5 ms·

My mind works exactly the opposite way. If I see a domain like BikeTours.com, I immediately assume that the business is built primarily on the domain name, and

by tamask 6y ago

My mind works exactly the opposite way. If I see a domain like BikeTours.com, I immediately assume that the business is built primarily on the domain name, and the quality of the product or service is inferior. Hence I don’t click it. But I assume the majority of internet users don’t think this way, so it can be a profitable strategy. Edit: Well, thinking about it, it’s not always true, but at the very least I check out the other options too.

santoshalper 6y ago
A lot of those super-generically named sites are really just shill advisory/review sites. I have also come to be mistrustful.
- pphysch 6y ago
  Or straight up scam/fraud, depending on the sector.
awwstn 6y ago
Same, though I think the BikeTours/GoSojourn thing may just be an imperfect example of a point that is correct. A better example (for me at least) would be backroads.com vs. something like biketourstoday.info. The former is distinct, trustworthy, memorable, greppable, and just good. I thought a lot about these things in starting my business. While capiche.com doesn't say anything about SaaS, I think it resonates with people more than, say, saasreviews.io or whatever would've. btw, this post is highly relevant and is one I reference often: http://messymatters.com/nominology/ http://messymatters.com/nominology/
- darkerside 6y ago
  The link is great, for anyone else who enjoys taking mostly meaningless things way too seriously. I take issue with greppability. Unnecessary as long as you can use regular expressions to search for whitespace bounded terms.
_bxg1 6y ago
Right, and "GoSojourn" sounds a) like it couldn't have been auto-registered by a bot going off of keywords, and b) like it carries more whimsy than a spammy developer would likely put forth.
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Kind of, but then I do want to buy a garden shed from Sheds.co.uk because i think the selection and focus beats big stores. but i could be wrong - at least i will call them tomorrow and see if i pick up any other signals.
dathinab 6y ago
I would say a pretty large part of the internet user doesn't look at the domain when looking for something new in Google (they mainly see your headline, text snippets, logo and only then, maybe your domain). Sure if your domain name looks erratic or otherwise won't they still notice but as long as your domain name is sane I don't think it did matter anymore at least not to a large degree. Or at least that is what I think. One exception are people which where "thought" about domains also got stuck in the way they see the internet. So if you target people between 35-50 it might still matter a bit more I guess).
trox 6y ago
Agreed, especially what I often see from search engines related to health and fitness. Many blogs with short, descriptive domain names, that are completely over-optimizing in SEO, changing publish dates of articles and offering bad UX in general (invasive ads, popups, trackers, ...)
kixiQu 6y ago
Maybe it's terrible, but when I hear something like "GoSojourn" I think, Ah, VC money! Let's see how subsidized this is....
- 6510 6y ago
  And I would without hesitation open both but that is not where the money is. If the point is to exploit the asset you want those customers who don't bother to compare your minimalist expensive trip with cheap well thought out stuff available elsewhere. OT: For techies winning depends more on technology. It would be more interesting to appeal to the serious and properly organize the trips by distance, days, incline, temperature, weather and price in a sortable way. The more advanced the cyclist the more there has to be actual cycling (think repairs, renting high end bikes, massages, spa etc), they care about statistics and leaderboards, there is a whole eco system worth of technology to explore and tap into. (Could upload your entire offering to https://www.bkool.com/en/cycling-simulator https://www.bkool.com/en/cycling-simulator ) much fun to make. At that point, if you call it cocainepizza44.ninja people will find it.
maest 6y ago
In this case, the article dissmisively advises that you "stop reading and go back to scrolling Facebook". Sick burn from the author!
mysterypie 6y ago
I agree with you that I'd prefer GoSojourn myself, and that BikeTours sounds spammy. Having now looked at both sites, they both look legit, and at first glance, roughly equivalent in presentation. At this point, I'd base my decision solely on prices, dates available, type of tour, customer service, etc. -- giving no weight to the domain name. I can accept that buyers would pay more for BikeTours.com than for GoSojourn.com (and that the author would earn more money for brokering such a name), but is there any empirical evidence that customers prefer the simple descriptive name? And by how much? That's a critical question. If the BikeTours name costs $40,000 and GoSojourn costs $200, could the $39,800 difference be put to better use by GoSojourn such that it beats out BikeTours?
- 6510 6y ago
  His argument is that if you do something decent with biketours and advertise it properly you can easily get your 40 k back or more. GoSojourn wont have ROI.
Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
I laughed out loud at this example, because I run a site with (what I reckon to be) one of the best domain names for exactly that use-case: https://cycle.travel https://cycle.travel
- dangwu 6y ago
  Do you think having an unusual TLD (travel) is hurting you at all? If someone told an average person to go to "Cycle.travel", I'm not sure that they would understand that to be a web address.
  - hobofan 6y ago
    From my experience, such an effect is generally far to small to be a deciding factor (in the beginning). If you look at the traffic of most websites, very few visitors come directly to your website by entering the domain into the address bar (because visitors are far too lazy to type out an address). The biggest chunk normally comes from other websites directly linking to you (this includes search engines and social media sites), or paid advertising (if you do that).
    - Scarnface 6y ago
      As a kid I knew every one of my friends phone numbers. I couldn't tell you my nearest and dearest now because typing this kind of info manually is long gone.
      - dexterdog 6y ago
        I'm 50 and I can still tell you the phone numbers of all of my friends from growing up. The only number other than mine that I know now is my wife's because it's the number for the grocery store discount card. That stuff sticks because we pounded it in there.
      - cableshaft 6y ago
        I've had to enter in my wife's phone number for various things enough times I know it better than my own phone number now (Meijer mPerks alone I've done it probably 300 times). But outside of that, my own, and my parent's phone number, which has never changed, I don't know any phone numbers.
GuB-42 6y ago
Same, more generally, I trust domain name more when they are the name of a company or a product. Not generic words. If biketours.com is not the website of a company called biketours, I will look elsewhere. Same thing for gosojourn.com Also the more generic the name, the more I expect to see a large reputable company. For a company named BikeTours, I expect too see many reviews in internet forums, a professional looking, custom built website, maybe even a few financial news articles. For gosojourn, I expect either an official website (ex: tourism office) or a small shop. I red flag everything that doesn't match my expectations.
johnvanommen 6y ago
This is why I generally avoid getting food at restaurants that have a great view. Places like that are a great place to get a couple of drinks with friends and soak up the ambience, but 9 times out of 10 the food is overpriced and middle-of-the-road in quality.
zaphirplane 6y ago
Similar I skeptically check if they aggregators or subcontract the actual work our

