3 ms·

I am wondering: does a domain still matter in 2025? Nobody is accessing websites by typing the domain name anymore, are they? If gasthauskaiser.de is taken, I f

I am wondering: does a domain still matter in 2025? Nobody is accessing websites by typing the domain name anymore, are they? If gasthauskaiser.de is taken, I feel like I have dozens of other options. Anyway, there's probably hundreds of pubs called Kaiser in German-speaking world. So what's teh real value of a domain like gasthauskaiser.de?

thrance 1y ago
SEO mostly. Weird domains get downranked because they are favored by scammers (as they are cheaper). Plus, you still need somewhere to host your website, so might as well get a domain that's not too ugly.
- josefrichter 1y ago
  Yeah my point was that you can get plenty "not too ugly" domains. Quick search: - kaiser.restaurant is free - restaurant-kaiser.com is free 5 seconds of work, both probably better than gasthauskaiser.de tbh.
belinder 1y ago
In this context it matters because Google maps shows only one website when you search for that pub, if the extorters put their website there first then you can't put your real one
- josefrichter 1y ago
  I believe you can. 1. You can submit correction, 2. You can claim ownership of the actual business.
ahofmann 1y ago
The problem in this is, that lieferando captures the search results with these domains. They effectively cut the business off of their main customer source for their domain. After doing this, they force the business to get onto their platform. This way they extort money out of a business. So your question is backwards because local dealers had a working solution for their business, but "startups" like lieferando destroy that just to sell and control their own solution. So now the domain is worthless, but only because of lieferando et al. The same happened to booking hotels. Now every hotel room is 20 to 30 % more costly because booking.com forced themselves between the business and the customer and they take their cut. doctolib is trying to do the same with doctors in europe.
- josefrichter 1y ago
  But how do they cut you off, if you can acquire plenty of other "nice" domains? I understand this worked many years ago when .com domain was a must-have, but that's not the case anymore with tons of TLDs, smarter search engines, and very little direct "type-in" traffic, is it?
  - ahofmann 1y ago
    This is only anecdata, but it happened to me more than once, that I typed in google the name of the restaurant and was couldn't find the real website of the restaurant over the fold, because the ads and the results are spammed with lieferando, and others. As a restaurant in a situation like this, you now have to compete for the search results, which isn't your main business. You want to sell pizza, not do SEO, or SEA. And then lieferando calls and tell you something like "hey, it's a shame that nobody is buying from you, right? Well, we can help for 10% of your revenue..."
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  Booking.com didn't force as much as you state. People use them for different reasons than them being first on the Google results page. Most hotels also do not make any effort to capture online sales, even though 95% of guests make their reservations online.
rambambram 1y ago
Your own profile here on HN suggests otherwise. ;)
- josefrichter 1y ago
  What you mean? I don't understand.
  - rambambram 1y ago
    I can't click your website or email, I have to type it again. Especially with the ' at '.
TacticalCoder 1y ago
> I am wondering: does a domain still matter in 2025? It totally does and it's not mutually exclusive with a social media presence. And now that many people are using LLMs also for searching, if LLMs do redirect to your domain it's bingo. There's this fantasy that people only ever use their phones and social media and that computers do not exist anymore. Then there's the real world where people actually work and they're all on real computers and they do look stuff in either good old search engines or using LLMs, by typing on an actual keyboard and looking at the results at an actual screen. If you're showing food recipes or Minecraft vids: fine, your social account will do. But for anything related to the real world, where real people doing real work in actual offices may be looking you up, a domain shall greatly help. In addition to that: many people at work are also using their actual computers to look up personal stuff. Looks more serious to do it at the computer than on a phone. And as as been pointed by several in this thread already: at least its a presence you can control without being at the mercy of a single company.
josefrichter 1y ago
I am fascinated why would someone downvote a genuine question. What's wrong with people?

thrance 1y ago

SEO mostly. Weird domains get downranked because they are favored by scammers (as they are cheaper). Plus, you still need somewhere to host your website, so might as well get a domain that's not too ugly.

josefrichter 1y ago
Yeah my point was that you can get plenty "not too ugly" domains. Quick search: - kaiser.restaurant is free - restaurant-kaiser.com is free 5 seconds of work, both probably better than gasthauskaiser.de tbh.

belinder 1y ago

In this context it matters because Google maps shows only one website when you search for that pub, if the extorters put their website there first then you can't put your real one

josefrichter 1y ago
I believe you can. 1. You can submit correction, 2. You can claim ownership of the actual business.

ahofmann 1y ago

The problem in this is, that lieferando captures the search results with these domains. They effectively cut the business off of their main customer source for their domain. After doing this, they force the business to get onto their platform. This way they extort money out of a business. So your question is backwards because local dealers had a working solution for their business, but "startups" like lieferando destroy that just to sell and control their own solution. So now the domain is worthless, but only because of lieferando et al. The same happened to booking hotels. Now every hotel room is 20 to 30 % more costly because booking.com forced themselves between the business and the customer and they take their cut. doctolib is trying to do the same with doctors in europe.

josefrichter 1y ago
But how do they cut you off, if you can acquire plenty of other "nice" domains? I understand this worked many years ago when .com domain was a must-have, but that's not the case anymore with tons of TLDs, smarter search engines, and very little direct "type-in" traffic, is it?
- ahofmann 1y ago
  This is only anecdata, but it happened to me more than once, that I typed in google the name of the restaurant and was couldn't find the real website of the restaurant over the fold, because the ads and the results are spammed with lieferando, and others. As a restaurant in a situation like this, you now have to compete for the search results, which isn't your main business. You want to sell pizza, not do SEO, or SEA. And then lieferando calls and tell you something like "hey, it's a shame that nobody is buying from you, right? Well, we can help for 10% of your revenue..."
carlosjobim 1y ago
Booking.com didn't force as much as you state. People use them for different reasons than them being first on the Google results page. Most hotels also do not make any effort to capture online sales, even though 95% of guests make their reservations online.

rambambram 1y ago

Your own profile here on HN suggests otherwise. ;)

josefrichter 1y ago
What you mean? I don't understand.
- rambambram 1y ago
  I can't click your website or email, I have to type it again. Especially with the ' at '.

TacticalCoder 1y ago

> I am wondering: does a domain still matter in 2025? It totally does and it's not mutually exclusive with a social media presence. And now that many people are using LLMs also for searching, if LLMs do redirect to your domain it's bingo. There's this fantasy that people only ever use their phones and social media and that computers do not exist anymore. Then there's the real world where people actually work and they're all on real computers and they do look stuff in either good old search engines or using LLMs, by typing on an actual keyboard and looking at the results at an actual screen. If you're showing food recipes or Minecraft vids: fine, your social account will do. But for anything related to the real world, where real people doing real work in actual offices may be looking you up, a domain shall greatly help. In addition to that: many people at work are also using their actual computers to look up personal stuff. Looks more serious to do it at the computer than on a phone. And as as been pointed by several in this thread already: at least its a presence you can control without being at the mercy of a single company.

josefrichter 1y ago

I am fascinated why would someone downvote a genuine question. What's wrong with people?