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Can a weak domain name decrease brand value?

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Weak means not eye catching and radio test fail I guess. Yes it's create confusions.

But some time there are exceptions, like Google...who doesn't know Google, he will pronounce it as Goo-Gle or Goog-le I think
 
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You can brand your business to any domain. but it helps if the domain is memorable. I think a weak exact match url domain might hurt, because, it is presumably obvious that it is cheap. Most brands want to be exclusive. So having a url which is second or third rate, might hurt your brandability.
 
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You can brand your business to any domain. but it helps if the domain is memorable.

Exactly.

I have learned to find humor in company/business tech advisers that wonder why my short, two word emd that perfectly describes their business isn't priced like another 'great' name they found (misspelled, 7 or more letters, hard to pronounce, etc.).

They are soooooo cute. I have to explain to them that the company will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to promote and establish a nonsensical name as their brand.
 
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Tumblr, Fiverr and Automattic although famous surprised they do not rebrand to a better .com. Brandbucket used to be full of dumb names to be avoided if missing or double letters.
 
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If you imply it "should" rebrand as "Automatic" then you probably don't know that its a mixin of the founder's name – Matt.

No I didn’t know just flung up some examples, thanks for the info- its cute but that is an ego trip move too. Like Telsa having an Elon model 66. The idea with proper spelling is when someone sees a name anywhere for a few seconds, the brain remembers it with no explanation and it required only simple literacy. I sold off cheap or let expire long one words I had as simple spelling is key.

Tinder is another one that comes to mind, sure people get used to it so I imagine its debateable. The worst are those one word plurals that end in a letter “Z” instead of an “S”. But I never argue with success and some of those sell.
 
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I have no problem with missing or repeat letters. It's just another form of branding. People should be free to brand on any kind of domain. The success or failure of the brand are more likely to improve or diminish, thru other factors than the domain name. IMHO. All I'm saying really, is the domain should be memorable from the beginning, and the shorter the better for memorability. I think missing or repeat letters are generally memorable. (Although it is possible to confuse them with the properly spelled words).

Another aspect I touched on in my first post, which might need some further explanation. Branding on lets say CoolHomesOnline.com instead of CoolHomes.com or Homes.com. People are going to forget about the Cool and/or Online part of the domain, and just type in the latter. I, at least, would see somebody branding on the longer domain, something of a cheapskate, for not securing their domain with the shorter keywords. Better in such cases to brand on a clever made-up name. IMHO.
 
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Here is a good quote from Paul Graham (founder of the famous startup incubator Y-Combinator, which funded AirBNB and many other companies):

"The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness.
Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company. Whereas (as Stripe shows) having x.com signals strength even if it has no relation to what you do."

http://paulgraham.com/name.html
 
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Here is a good quote from Paul Graham (founder of the famous startup incubator Y-Combinator, which funded AirBNB and many other companies):

"The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness.
Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company. Whereas (as Stripe shows) having x.com signals strength even if it has no relation to what you do."

http://paulgraham.com/name.html

Interesting. I didn't think about it this way.
 
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Here is a good quote from Paul Graham (founder of the famous startup incubator Y-Combinator, which funded AirBNB and many other companies):

"The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness.
Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company. Whereas (as Stripe shows) having x.com signals strength even if it has no relation to what you do."

http://paulgraham.com/name.html

exactly, what I was trying to say :)
 
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Saw an article by Grant Polachek, Director of Marketing @ SquadHelp here:

https://ideasplusbusiness.com/weak-business-name-brand-name-value/

He spoke about the different ways a weak business name or domain name can reduce brand value.

Is this generally true?


I think there is a difference between a weak business name versus a weak domain name. The article discusses a weak business name.

I believe it depends. If you have a weak product/service, weak execution + a weak business name and weak domain name then that of course is bad.

If you have a strong business name, strong product/service, strong execution + a weak domain name, I don't think it's going to hurt brand value much.
 
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There is no 'Weak' domain. It's the way you market / promote your Business and domain.

If I own Aura.com and don't marketing it correctly, it won't bring business and therefore will be called a weak domain..

Whereas, if I have auraautomobiles.com and i promote it to all my abilities, it can bring good business and therefore it's a strong domain for me.

It's just how you look at your domain and how much effort you put in promoting and marketing it.
 
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If you can't remember a domain automatically, you can't associate it to a business i guess or you'll always be asking......" What was the domain to that business again ":...... Sometimes you can end up forgetting business names just because you can't remember a domain name. It's happened to me so in my opinion, I guess yes, you can hurt your brand with a bad domain.
 
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Every day I listen to my car radio and hear domain names that totally flunk the "radio" test. They have to respell the company name/address 2 or three times ."thats blah bllahh bllaah .com with 4 h's 4 a's and 5 l's repeat thats..."... Plus I'm still trying to relate/remember their name to a product.... every day!,lol
 
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Deleted sorry
 
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Every day I listen to my car radio and hear domain names that totally flunk the "radio" test. They have to respell the company name/address 2 or three times ."thats blah bllahh bllaah .com with 4 h's 4 a's and 5 l's repeat thats..."... Plus I'm still trying to relate/remember their name to a product.... every day!,lol

The "radio test". That's a very practical way of looking at the strengths and weaknesses of a domain name. But does it work for all names?
 
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One example from the travel industry:

I am 100% certain that the name change from Precisionreservations.com to Agoda.com was a good move.

So, my answer is a yes...
 
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