
As HN: Startup name — dot com or not dot com? - dotcommer
Me and my co-founder never thought that one of the most difficult tasks in starting a project would be the choice of a domain name.<p>As everyone knows, it is incredibly difficult to get a good .com name. Unbelievably difficult.  The amount of names of new startups which all sound a little bit as dog names proves it. And the reason for this is obvious — everyone wants a short, pronounceable and a remarkable name... as a .com domain.  However, what I cannot understand is why on earth are .com names so important? I mean, there should be a real reason why startups pick names like reddit, okcupid, gowalla, tumblr, quora, etc, instead of going with simpler and more prominent name in another domains? Since a few years there is a tendency of picking domains like .ly, .me, .io, etc. but I cannot think of a single successful project with a non dot com domain. I rather see another cases, like if a project gets popular it buys a better name (dropbox, facebook, delicious).<p>If the argument is that .com is kind of a "default" domain and everybody will type "name.com", then I would disagree, since no one is typing a url by hand. We use google, bookmarks, links, so the domain itself seems to be quite irrelevant. Maybe it is the appearance that matters? Or the ease of pronunciation? But the latter obviously suffers for names like flickr and tumblr.<p>What do you think? Why is e.g. roollr.com better than roller.at?
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StavrosK
As someone running a non-dot-com service (<http://historio.us>), _get a .com
name_. If you can't find your name in .com, _change your name_. Nobody can
type anything other than .com. Seriously.

~~~
corin_
My problem with your domain is that I continuously typed it as histori.us from
memory, whereas with a .com I would have defaulted to a more standard spelling
of 'rious'.

(Having typed it enough times now, I do remember - but still every time the
way I remember is by thinking of how I got it wrong in the past).

That said, I don't see any difference, personally, between .com/.org/.net -
remembering the extension is no problem, it's only when the extension becomes
a part of the site name that sometimes confuses my memory.

~~~
StavrosK
Funnily enough, historius.com redirects to the site. historious.com is a
squatter, though.

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chaosmachine
" _As everyone knows, it is incredibly difficult to get a good .com name._ "

I actually wrote a tool to solve this problem (it finds short, available .coms
using real words):

<http://impossibility.org/>

Ironically, it's a .org :)

Basically, the reason you want a .com is so people will know you're a website.
It's instantly parsable. "I work for Shoes.com" vs "I work for Shoe.ly... it's
a website that sells shoes". It greatly simplifies advertising, press
coverage, word of mouth, etc.

~~~
justinxreese
My new business plan: 1.) Add "anything" to the "end" of my word: "tweet" 2.)
Develop something based on the results 3.) ???? 4.) Profit

~~~
cmontgomeryb
My first result was tweetrage.com. Which if anybody has an idea for, I think
is an awesome domain!

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taa
Stay away from .co at all cost. We tried registered irealty.co when it came
out since .com and many others TLDs didn't have irealty, and we really wanted
that name. We've put the .co in the logo to emphasize that it's not .com, but
people kept telling us that our logo has a typo - it's missing the m the at
the end. We ended up ditching irealty all together after that.

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henrikschroder
If you can, get both. Our latest product is called Player.IO, so we got both
<http://player.io> and <http://playerio.com>. This means that if you type
either "player.io" or "playerio" in your browser you'll go to the same place.

Bitly does the exact same thing, <http://bitly.com> works just as well as
<http://bit.ly>

~~~
sjs382
I second this advice.

I'm curious though, henrik: why 301 player.io to playerio.com when your brand
(per the logo) is "player.io"? I'm curious as it seems a little counter-
intuitive.

~~~
henrikschroder
I have no good answer for that, I don't think anyone felt strongly about it
being either way, so it just ended up like this and not the other way around.
:-)

Honestly, I don't think it matters very much.

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rubidium
Why the focus on short? Is there any study into whether it actually helps? 2-3
words works just as well, in my opinion.

Sure, an extra 4-5 letters to type in the domain name, but at least it's more
memorable than the awful and impossible-to-spell-other-than-letter-by-letter
4-5 letter animal noises. (i.e. How many times do you want to say "No, you
leave out the 'e'")

~~~
taa
As a general rule, shorter URLs are more memorable, better for SEO, and better
for social sharing.

Memorable: 7 letters or less is best, 9 is still manageable, and anything more
than 9 calls for misspelling, too long to type, etc. I personally believe that
a 2-word 12 characters name is better than a 5 letter weirdo name or random
characters, but I haven't seen a study to support that.

SEO: the URL shown in google SERPs plays in a role in clickthrough rate. A
shorter domain name means more of the URL will be shown, as many services
limits the maximum number of characters shown.

Social sharing: same as above, short and meaningful domain names are more
likely to get clicks and be shared again than a URL that passed through bit.ly
and friends. Doesn't apply as much to twitter, but think email, facebook,
linkedin.

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ry0ohki
"since no one is typing a url by hand" - that's a pretty big assumption, and
if you proceed under that assumption you better nail the SEO for your company
name. Google gives better rankings for .com names so at least make sure there
is not another active company using the .com. It definitely depends what type
of audience you are targeting as to whether they will be savvy with not owning
the .com or not.

I know a couple startups that assumed they didn't need the .com that ended up
paying a fortune later to get it because their brand was established and it
was too late to change. roollr.com actually seems like a decent domain, just
be prepared for the misspellings and make sure there is not porn at rollr.com,
rooller.com etc...

