He’s Got a Bridge in Brooklyn, Too…
A startup client walked in the door this week with a perfect name for her business.
Did Naming 101 play a part? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. It’s a great name to grow her business.
Among the first tasks for any new business owner is securing their domain name. She was doing that herself, and it looked like it would be relatively simple.
The private owner of the dot com Internet domain was coy at first, simply rejecting her bids. What looked simple required more effort, so I looked into it.
I did a little research and found an old mention of what he felt the value was.
It turns out the owner wants $60,000 for the name.
Umm, no.
No letters strung together with .com at the end are worth that.
Maybe Apple.com. Disney.com. That’s it.
No small business will see a reasonable return on that kind of investment. This brings up an interesting point. Is the need for .com finally fading?
New name, or go with .net? She’s made her decision—what would you do?
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
P.S. On an unrelated note: Dear readers, do any of you have commenting problems here? One reader who emails me her thoughts now and then, wrote me that her computer freezes when she tries to comment—she’s sure it’s here at Maximum Customer Experience only, and every time she tries! Does anyone else ever experience crashes when trying to comment at MCE? Thoughts and solutions for my frustrated reader would be greatly appreciated. Of course, if you also experience crashes every time you try to comment, you’ll want to email me: kellye (at) visionpoints (dot) net
Thanks in advance!
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19 September 2008, 8:43 am
Kelly
Talk about an inflated sense of value. Just an example of pure human greed.
Where can I earn $60,000K for putting together a few letters? (Are there any job openings there?).
PS. When I leave comments here, the computer doesnt’ crash. But often it does get constipated. The green bar fills very slowly while waiting for the comment to load.
Seems to happen with just your site.
Friar’s last blog post…Things I am Ungrateful For.
19 September 2008, 10:19 am
This whole virtual real estate stuff is beyond my poor practical brain to comprehend. Change one little word, or even one simple letter, and all of a sudden the value goes from $60,000 to 6 cents.
Never an issue commenting here. Now, I know my site has issues. Can’t wait for the redesign.
Urban Panther’s last blog post…Yep, right after I tidy up the kitchen
19 September 2008, 10:19 am
Hi Kelly,
Except for certain circumstances, .com is the only way to go. Not only do people look at you funny when you say .net (like “What, you couldn’t afford the .com?”) it is also harder to remember. Everyone assumes .com these days.
That being said, you’re right that it is not worth 60K. There are many other options, like “companynameonline.com” or “icompanyname.com” (depending on the type of business of course…) However what is important is that you get a memorable domain name that is as short as possible.
Also, avoid tagging just an “s” to the end, unless the company name really does have an “s” on the end (or alternatively, remove it…) For example, if someone already has “StrongWebDesign.com” then avoid “StrongWebDesigns.com” Not only is it more awkward, but people who don’t quite remember your domain name will enter the “obvious” first choice. You could be sending business someone else’s way… BTW - I learned this lesson personally.
As for the slow loading, I’ve experienced that too. I assumed it was the CommentLuv feature trying to find the link. Try turning it off for a day or two, and see if that is causing the problem (would be my recommendation…)
~Graham
19 September 2008, 10:41 am
My slow loading friends: That is, indeed, CommentLuv. (Graham–check out my comments at MWP today: first one, it caught my previous post, later ones, it caught nothing… sigh. I don’t have a lot here to lighten up to make it load faster, but there is talk of extending the load time to 5 seconds with his new release, so I’ll hope for that and then promote the heck out of the new release to sites I comment at regularly, he he.)
Crashes are a horse of a different color, and I’m not at all sure what color. She doesn’t have a blog, so it can’t be a CommentLuv conflict there.
Good comments here about domain names. More thoughts later…
Regards,
Kelly
19 September 2008, 12:51 pm
Certainly not my area of expertise, so this is just a fly-by-night opinion with nothing to back it up.
I would come up with a new name.
I wouldn’t go with the .net.
I also wouldn’t go with putting dashes, or anything else like that.
I learned this the hard way with my own blog, which fortunately is not a business (but a good way to learn). Write-from-home.com (my blog) was a website before it was a blog, so I’ve had the site since 2006. To this day, folks I’ve known for a year or more link to writefromhome.com when they mean to link to me, and I frequently get emails meant for the woman who owns writefromhome.com (folks checking on query statuses, etc). I have no idea how much traffic I lose because of choosing a bad domain name. Fortunately this blog isn’t a business, so I don’t have to care that much.
