 'yoof' you have to have a "the only address we could
get" type meaningless name ( even if you are a $Bn corp!)

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spokey
Out of curiosity, is there another way to pronounce "cadio" other than cad-
e-o?

~~~
acabal
KAY-dee-oh, kah-DEE-oh, KAH-dee-oh, kaa-DIE-oh...

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CWIZO
To me, Cadio is much better than Locately (I brake my tongue trying to
pronounce it). Easier to remember, spell and pronounce. English is not my
native language so that might be the reason why I think that.

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AlexMuir
It must be a tough call whether to battle on with a four/five letter miss-
spell, or change to something longer. Obviously locately is much better
though.

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cammil
A couple of other factors that we considered:

1\. The spelling should be obvious from the pronunciation.

2\. Should have as few syllables as possible. Two is great if you can find
one.

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iaskwhy
I actually thought the problem was with masschallenge.org before reading the
article. Added the idea to my domain buying checklist.

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chopsueyar
Good thing you realized this in the beginning.