~~~
dclaysmith
"Google gives better rankings for .com names"

Is this true?

~~~
hellweaver666
Partially. It's one of many factors used in ranking websites, of course, that
only applies to the default international search, if you select "results in x
country" the local TLD's for that country get extra weight.

------
dclaysmith
I think some people (read: "old people") probably don't even know that
non-.com tlds exist. If you want to create a memorable domain, you are
seriously handicapping yourself by not going .com.

If your success and customer aquisition is going to be more viral in nature,
spreading through invitations/Facebook, or if it is dependant on SEO for
traffic, then I don't think it matters as much.

I'm (someday) going to launch my "November" Startup sprint project and went
with a non-.com url (<http://www.rankoro.us/>) but, just to be safe, I
reserved <http://www.rankorous.com> as well.

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underwater
If you have a non .com name then you are forcing users to remember two things.
Will someone exposed to the domain be able to remember 24 hours later whether
it was "roller.it", "roller.to", "roller.us" or "roller.at"?

~~~
twomarks
I think that non .com names are pretty easy to remember when they form
meaningful phrases like "take.it" or when they reflect the name of the company
(e. g. yolk - "yo.lk"). And it signals that you are different.

~~~
corin_
Actually it signals that you are the same as the many, _many_ other people who
are trying to be 'different'.

It's no longer a novelty factor.

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iisbum
This really depends on your target audience and your marketing strategy (if
you have one).

The techie audience should have problem remember a non .com, and be
comfortable accessing it, other may not.

If you're planning on doing non-online advertising then its more important to
have a .com, as people will have to remember the url and type it in at a later
date. If you plan on doing stuff online then people click on stuff and it
becomes less important.

~~~
dbro
This is good advice!

A domain name needs to fit the web site, and your approach to attracting
visitors and maintaining relationships with them. But the original post never
described these aspects of the business/service being considered.

I wrote an article about this yesterday: <http://domainjig.com/ideas/great-
domain-names.html> in preparation for the public launch of a new ... domain
name suggestion tool! I'm not quite ready to post it to the main HN page
(still working out a few to-do's), but for those of you wanting a sneak peek,
here it is: <http://domainjig.com>

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joshfinnie
I am in the camp of if you are going to go with roller.at make sure you can
get rollerat.com! This actually is pretty easy since it seems like a weird
URL, but makes sense once you start talking about your product, "visit us at
roller dot at" and people will still go to rollerat.com.

Redirect rollerat.com to roller.at and be done with it. It just takes a little
extra time to make sure you can get both domains.

------
toddmorey
Naming is hard, but try to keep at it! It's so important to get a dot-com
domain name that's spelled like it's pronounced. You'll be surprised how many
times your name will be used offline: conferences, interviews, phone calls, tv
appearances, print publications, etc. What you like about any other TLD domain
name will be quickly overshadowed by having to explain the URL each and every
time.

------
revorad
There'll be enough problems to deal with. Please don't add another unnecessary
complication by debating over this.

Just go with dotcom. Don't waste another minute.

------
cmontgomeryb
One point that I hasn't thought of until it happened to me: I took my car in
to be serviced. My primary email address is on a .org domain. I read out the
email address, and the .org bit completely flummoxed the person booking my car
in, and she must see 20+ people a day with email addresses. She wrote
"<myname>@<mydomain>." and paused. I repeated, "dot org", and she continued to
type ".org.com".

I think with a purely technical audience, you have much more freedom with the
TLD. However with anything less, you may struggle. Remember even popular
non-.com's like Wikipedia are probably accessed much more via Google than by
typing wikipedia.org.

------
buro9
People trust .com more than they trust .at

Worth bearing in mind even if you're not thinking of the very small minority
who type in a domain name and just hit CTRL+Enter to autocomplete to
www.domain.com

Domain hacks are also difficult to remember and type. Devs will get it,
understanding that the dot comes before the last two or three letters, and
that as the last two or three letters identifies a country .tld whether it is
2 or 3 letters. But end users... imagine how many are getting it wrong and
letting Google intercept. This may be acceptable to you, but it's hardly a
sleek and uninterrupted experience for the end user.