What did your friend decide to do?
Amy Derby’s last blog post…How To Survive While Writing With Young Children In The Home
19 September 2008, 12:56 pm
Pick a domain name that NOBODY would ever dream of taking.
F43SELL#$Vnkooo-011b.com
(Now THERE’s a catchy business name, if I ever did see one!)
Friar’s last blog post…Things I am Ungrateful For.
19 September 2008, 1:00 pm
LOL @ Friar
Amy Derby’s last blog post…How To Survive While Writing With Young Children In The Home
19 September 2008, 5:33 pm
Friar,
To be a little bit fair, the guy didn’t buy the name to sell it, he had a business on it some years ago and held it after the business went kaput. But it’s not going to put bread on the table, and it’s just not worth that. Phooey.
Your suggestion: not memorable, not speakable, not spellable: that’s got to come in under $20,000 easy. Sold!
Panther,
It drives me nuts, too. I love a good keyword, but the fact that anything under a certain amount of letters is deemed valuable in dot-com-ville is silly. “Makemoneyonline” might be worth paying for. After that it’s a pretty steep drop off. You name is worth what ypu put into it, and that comes after choosing it and building value into it, not before.
Did I say phooey?
Graham,
Well, for VisionPoints I didn’t want to pay what the holders wanted for the .com (they’ve still got it, and I’ve still got my money, lol), but I had to debate myself heavily about my own .com snobbery. Or is it? I feel the same way as you do, though I wondered whether we’re getting over it yet. Darren Rowse does okay with his little problogger.net … hmm.
As short as possible was what she was going for, and at 11 letters, no real keywords in the SEO sense, I sure didn’t think her name was short enough to command a price even remotely like that.
Amy,
My client had actually taken the last word off her business name in order to make the domain name less of a mouthful. She’s decided to put the last word back on and poof! $9.99, without having to change her delightful business name.
For the record, I suggested since the other name is not being used, just parked, there wouldn’t be a lot of confusion with folks who recognize the other business. (There isn’t one.) I valued less of a mouthful over “dot com.” LOL—people pay me, but they don’t always listen to me.
It’s great to hear everyone’s opinions on this.
Regards,
Kelly
19 September 2008, 10:31 pm
Kelly, $60,000 no way would I pay that! When I was starting up I faced similar issues and had I know about SEO I would have made a different decision. I think her decision was a good one, although I do not think the .com, .net issue is as big of an issue. Heck, we’re now used to global sites and the iterations that come with that so I don’t see .net as an issue. In fact, many recommend buying your domain with other extensions…
Karen Swim’s last blog post…I’m Still Standing! I’m Still Strong!
19 September 2008, 11:19 pm
@Kelly - .com snobbery — that’s the perfect way to put it. It’s one of the few things in life that costs the exact same (or even cheaper) but still has a higher status.
My main point is “ease of use” for the potential clients/visitors. Most people simply assume .com, and it’s much easier to remember. If they are going to enter your domain into the address bar, they will more likely get it right if they don’t have to decide between .net, .org, .whatever…
Problogger.net might be fine because 99% of people find blogs through links, then bookmark them or grab the RSS feed, so rarely would they be entering the name directly into the address bar anyway. But I wonder how many times someone stumbled upon problogger.com (so to speak) looking for Darren’s blog. Probably more than vice versa…
~Graham
19 September 2008, 11:27 pm
P.S. - Yeah, none of my comments at MWP got picked up. The other day, it picked up my old post. But on other sites like Cath Lawson’s, it almost always works properly. My site always picks it up too — even mine if I comment when I’m logged out. (Not to brag, just saying…)
I don’t know nearly enough about coding to guess what is going on. But I do have a funny feeling that extending the search time from 3 to 5 seconds won’t solve the problem… I suspect it has something to do with feed syntax, etc. — the same reason people drop from 3,200 subscribers to 800 overnight. I think there is an inherent problem with the FeedBurner code (upon which CommentLuv depends) that is the root of the CommentLuv problem too. In other words, CommentLuv is flawed because FeedBurner is flawed.
