Ask HN: Do long, [funny], descriptive URLs help?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8076003

by cjrd • 12 years ago

5 6 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Looking at sites like

wherethefuckshouldigofordrinks.com

evenjesuswouldbuythis.com

Does this novelty effect _actually_ help ideas? I'm considering trying this "ploy" with some of my little side projects. Can anyone with experience running such a site provide feedback?

minimaxir• 12 years ago

Considering that such links are gimmicks and have little staying power otherwise, I would say that it does not help.

It's hard to quickly mentally parse such phrases in URLs too.

insky2• 12 years ago

Just be careful...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2012/nov/22/...

cjrd• 12 years ago

Ha, true. Or maybe http://www.whorepresents.com ?

insky2• 12 years ago

You could actually have quite a bit of fun with this kind of wordplay.

bramgg• 12 years ago

Don't use such URLs for your business or products. You want your name to be short, memorable, and work with social media.

Long novelty URLs help micro content sites go viral, just make sure to include some prominent share buttons. The trick is to make many of these novelty websites that relate to your main product, and then link to that in the footers.

An example of someone who's used this technique multiple times before is TheOatmeal[0], though the only one I can remember off the top of my head is ThingsBearsLove[1].

[0] http://theoatmeal.com/

[1] http://www.thingsbearslove.com/

vtd• 12 years ago

The long URLs are fine by me. See http://uniformresourcelocatorelongator.com/

Ask HN: Do long, [funny], descriptive URLs help?

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