------
bambax
> _no one is typing a url by hand. We use google_

I type urls by hand and do CTRL+Return to add the .com and get there.

But even if everyone is using Google, a unique name like "roollr" will
certainly be easier to find than "roller" that will exist in many tlds. How
will your users remember that you're the .at one, and that .com or .it have
nothing to do with you?

It's so much easier for everyone to use a .com

(BTW I don't know if you chose roller as a generic example, but roller.com is
apparently for sale at sedo).

~~~
dotcommer
Oh and btw, "for sale". Recently, I made a price request for some dot-com
domain, which sounds kind of fun, has 6 characters, but is not even an english
word. The price was $18500. Now image what roller.com would cost.

~~~
markkat
I think I might happened upon a domain that you might like in your name's
neighborhood. -It's not registered; I don't want to post it. Send me an email.

------
markkat
I think one thing that should be considered, is whether or not people can
easily remember and spell the domain correctly after hearing it. A lot of
referrals are still by word-of-mouth. There's a big difference between: "Hey
check out Facebook" and "Hey check out Orkut". Even when meaningless; Spoondog
is more easily retained than Fleaty.

Having a .com similarly makes word-of-mouth referrals easier.

BTW, I found an available .com that might be up your alley. Email me if you
like.

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solipsist
I never type ".com" in the url box anymore, and I assume I'm not alone.

When I want to go to Google, I type in "google", with no "www" or "com".
Safari automatically interprets this as "www.google.com", although I realize
that Chrome can't do this (as it interprets it as a search query rather than a
url).

However, that is one big disadvantage of not having a dot com url
nevertheless. Just something to think about.

------
aneesh
I think the standard thing to do would be to get a dotcom, even if you have to
be creative with the name. But there have been successes with non-dotcoms:

Drop.io was acquired ([http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/29/facebook-acquires-
drop-io-n...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/29/facebook-acquires-drop-io-nabs-
sam-lessin/)), and bit.ly seems to be doing well.

~~~
mechanical_fish
That's two. ;) And I'd argue that bit.ly has a special advantage in the
confusing-silly-suffix department, being a service that appeals mostly to (a)
relatively sophisticated people who know about URLs -- they know what URLs
are, and they know that a short URL is better, and they know that one URL can
redirect to another -- and (b) robots that shorten URLs automatically and that
are very good at remembering arbitrary rules.

Can we name any other prominent examples of non-dot-com stardom? The poster
child of the cutesy URL movement, delicio.us, dropped the idea halfway through
its rise to, um, near-death and relative obscurity at the hands of Yahoo. So
I'm not sure they're a very promising example. Any other big stars? What am I
missing?

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thisisblurry
If it were me, I'd purchase both the vanity tld of your choice along with
.com/.net and use .htaccess rules to redirect content to one or the other.

I'd be wary of .ly domains though.. [http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-
ly-domain-space-to-b...](http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-
space-to-be-considered-unsafe/)

------
solipsist

      Me and my co-founder never thought...
    

Change that to

    
    
      My co-founder and I never thought...
    

I know this is unrelated to the post, but it bugged me to see a grammatical
error like this one the moment I started reading.

------
stefanobernardi
The .com is a must, the average user will just type your startup name and then
.com What you should do is buy doma.in and domain.com and redirect the latter
to the former.

------
_corbett
any new food related startup should have a domain name ending in .nom /cc
ICANN

pro: I was speaking with a UX designer recently who mentioned his parents
didn't know what a url was, they simply typed the website they were interested
in into the google search bar in their webbrowser. in this situation as long
as you are first in google, you are good to go.

con: if someone happens to know what a URL is they will probably type
<name>.com first.

------
vilya
Didn't we all already figure this out during the first dotcom bubble? The
brand is the important thing, not the URL.

~~~
dbro
For many web companies, the brand = the URL. Otherwise, you might wind up with
some like "www.clownpenis.fart" (see <http://www.tressugar.com/SNL-Skit-
Clownpenisfart-1965732>)

------
sjs382
Get roller.at and rollerat.com

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erkmene
two incredibly useful tools that will make finding a good .com name less of a
hassle:

<http://www.wordoids.com>

<http://www.domize.com>

be sure to double check wordoids' results, as it sometimes report taken
domains as free.

good luck!

~~~
komlenic
wordoids.com appears to be a parked seo page. Don't go there.

~~~
arn
He must have meant <http://wordoid.com/>

Of course, here's a perfect example of a novelty-name recollection failure.