by tamask 6y ago

santoshalper 6y ago

A lot of those super-generically named sites are really just shill advisory/review sites. I have also come to be mistrustful.

pphysch 6y ago
Or straight up scam/fraud, depending on the sector.

awwstn 6y ago

Same, though I think the BikeTours/GoSojourn thing may just be an imperfect example of a point that is correct. A better example (for me at least) would be backroads.com vs. something like biketourstoday.info. The former is distinct, trustworthy, memorable, greppable, and just good. I thought a lot about these things in starting my business. While capiche.com doesn't say anything about SaaS, I think it resonates with people more than, say, saasreviews.io or whatever would've. btw, this post is highly relevant and is one I reference often: http://messymatters.com/nominology/ http://messymatters.com/nominology/

darkerside 6y ago
The link is great, for anyone else who enjoys taking mostly meaningless things way too seriously. I take issue with greppability. Unnecessary as long as you can use regular expressions to search for whitespace bounded terms.

_bxg1 6y ago

Right, and "GoSojourn" sounds a) like it couldn't have been auto-registered by a bot going off of keywords, and b) like it carries more whimsy than a spammy developer would likely put forth.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Kind of, but then I do want to buy a garden shed from Sheds.co.uk because i think the selection and focus beats big stores. but i could be wrong - at least i will call them tomorrow and see if i pick up any other signals.

dathinab 6y ago

I would say a pretty large part of the internet user doesn't look at the domain when looking for something new in Google (they mainly see your headline, text snippets, logo and only then, maybe your domain). Sure if your domain name looks erratic or otherwise won't they still notice but as long as your domain name is sane I don't think it did matter anymore at least not to a large degree. Or at least that is what I think. One exception are people which where "thought" about domains also got stuck in the way they see the internet. So if you target people between 35-50 it might still matter a bit more I guess).

trox 6y ago

Agreed, especially what I often see from search engines related to health and fitness. Many blogs with short, descriptive domain names, that are completely over-optimizing in SEO, changing publish dates of articles and offering bad UX in general (invasive ads, popups, trackers, ...)

kixiQu 6y ago

Maybe it's terrible, but when I hear something like "GoSojourn" I think, Ah, VC money! Let's see how subsidized this is....

