Speaking as a reformed SEO nerd, Google does take it into account as part of their overall rankings, but by no means does that mean that your site will tank. They also know that your site is in English and that all the links are coming from English domains, etc.
Please source this. Plenty of popular domains using ccTLDs rank just fine.
Algorithm wise it would make sense that google would rank things like this as less worthy.
For one thing most authoritative domains for pagerank purposes are not going to have these "hacks" they are going to have the usual suspects (.com .net .org .edu .gov .info .etc to name the obvious US ones).
"Plenty of popular domains using ccTLDs rank just fine."
"Plenty" is not a large number when you are talking about tens of millions of sites that don't do it this way.
correct - it is one signal that comes into play. but what about a .es domain registered on an English host with an IP shared with English sites, English content, and English visitors? Google will rank that all day for English queries.
I've been using domai.nr for as long as I can remember, I bought my last few domain names as a result of its clever way of breaking down domains into clever combinations. Great app.
Sorry about that. The only domains that might be reserved for corporate services are those with the .ly TLD. Sadly the .ly whois server puts reserved and available domains in the same category.
There are no referral links though, just regular links to Gandi because I like them and they support a wide range of TLD's.
This is awesome, you are awesome, and we at Gandi would love it if you could contact us so that we may shower you with t-shirts, discounts, kittens, and other wonderful things we haven't even thought of yet.
The term "hipster" has become more or less a catch-all for words such as
* pretentious
* egotistical
* artsy
* self-involved
* preachy
* irreverent
* trendy
and many many more. My favorite thing about the linguistic history of "hipster" is that it started out defined as "one who is hip", but has come to describe both the hip person and the hipness itself. Phrases like "hipster shoes" or "hipster band" come to mind.
> but has come to describe both the hip person and the hipness itself. Phrases like "hipster shoes" or "hipster band" come to mind.
(Note: Grammar quibbles ahead.)
I don't think your examples really support that. Saying "hipster shoes" doesn't require the shoes to be hip at all, it only means they are a kind that is popularly associated or made for hipsters. Naming something "Hipster X" is just an case of attributive nouns.
Similarly, consider a "Programmer Chair" being sold... Surely nobody is trying to say that the chair is able to code, or that the chair is itself a form of code, or anything like that, right?
Instead, "Programmer Chair" means a chair that is associated-with or belongs-to Programmers.
I think it's interesting that many popular nouns can modify other nouns in English, and that the order of the words matters, e.g. you would never say "shoes hipster"
From A Canticle for Leibowitz:
"In Latin, as in most simple dialects of the region, a construction like servus puer meant about the same thing as puer servus, and even in English slave boy meant boy slave. But there the similarity ended... house cat did not mean cat house, and that a dative of purpose or possession, as in mihi amicus, was somehow conveyed by dog food or sentry box even without inflection."
Even more subtly, there are things like adjective order that are also an important part of the english language that most native speakers just learn innately. Saying them out of order doesn't necessarily change the meaning of the phrase, but it sure sounds odd to a native speaker.
As an example, "a cute little paisley cat" would be considered the correct order, while "a paisley cute little cat" would not.
Although there are lots of examples where people switched the word order. It might not be historicaly accurate, but the example I remember being told is that an 'ear wig' was so named because it went from one's wig to one's ear.
I'm sure that Latin is also helped by the fact that word order makes very little difference, while we place a huge emphasis on it in English.
One thing I love about Latin is that you can have the adjective at the start of a sentence and the noun it modifies thirteen lines later (Caesar does this quite a bit), and the sentence is still perfectly readable. In English, not so much.
I would say a hipster is someone who thinks that everyone else has it all wrong and is missing the obvious right way to dress, think, live or do something. Which the hipster has all figured out.
The best thing about hipsters is they appear to not care about appearance (as only one example) but then almost always predictably dress a certain "hipster" way in order to conform to the way hipsters are supposed to look.
The most interesting definition I've seen is roughly: "one who fetishizes the authentic", but it seems the term has come to be a cheap way to heap scorn on certain categories of fashion.
The word is so overplayed and unuseful it ought to be retired (it's not hip any more).
Thanks. I'm well aware of what a hipster is and how the term is used in the context of modern slang, this doesn't really help answer my original question, however.
Fair enough. I think that's where we differ - I feel the word isn't quite as ill defined as you suggest, though it is commonly misused. A conversation for another time :)
You've just described the characteristics of a hipster - not a definition.
