Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226195

by tpimental • 18 years ago

5 12 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

In your experience, is it better to have a straight forward domain name like "carprices.com" or something witty, original and completely off topic like Google.com?

amrithk• 18 years ago

Thats a hard one. Something witty will get you recognized if it sticks. But a lot of startups these days have 'witty' unusual names and it doesn;t stand out as much anymore. I would shoot for a straight forward domain name thats easy to remember and is short.

noodle• 18 years ago

depends on your audience. if you're making a trendy, for-the-web-community type of application, go original/witty. if you're looking to hook the grandmas and the soccer moms, an easy, descriptive name is better.

steveplace2• 18 years ago

Depends on who your target base is. Go for the hip and witty if you're looking to attract the TC crowd.

If you're going for mainstream America, you probably want to go direct. It not only conveys what you are trying to serve, but it's very useful in organic seo. People looking for car loans will try car loans dot com or throw it into google.

It's all subjective of course, and it depends on how you want to brand out.

gm• 18 years ago

"The TC crowd"??? What the hell is that? This is all about marketing... To normal people who will be your consumers... Who the hell does a startup aiming it at the commentators?

Face it, the TC crowd are people who like to watch things happen. Nothing more.

If TC hates your startup, but it's a hit with consumers, who gives a $&&%??

Go to the corner until you realize that a business is about revenues and cash flow. Commentators do not give you that, your market does.

The market rules everything. The market is the only thing that matters.

EDIT: LOL... modded down because you guys did noty like to read what I typed... At least tell me where I am am wrong. Or are you guys all creating startups to please the "TC crowd," whatever that is, and my post hurts your ego?

steveplace2• 18 years ago

It's not the content, it's the delivery.

tom2• 18 years ago

Things to considder no matter what.

1. Is it short?

2. a. Is it easy to spell / misspell?

2. b. Can a person tell a friend about it and is there a chance the friend will actually be able to just type it in?

3. Is the .com version available? If not, are you trying to do the delicious thing?

4. Is it really witty, or have you just convinced yourself that it is cause it's all you could find?

5. If you're going for the straighforward thing, is it really straight forward? Or again, have you just convinced yourself it is.

Good luck.

tpimental• 18 years ago

Does short really matter? What if its something incredibly obvious, but still relatively long... like "ISoldMyHouse.com"?

tom2• 18 years ago

Yes, short matters. If you can say the same thing, with fewer syllables / less letters, while keeping 2 - 5 in check, it's a no brainer.

Of course, if you can support your long domain, such as "ISoldMyHouse.com" with hundreds of weekly radio placements featureing a "catchy" tune, you can probably drive home a longer name too.

There are no hard and fast rules, but the guidelines that I mentioned above are tried and true.

coglethorpe• 18 years ago

I've seen two schools of thought on that, going for a keyword name (rent.com) or going for a brand name (Google).

It seems to be the companies that choose a brand name, witty or not, and build a great product or service associated with the name that do the best overall. Those that get recognized will get more than enough search engine love to rise to the top or the results anyway.

"How to pick a good brand name" is beyond the scope of this comment. :-)

jcl• 18 years ago

If you look past the incredible success of its products, "Google" is not a great name. It's only witty to math nerds; to the public at large, it's just a nonsense word, unrelated to internet search, and not all that memorable. Its saving graces are that it's short and sounds like a plausible verb. AOL and Yahoo! both had much better names but inferior products.

Google was also fortunate to be early in the trend of nonsense/misspelled domain names. The recent ones are largely forgettable. If you are thinking of going this route, I'd suggest making the name at least tangentially related to the site's function; reddit and flickr do this and are IMHO great names, short and memorable... wufoo and meebo, not so much.

fdschoeneman2• 18 years ago

I disagree strongly with you on this. Google is a great name, better than all the examples you've mentioned for one simple reason: How many times have you been lost and called a friend and asked her to google an address for you? How many times have you googled a girl you met to see where she works of if she has any pictures you can send to your friends?

Back when Yahoo was the only game in town for search, nobody ever aked me to Yahoo something.

Flickr is a great product with an easy to mis-spell name.

Reddit is good, though.

Regards,

Fred

fdschoeneman2• 18 years ago

I don't like straightforward names, as you've described them, period. For one thing, they aren't really straightforward with the way human brains work. For instance, is it carprices or carprice? Similarly, I'd recommend you stay away from cute names like karprices.com or qarpricez.com. I realize that their intention is to describe their business category, and let the user figure out what the business is about from the name, but what you really end up with is something generic, something that doesn't stick in the mind, and that is vulnerable to a competitor with a memorable brand that can stick in a consumer's mind.

Some specific advice would be:

1) Make it impossible to mis-spell. I know, this was said before in one of the threads above. 2) Does the name have the potential to be used in a sentence, like, "can you google that for me?" or "can you xerox that for me?" or "Did you see x's latest twitter?" 3) Does the name suggest the business category? For example, twitter sort of suggests what it is that the product does, if only on a subconscious level? Same for a lot of Proctor & Gamble brands.

Probably the best thing to do is pick up Ries & Trout's "Positioning." I know Ries has some newer stuff out that speaks directly to naming Internet companies.

Good luck!

Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?

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