In your experience, is it better to have a straight forward domain name like "carprices.com" or something witty, original and completely off topic like Google.com?
Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
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Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#2Thats a hard one. Something witty will get you recognized if it sticks. But a lot of startups these days have 'witty' unusual names and it doesn;t stand out as much anymore. I would shoot for a straight forward domain name thats easy to remember and is short.
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#3depends on your audience. if you're making a trendy, for-the-web-community type of application, go original/witty. if you're looking to hook the grandmas and the soccer moms, an easy, descriptive name is better.
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#4Depends on who your target base is. Go for the hip and witty if you're looking to attract the TC crowd.
If you're going for mainstream America, you probably want to go direct. It not only conveys what you are trying to serve, but it's very useful in organic seo. People looking for car loans will try car loans dot com or throw it into google.
It's all subjective of course, and it depends on how you want to brand out.
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#5Things to considder no matter what.
1. Is it short?
2. a. Is it easy to spell / misspell?
2. b. Can a person tell a friend about it and is there a chance the friend will actually be able to just type it in?
3. Is the .com version available? If not, are you trying to do the delicious thing?
4. Is it really witty, or have you just convinced yourself that it is cause it's all you could find?
5. If you're going for the straighforward thing, is it really straight forward? Or again, have you just convinced yourself it is.
Good luck.
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#6I've seen two schools of thought on that, going for a keyword name (rent.com) or going for a brand name (Google).
It seems to be the companies that choose a brand name, witty or not, and build a great product or service associated with the name that do the best overall. Those that get recognized will get more than enough search engine love to rise to the top or the results anyway.
"How to pick a good brand name" is beyond the scope of this comment. :-)
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#7If you look past the incredible success of its products, "Google" is not a great name. It's only witty to math nerds; to the public at large, it's just a nonsense word, unrelated to internet search, and not all that memorable. Its saving graces are that it's short and sounds like a plausible verb. AOL and Yahoo! both had much better names but inferior products.
Google was also fortunate to be early in the trend of nonsense/misspelled domain names. The recent ones are largely forgettable. If you are thinking of going this route, I'd suggest making the name at least tangentially related to the site's function; reddit and flickr do this and are IMHO great names, short and memorable... wufoo and meebo, not so much.
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#8Depends on who your target base is. Go for the hip and witty if you're looking to attract the TC crowd. If you're going for mainstream America, you probably want to go direct. It not only conveys what you are trying to serve, but it's very useful in organic seo. People looking for car loans will try car loans dot com or throw it into google. It's all subjective of course, and it depends on how you want to brand out.
"The TC crowd"??? What the hell is that? This is all about marketing... To normal people who will be your consumers... Who the hell does a startup aiming it at the commentators?
Face it, the TC crowd are people who like to watch things happen. Nothing more.
If TC hates your startup, but it's a hit with consumers, who gives a $&&%??
Go to the corner until you realize that a business is about revenues and cash flow. Commentators do not give you that, your market does.
The market rules everything. The market is the only thing that matters.
EDIT: LOL... modded down because you guys did noty like to read what I typed... At least tell me where I am am wrong. Or are you guys all creating startups to please the "TC crowd," whatever that is, and my post hurts your ego?
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#9Things to considder no matter what. 1. Is it short? 2. a. Is it easy to spell / misspell? 2. b. Can a person tell a friend about it and is there a chance the friend will actually be able to just type it in? 3. Is the .com version available? If not, are you trying to do the delicious thing? 4. Is it really witty, or have you just convinced yourself that it is cause it's all you could find? 5. If you're going for the s…
Does short really matter? What if its something incredibly obvious, but still relatively long... like "ISoldMyHouse.com"?
Re: Ask YC: Domain Names: Better to be clear or witty?
#10Depends on who your target base is. Go for the hip and witty if you're looking to attract the TC crowd. If you're going for mainstream America, you probably want to go direct. It not only conveys what you are trying to serve, but it's very useful in organic seo. People looking for car loans will try car loans dot com or throw it into google. It's all subjective of course, and it depends on how you want to brand out.
"The TC crowd"??? What the hell is that? This is all about marketing... To normal people who will be your consumers... Who the hell does a startup aiming it at the commentators? Face it, the TC crowd are people who like to watch things happen. Nothing more. If TC hates your startup, but it's a hit with consumers, who gives a $&&%?? Go to the corner until you realize that a business is about revenues and cash flow. Co…
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