Acronyms VS full words

[The Grinch]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times, but rather than use vB's confusing search engine, and bring back to life a old discussion, why not just create a new one? :P

What do you think is better? Alot of people go crazy over LLLL.com domains and such, but to be honest, Alot of your visitors will not remember the exact Acronym for your sites name etc. And also they may not know what your site is even about when using Acronyms and abbreviations.

And also aren't full words in the domains much better for search engines? I think full words are easier to remember. As I've said before, not everyone wants to remember abbreviations and acronyms.

I don't think any of the sites i really visit alot use Acronyms or abbreviations.

So whats the advantage of even getting llll.com domains besides the shortness? is there any really?

Which do you prefer for your own sites?

I do think that real words or even pronounceable LLLL.coms are a great catch.

 

[Name Trader]

Full words in the domain name aren't much help when it comes to seo. It's just 1 small factor out of a hundred or so. Targeted backlinks and content are far more important for seo purposes.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I don't think any of the sites i really visit alot use Acronyms or abbreviations.

I don't know if you visit them, but have you heard of any of these? They are all acronyms:

aol.com
abc.com, nbc.com cbs.com
espn.com
ibm.com
nasa.gov
irs.gov
nyse.com
nfl.com
hp.com
msn.com
sedo.com (Search Engine for Domain Offers)
DNOA.org
DNJournal (abbreviation)

Acronyms are used because they are short. Acronyms can become as memorable as the real company names they represent. This applies not only to domains, but language in general. A lot of companies use them and full spelled out versions of their name. From the above, try hewlettpackard.com or americaonline.com to see that these companies have both but use the shorter for convenience. How many aol users would want an aol.com adddress if they had to type myname @americaonline.com? Those who can afford the acronym use them for mail and talk. When was the last time you referred to IBM as "International Business Machines", or NASA as the "National Aeronautics and Space Administration"?

keywords can help in the URL if the site is small. for a site like AOL, I'd bet they have "America Online" in their content thousands of time that far outweigh the need for it in the URL.