discuss About.com Rebrands to DotDash.com ...A Good Move?

[DaveX]

Why would they do that? If you go to About.com you are redirected to the new name DotDash.com...

"About.com -- the 20-year-old general interest site with hundreds of thousands of articles about everything from "The right way to handwash clothes" to "What to do if you hate your in-laws" -- has a new mandate, and a new name to to go with it.

The New York-based, IAC-owned company, which actually began as MiningCo.com, is now "Dotdash," a nod to the company's history of having a "dot" in its previous names and logos, and a "dash" meant to represent what comes next, said CEO Neil Vogel. The dot and dash also represent the letter "A" in Morse code."

Source: http://adage.com/article/tech/a-dotdash/308884/

I have no idea why they would go from About.com to DotDash.com. What does everyone else think?

 

[Premiums]

so why dash?

 

[MapleDots]

Are you serious? 689?

Just generalizing to make a point but traditionally it is a far higher price even after you factor in the exchange rate.

 

[DaveX]

So many internet type businesses incorporate the ".com" into their generic names. Flowers is really Flowers Dot Com and so on. Generic one word domains sound better when said with the extension imo.

 

[JoeE]

they will discard all ranked websites and re-present the information themselves.

Remember their famous mantra "Do no evil"? Well, they morphed from that into the epitome of evil. Google should have "the devil" as their new logo/mascot.

 

[DaveX]

Big G sure sucks at selling domains.

 

[Kingslayer]

About.com not for sale guys.

Was worth a try though.

 

[DaveX]

About.com not for sale guys.

Was worth a try though.

yet...

 

[MapleDots]

About.com not for sale guys.

Was worth a try though.

HeHe, for now..... when the business motto tanks they will start selling off assets and the domain name is the only asset they have unless you count the chairs with the big ass prints on them as they sat for hours trying to think up this moronic decision in the first place.

 

[DaveX]

HeHe, for now..... when the business motto tanks they will start selling off assets and the domain name is the only asset they have unless you count the chairs with the big ass prints on them as they sat for hours trying to think up this moronic decision in the first place.

That's funny.

 

[DaveX]

The same corp that owns About/DotDash also owns Ask.com. As a matter of fact, the whois for DotDash, shows the Technical Contact info of a person and their ask.com email address.

 

[DaveX]

and..About has even bought google ads because they are not ranking at all for DD.

 

[MapleDots]

The same corp that owns About/DotDash also owns Ask.com. As a matter of fact, the whois for DotDash, shows the Technical Contact info of a person and their ask.com email address.

Maybe they should have asked for some advice before rebranding

Unless ask is becoming DotQuestionMark

 

[offthehandle]

HeHe, don't get me started..
Chromebook on Amazon.com $289.00
Same Chromebook on Amazon.ca $689.00 (hehe, what is the closest icon for f off that we have?)

Serious? wow. Maybe Buy .com or that name I already forgot would be cheaper.

 

[offthehandle]

and..About has even bought google ads because they are not ranking at all for DD.

It's the master plan of G. Make everybody pay them, no free listings. Wait til the entire SEO industry collapses and becomes obsolete.

 

[DaveX]

They should have just followed the trend to shorter names. They could have gone from About to just Out.

 

[MapleDots]

They should have just followed the trend to shorter names. They could have gone from About to just Out.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa good one

 

[offthehandle]

Remember their famous mantra "Do no evil"? Well, they morphed from that into the epitome of evil. Google should have "the devil" as their new logo/mascot.

Yeah sure I can't disagree, they need two horns about the two "OO"'s... I try and be objective because they are a powerful tool and have reinvested lots of cash to index and their infrastructure operating costs must be huge. Early on I never expected them to forever give away rankings, I figured the larger companies would find a way to pay for ranking. Then it happened and Overture came along and was quickly bought out. Then as I recall adwords came in shortly after or near same time. At one time we were paying $9.00 a click in early 2000's. Then the phony "click farms" came in smelling the blood like sharks and syndicated which opted out of. I am drifting off here. Sorry.

The amount of power concentrated with them and the other three, will consume us all.

 

[DaveX]

Problem is, we forgot....nothing is free. We have agreed to give them access and use of every character of information we send, receive, search for, and click on.

Funny thing is, I could use pretty much any search engine. It's all the other toys gxxgle provides that I have a hard time replacing.

 

[Kamaz]

What makes DotDash.com so Brandable than About.com?
That's Weird!

 

[JoeE]

The amount of power concentrated with them and the other three

I completely agree and do remember how it all started.
The major issue for me and for everyone online is that even though there are other "search engines" what really matters is G, even Bing is useless when it comes to the percentage of traffic that most sites get from G. This is beyond dangerous for everyone. G could/and had arbitrarily destroyed many decent honest businesses with a touch of their algorithm tweaks and human interventions etc. No one should have that much power, it's destructive and corrosive.