opinion Two word domain hack

Value of a two word domain hack? That is like asking the length of a piece of string without seeing it.

You will see from my signature that indeed I own both a one word and a two word hack, indeed they are the last domains I have specifically held for reselling, so I think there is some value in both, and sometimes considerable value in both.

My advice would be to look at the domain name and how it is perceived using cognitive association, it might well be that that the 'dot' becomes hidden to most people when they see the domain name and they read the two word phrase as if it did not exist. However, this means being true to yourself on analysing the domain, if it reads strangely then it is not a good domain hack whether it be one word or two. This is a definite problem if on the second and third reading of the word or phrase it continues to not read well. Under these circumstances the domain hack will undoubtedly be a hinderance for marketing purposes. If however it just reads easily then you could be on to a winner, but as for value that then depends on the marketplace. (I doubt there would be much value in the domains 'cowdu.ng' or 'pigdu.ng' even though on second or third readings the domain names are obvious.)

As with all domain names be they domain hacks or not, one two or even three word domains, look at the market place for the domain. If there is either a large number of potential buyers or at least real opportunity to commercialise the site then it will have value.

NB. There are certain problems with two word domain hacks to watch out for. For example the two word phrase 'Bus Stop'. Here obviously the gtld domains would be busstop.com/.net/.org/.info. However with a two letter cctld suffix it would either be 'busst.op' or 'bus.st.op'. Here there is an inherent cognitive association problem, they do not instinctively read well, i.e. the brain will often not accept the two adjacent letter 's' in the first example and will not accept the ignoring of the two periods (full stops) within the name and read it simply as two words. These problems rarely occur if just a single period (full stop) is involved in the domain hack.

Hope this helps and really hope your post starts a real conversation on this subject - it is one far too many domainers fail to grasp the importance of and the nuances involved.

Thanks !!