4 ms·
Hopefully? Stop abusing country code TLDs already...
by burgerbrain 16y ago
Hopefully? Stop abusing country code TLDs already...
- slillibri 16y agoHuh, hopeful.ly isn't registered yet...
- TeMPOraL 16y agoOr at least please use TLDs that together with domain name actually try to resemble some English words, and are not just "take a noun, cut suffix, add .ly" mashups.
- StavrosK 16y agoWhat do you suggest? Getting a .com domain? Have you tried to do that recently? All dictionary words and most two-word combinations are taken by squatters. I searched for a domain name for a new web app the other day and wanted a .com name, it was almost impossible to find anything. I spent two days searching until I found something. .net and .org are better, but users always expect (and type in) .com.
- petercooper 16y agoI agree with the argument but am also beginning to be convinced by the opposing argument for many cases.. Consider 37signals' products, they don't have the product name in the verbatim .com form for any that I see - they've had to append words on the end. Apple doesn't own MacBook.com. Even companies who own their product names as domains (e.g. Fogbugz.com) aren't necessarily using them as a primary URL. It seems customers/users aren't /that/ fazed by it.
- StavrosK 16y agoThe fact that companies are doing it doesn't mean that customers aren't fazed by it. Sure, 37signals is doing well, but do you think the "hq" part of the basecamp domain helped? When 37signals weren't that well-known and wanted to market it, how many potential customers do you think they lost because people typed "basecamp.com", didn't go where they intended to and never visited again? Customer retention is like trying to plug all the holes in a sieve, and a bad domain is one more hole. Personally, I'd gladly pay $50/yr for a domain if it meant that suddenly the squatters went out of business.
- petercooper 16y agoI can't find fault with your arguments because I'm sure they're true for many cases (and the 'plugging the holes' is entirely valid). That said, my gut feeling is that at least a plurality of people are Googling terms like 'basecamp' rather than typing them in as URLs. And I doubt that those who do type in URLs are fickle enough to write off the task on one failure. Proving it either way would be laborious (but would make for interesting research). Good catch on my phased/fazed mismatch, btw! ;-)
- StavrosK 16y agoI always try to subtly correct that, it irks me when misspelt :P I'm sure people will google for things (hell, I have the "I'm feeling lucky" shortcut bound to "l" on my browser so I do "l basecamp" and I'm there), but this only works if you're first on Google for your name, which isn't something many companies can boast, and certainly not when they're just starting out, which is the time you want new customers the most...
- timerickson 16y agoI can personally attest to becoming very confused by having the add "hq" to basecamp's address. It took me a very long while to get accustomed to that URL, having to repeatedly google basecamp to find it.
- iwwr 16y ago.ch? We could use a few flags of convenience on the virtual seas.
- Legion 16y ago> .net and .org are better, but users always expect (and type in) .com. Which makes country code TLDs an answer... how? They're not .com either.
- haploid 16y agoDo you think there are a lot of bricks-and-mortar entrepreneurs who bitch endlessly about the lack of alternative planets on which to snap up cheap real estate or unique business name trademarks? If the name you want is already owned, make contact and negotiate a price. You know, like everybody else in meatspace does with land, trademarks, etc.
- pwim 16y agoExcept that isn't always simple to do. When a domain name we wanted was taken by a squatter, we tried to get in contact with the owner, but never received any response.
- adolph 16y agoYou'd think that if squatters/scalpers were rational the market would be more efficient. The way things really work I think the domain name business is run by compulsive hoarders.
- StavrosK 16y agoYes, because ten people rushed out when the planet was first created and bought all the land for $10 per acre and are now selling it for 200x that.
- chaosmachine 16y ago"most two-word combinations are taken by squatters" Not true. Spend a few minutes playing with this: http://impossibility.org/ http://impossibility.org/
- StavrosK 16y agoThe fact that that tool even exists is an indication that I'm right. Sure, some combinations exist, but when "wallhat.com" is taken (by a squatter, it seems), I don't have much hope.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mikeleeorg 16y agoWow, nice tool. The stats behind it are interesting too: http://blamcast.net/articles/domain-name-generator http://blamcast.net/articles/domain-name-generator
- guelo 16y agoThere's also the USA issue with .com. Sure, ICE seems to be targeting torrent domains for seizure for now but no one knows who they'll go after next or if your business will be collateral damage from some other seizure, with no due process or recourse.
- abstractbill 16y agoIt's not actually that bad. I recently wrote a script that sends me daily emails of all .com domains that are expiring that day, sorted by length, and by a measure of how "English-like" they are (just using a frequency table for pairs of letters). I was surprised by how much good stuff is available.
- metachris 16y agoWould you mind sharing that script?
- timerickson 16y agoPlease publish this script! Or, throw up a site and let us add our email to a newsletter list :)
- StavrosK 16y agoThat's interesting, where did you get a list of all the expiration dates?
- ericflo 16y agoJust make up a word, that's what we did.
- StavrosK 16y agoYep, that seems to be the best course of action. I'm bad at randomness, but I'm good at whipping up a simple markov-chain-based domain name generator in a few hours. I'll train it on an English dictionary and they'll sound good as well!
- mkramlich 16y agoAnd part of the problem is that some people are "squatting" solely because others are truly squatting. Defensive domain squatting, you might call it. I'm all for abolishing the TLD suffixes totally since (a) they're not used consistently anymore anyway, and (b) it reduces confusion between cases like foo.com and foo.org and foo.net, etc -- unsophisticated users (who are the majority) may assume some or all are the same service or purpose, but they are not. Yes, in a way, in acts to increase demand for a single namespace, but on the other hand, the same sorts of workarounds and naming hacks are still available (add extra words, suffixes, dashes, etc.). I personally now like fun/weird non-sensical non-specific "made up" names because (a) they're more likely to not already be taken, and (b) they could be used for an almost infinite variety of purposes justifiably. For example: www.spooflurk.com could be for shoes, sex, politics, a CV, a company, a game, a band, whatever, whereas www.shoe-sales.com is rightly expected to be pretty much about selling shoes. Yes you'll get less "organic" traffic (and less accidental traffic, which may sometimes be the same thing) on the other hand I'm a firm believer that the most important thing is to provide something people want, and eventually the right number and mix of people will find out about it anyway, regardless of the name. The noise to signal ratio in the world is pretty bad so quality stands out and people talk.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- gambler 16y agoIf there wasn't an artificially created shortage of TLDs, people probably wouldn't abuse country domains. Besides, this game has started long time ago. It's not like .com, .net and .org bear any meaning either. Domains today are not really semantic. They might have been 15 years ago, but not now.