Again, I’m not a coding expert, but that’s my thought for what it’s worth. I do hope I’m wrong though!
~Graham
20 September 2008, 12:38 am
Karen,
Yes, I’m just enjoying the discussion today. When we went around the table on this, we just had to say there are good and bad points to each decision, let’s make one. (Well, except buying the name she originally wanted. Only bad points to that!)
So she went with the mouthful. Like I said, it is her business name, so maybe it will actually be easier for folks to remember than the short version would have been.
Graham,
Darren says, lots. It used to keep him up at night (he almost bought it for some ridiculous price about a year ago, I believe), and then he became a zillionaire. Now he sleeps like a baby, lol.
I want to suspect FeedBurner, especially because it used to work so nicely up until about a month or maybe two months ago, but then why does it work so much better on some sites than others?
I have no idea, of course, just frustrated like you.
20 September 2008, 8:41 am
@Kelly - I’m not sure. How did you install CommentLuv? Did you actually “Extract” it from its Zip file, or did you simply move the files from the Zip folder to your Local Site? Are there any changes to the folder structure (for example, did you move your WordPress files and folders to another location on your server)? What program did you use to upload the files to your server? Have you ever tried re-installing CommentLuv from scratch (i.e. delete the files from your server, re-extract from a Zip file, and upload…)?
I’ve noticed on your site too that some people (like Brett) have their links displayed all the time, and some (like me) almost never. So there might be problems on both side of the fence. For example I used capitals in my FeedBurner — I’ve been wondering if that’s part of the problem…
Perhaps this close to an upgraded version, you might want to just wait to upgrade rather than go through all this. But if you are so inclined, a fresh install might help (make sure to extract your files, and if possible, that the wp-content folder is where it is meant to be…)
~Graham
20 September 2008, 9:40 am
Graham,
1. Extracted;
2. Never touched;
3. My hosting account’s FTP server;
4. No.
Let’s remember that I am having this problem on other sites (MWP and Just Creative Design, one or two others), and that what first made me realize it wasn’t just a fluke was that I hear a third person complaining about it, on another site altogether, which is where I learned about load times and all that. Thus, in spite of just having said all that *with no coffee,* I don’t think my install here could possibly be the issue.
5. My FB account is not in all caps.
Could the size of a site be the issue? Now that I think of it, maybe the sites I don’t have trouble on are all younger (i.e. fewer posts in the larder). Not quite sure on that.
The re-install I’m scared of. I’ll probably move to the newest WP at the same time to get all the ick out of the way at once.
Can I have some coffee now? LOL at waking up to this techy stuff.
I’m going to write Andy and ask if he can take a look at these comments. Maybe he’ll have an idea.
Later,
Kelly
20 September 2008, 10:11 am
@Kelly - Hmmm, perhaps, but my archives are not that big — I just started blogging in March, with an average of maybe two posts per week…?
I don’t know. The most obvious possibility to me was that CommentLuv was having problems recognizing pathways, either to the host blog’s comment section or from the commentator’s list of blog posts.
But hey, when it comes to coding I’m like a hamster trying to explain why the wheel doesn’t roll away…
~Graham
20 September 2008, 10:29 am
Vroom vroom…
I sent that email. I hope he’ll have a chance to read through and tell us it’s all FeedBurner’s fault, or whatever we need to know. He’s no hamster, that’s for sure.
4 January 2009, 12:08 am
Kelly,
I think that 60k for any website is ridiculous! I’m not sure I agree fully with the .net theory though. As Amy stated earlier the .net idea is not something that people usually relate to right away with cutting edge websites.
I would try to stick with a company name that no one will forget. Something that really catches the eye. It could even be something mysterious to get people interested. Something like ?.com would be interesting to check out. If I came upon that name on a poster or in a forum, I would visit the site just to satisfy my curiosity!
4 January 2009, 3:24 pm
Customer,
Welcome, and thanks for your comment. Yes, $60,000 for a domain name is out there, and the .net vs. .com debate continues on.
I agree with you on naming—online or off. I’ve talked a lot about naming here—A great name is the most important ad you’ll ever write. It’s worth taking plenty of time with it.
Regards,
Kelly