6510 6y ago
And I would without hesitation open both but that is not where the money is. If the point is to exploit the asset you want those customers who don't bother to compare your minimalist expensive trip with cheap well thought out stuff available elsewhere. OT: For techies winning depends more on technology. It would be more interesting to appeal to the serious and properly organize the trips by distance, days, incline, temperature, weather and price in a sortable way. The more advanced the cyclist the more there has to be actual cycling (think repairs, renting high end bikes, massages, spa etc), they care about statistics and leaderboards, there is a whole eco system worth of technology to explore and tap into. (Could upload your entire offering to https://www.bkool.com/en/cycling-simulator https://www.bkool.com/en/cycling-simulator ) much fun to make. At that point, if you call it cocainepizza44.ninja people will find it.

maest 6y ago

In this case, the article dissmisively advises that you "stop reading and go back to scrolling Facebook". Sick burn from the author!

mysterypie 6y ago

I agree with you that I'd prefer GoSojourn myself, and that BikeTours sounds spammy. Having now looked at both sites, they both look legit, and at first glance, roughly equivalent in presentation. At this point, I'd base my decision solely on prices, dates available, type of tour, customer service, etc. -- giving no weight to the domain name. I can accept that buyers would pay more for BikeTours.com than for GoSojourn.com (and that the author would earn more money for brokering such a name), but is there any empirical evidence that customers prefer the simple descriptive name? And by how much? That's a critical question. If the BikeTours name costs $40,000 and GoSojourn costs $200, could the $39,800 difference be put to better use by GoSojourn such that it beats out BikeTours?

6510 6y ago
His argument is that if you do something decent with biketours and advertise it properly you can easily get your 40 k back or more. GoSojourn wont have ROI.

Doctor_Fegg 6y ago

I laughed out loud at this example, because I run a site with (what I reckon to be) one of the best domain names for exactly that use-case: https://cycle.travel https://cycle.travel

dangwu 6y ago
Do you think having an unusual TLD (travel) is hurting you at all? If someone told an average person to go to "Cycle.travel", I'm not sure that they would understand that to be a web address.
- hobofan 6y ago
  From my experience, such an effect is generally far to small to be a deciding factor (in the beginning). If you look at the traffic of most websites, very few visitors come directly to your website by entering the domain into the address bar (because visitors are far too lazy to type out an address). The biggest chunk normally comes from other websites directly linking to you (this includes search engines and social media sites), or paid advertising (if you do that).
  - Scarnface 6y ago
    As a kid I knew every one of my friends phone numbers. I couldn't tell you my nearest and dearest now because typing this kind of info manually is long gone.
    - dexterdog 6y ago
      I'm 50 and I can still tell you the phone numbers of all of my friends from growing up. The only number other than mine that I know now is my wife's because it's the number for the grocery store discount card. That stuff sticks because we pounded it in there.
    - cableshaft 6y ago
      I've had to enter in my wife's phone number for various things enough times I know it better than my own phone number now (Meijer mPerks alone I've done it probably 300 times). But outside of that, my own, and my parent's phone number, which has never changed, I don't know any phone numbers.

GuB-42 6y ago

Same, more generally, I trust domain name more when they are the name of a company or a product. Not generic words. If biketours.com is not the website of a company called biketours, I will look elsewhere. Same thing for gosojourn.com Also the more generic the name, the more I expect to see a large reputable company. For a company named BikeTours, I expect too see many reviews in internet forums, a professional looking, custom built website, maybe even a few financial news articles. For gosojourn, I expect either an official website (ex: tourism office) or a small shop. I red flag everything that doesn't match my expectations.

johnvanommen 6y ago

This is why I generally avoid getting food at restaurants that have a great view. Places like that are a great place to get a couple of drinks with friends and soak up the ambience, but 9 times out of 10 the food is overpriced and middle-of-the-road in quality.

zaphirplane 6y ago

Similar I skeptically check if they aggregators or subcontract the actual work our