Comments on: A Domain By Any Other Name

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 18:44:40 +0000

I completely agree. Branding is the most important aspect of a domain or company name. Getting keywords in there is something you can do, but I’d much rather have a brandable domain than a keyword rich domain. Having both would be ideal.

It’s important to have a domain that is easy to remember and easy to type for all your offline marketing. Keywords can be conbined though to identify your domain with a service and help brand the two. But the choice depends on where you see the business going. Using the keywords could lock you into something, but that might not be an issue for your business.

By: Yuri

Yuri — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 09:23:00 +0000

I still think branding is more important than the keyword. As you said, you can always switch from computer manufacturing to gardening and you won’t have to change the domain/company name.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 03:37:23 +0000

Matt I agree with you. It’s more about the way it’s marketed than the name itself. Think of Google. Not exactly something that describes what they do at all. And now to google has become a verb in the language even if we’re not allowed to say it like that. I think your domain first and foremost is about branding and you should choose a domain that people will remember.

Getting the keywords in there for the potential anchor text is something I picked up from Aaron Wall. When I saw that it made me think a little. I still don’t think having the keywords in your domain means a lot for seo, but to get those extas keywords in the anchor text makes a lot of sense, especially if you can still find a memorable and brandable domain.

One of the things web 2.0 is bringing is more creative use of domains. I’m convinced part of the success of del.icio.us has to do with the creative name. It’s easy to remember, though at first I would forget where to break the word. It didn’t take long to get it though. But you see it and you remember it.

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:39:51 +0000

Picking a domain is definately hard, But with the impending web 2.0 revolution the actual domain isn’t going to be as important as the way it’s marketed. I even get the impresions that web 2.0 will mean people start using obscure domain names that don’t in any way represent the content. we will have sites like wiggidybong.com selling us car insurance (i made that up).

You raised some good points about people linking to you using just the url though Steve. In that respect the words in the domain would be important for maximising the effect of your backlinks. Especially when some forums cut off the last few words of the url when turning it into a clickable link, It would mean keywords in directories and file names would be removed.