Not that it matters. Hipster is such a bullshit, reductive pejorative. I find the people that use it either:
a) Don't understand someone or something. Some guy genuinely into a genre of music you've not heard. Is it insecurity? Is it about looking dumb? I'm not sure. But rather than try and engage in an effort to gain knowledge about the genre, people just call it hipster and disengage.
b) Do understand. Someone's trying to do something that is fresh and original to them - but may be old hat to you. Let's say it's being into an alternative author or some kind of fair-trade delicacy. Rather than let this person have their authentic moment in the sun (regardless how unoriginal you know it is) - people label them as hipsters.
TLDR: Calling things hipster is a demonstration of the holier-than-thou attitude it seeks to mock.
"We do know what hipster means—or at least we should. The term has always possessed adequately lucid definitions; they just happen to be multiple. If we refuse to enunciate them, it may be because everyone affiliated with the term has a stake in keeping it murky. Hipster accusation has been, for a decade, the outflanking maneuver par excellence for competitors within a common field of cool."
It's aimed at the sort of person that thinks hipste.rs is a super clever domain name (and who is uninterested in the difficulties of communicating that in word of mouth or old media channels like radio/tv).
Or for people who find it convenient to type/write an 8 character email address in non-word-of-mouth communication, which is the majority of email address communication anyway. I own the domain hip.st for this purpose.
Actually, hipster has been with us for longer, so one would expect it to be even more tired than yuppie, since hipster has been well used since the 50's, while yuppie only recently joined us in the 80's. However, it turns out that hipster is actually being used more often, while yuppie is trending down, which by definition means that hipster is most definitely not more tired than yuppie. [1]
I don't find hipster to be tired at all. It communicates to me a certain type of person in a very clear manner.
This got me to thinking about discoverability, seo, and distinction in general. Acquiring the domain name is one thing, but getting your business or app popular enough to outmuscle established businesses with less hip domain names is another.
The domain and term [limelig.ht] caught my eye.
In this instance, if you'd like to be known and searchable simply with the term "limelight" you'll have to beat out, limelight.com (Limelight Networks), a 1952 movie of the same name, and the dictionary definitions (wiki, etc.) for the term (it's actually not that bad really).
At this point, even if your domain name is [getlimelight.com], you'd be counting on the same seo, success, and buzz as you would by using [limelig.ht], except that you wouldn't have to explain to anyone that, "it's limelig dot ht".
Here's the way that I've seen great companies do it that works great for SEO but predated search engines: make up your own business term / buzzword. You advertise it through targeted display (cheap if managed well) plus PR. You then build marketing material around your buzzword. Search volume starts building around your buzzword. You satisfy those search queries and convert the people that you have pre-qualified with your own 'open sesame' magic combination of words into customers.
This is also why a bunch of different companies will often collaborate on pumping one buzzword ('cloud computing' / 'the internet of things'): it makes it more affordable for all the companies involved to market a new major development that will take years to build out.
There you go.
Also, somehow Amazon clobbered a big river in South America for differentiation and recognition, so this isn't really that huge of a problem if the service is itself compelling and differentiated enough from the competitors. Barnes & Noble is a completely unique term, for example. 'Borders,' not entirely unique, but still more unique than Amazon.
Also if advertising the website via audio/video is a big deal, you can always just make an easy to remember alternate site with your call to action and just redirect them to your real site. Domain exact match is not nearly as important now as it used to be for ranking on Google, and it's possible that domains will become more obscured to users than they are today in the future.
I was actually thinking of a vanity domain (.es) and got all the way to the checkout process only to discover that the United Kingdom is not listed in the country selection (it's not under United Kingdom, Great Britain, Wales, or British Isles) so I backed out.
It's amazing how many of the Libyan domains (i.e. ending in .ly) are words with negative connotations. From the very first section right now, I have "Crudely, harshly, cruelly, grossly, ghastly, awfully." The rest on the remaining 3 pages aren't much better!
Is that because all the nice ones (rosi.ly, positive.ly, happi.ly) are gone? A quirk of the English language?
See my other comment[0] explaining why and when this happens. If you know of a (free) fix let me know! I suspect the .ly TLD might only give out more detailed whois data to large companies...
Wonderful logo and nice slight zoom on hover. It seems to be ordered by length/alphabet. It'd be nice to be able to sort by word usage as well (not many know what sutures are).
This wikipedia table lists top level domains; if you click on an individual domain, the associated article usually includes restrictions, if any: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_doma... Otherwise, I don't know of a simple definitive list.
Google ranks your site according to the TLD. Buying an .es vanity domain will tank your results in the English speaking world.