FWIW I think Novanym are branding specialists, and watching their inventory would be much more fruitful than watching Namerific. I think they put quite a lot of work into their names.
As a former seller on Namerific, I know that my names didn't move at all there after the change in ownership a couple of years ago. Not sure there's much to be gained watching them.
I checked out their inventory, and a lot of their names follow the increasingly common trend of deriving (and then hand registering) brandable versions based on the “proper” version of those brandable names (that have usually been registered years ago).
Some examples from their inventory:
K i n g a r u - An attempt at blending “King” and “Kangaroo”, which would result in “Kingaroo” (the .com has been registered since 2004, and is for sale @ Afternic). However, by changing the double “oo” of kangaroo into a single “u”, the pronunciation changes from kin·ga·roo to kin·garu, and the phonetic play on kangaroo is lost. Registered in 2015.
L u x u L u x - The standard and ideal version would be LuxLux (registered since 2001), but by sandwiching a “u” between lux and lux, they made a name that is available to hand reg. Registered in 2016.
L o c a M e t r o - Based on Local Metro (registered since 2004), but removing the last “l” in “local” and turning it into “loca” does not make sense (what is a "loca"?). Hand registered in 2015. The properly spelled .com is for sale through DNS.
K i d i C a t - Based on Kiddie Cat (registered since 2012). Turning “Kiddie” into “Kidi” is way too much hacking of one word in a two keyword brandable, as both keywords should be spelled properly for two keyword domains. Asking price: £5100. Registered in 2016. The properly spelled KiddieCat.com is for sale at HugeDomains for $2395. KiddiCat.com is available to hand reg.
T r i k s y - I suppose it is an attempt at “tricksy” (registered in 2000), which is “trick” + the “-sy” suffix, which is usually added to form diminutive nouns and adjectives. However, turning “trick” into “trik”, and then adding -sy at the end, does not really make sense. Registered in 2015. Tricksy is for sale at $1438 @ Fabulous.
M o t a W a y - Based on, the mainly British word, motorway. The “correct” brandable version would be MotoWay (registered since 2003), where "Moto" is clearly a shortened version of "Motor", which is something lots of auto brands have done in the past. However, there is no precedent for turning “motor” into “mota”, and it does not make sense to do so (yet they are asking £19500 for m o t a w a y - which makes it the most expensive domain in their inventory). Registered in 2016. MotoWay.com is offered by BuyDomains for $4388.
Kingaroo, LuxLux, LocalMetro, KiddieCat, Tricksy, and to a lesser extent, MotoWay, follow standard conventions of brandable names, and all make for good brands. The versions created by Novanym do not (in my opinion) make for good brands, and if they are “naming experts”, it’s strange that they try to get their buyers to brand around such names, instead of the properly spelled versions (especially when the proper version is available for sale).
BrandBucket has been doing something similar, and they are publishing lots of names that go against their own stated conventions of what names they accept. Of course, what a “brandable domain” is, and has always been, a contested notion, but as the brandable domain space matures, general conventions have developed, and many of the marketplaces themselves give guidelines that should be considered the minimum requirements for considering a domain to be a good brandable brand name, and by extension, a
good brandable domain. For example, here are some points offered by BrandBucket:
For one keyword based names:
- If the name is based on a dictionary word -- and sounds the same as that word -- it should have no more than one spelling variation or "error" away from the original word. This makes it easy to explain to customers. For example: Digg is "dig with two g's".
- Spelling should be as expected.
For two keyword domains:
- Both words should be spelled fully and correctly.
- The words should have something in common, or a linguistic connection (same first letter, same vowel sound, etc.). They can also be a common phrase, or play on a common phrase.
- One (or both) of the words should relate to either a popular industry, or be broad enough to apply to many different types of industries.
These seem like really basic requirements, but BrandBucket has been publishing an increasing amount of one keyword names (e.g. keyword+suffix) that have two to three spelling variations or “hacks” away from the root keyword, for example by adding the -ster suffix to a keyword, and then hacking it once more and making Keyword
ster into Keyword
str. Similarly, I see lots of two keyword domains where one of the two keywords is misspelled. In other words, there is a "standard" or "ideal" version of these domains, yet there is a shift towards publishing multiple derivative variations of one and two keyword brandable domains.
As the pool of good “proper” brandable domains available for hand registration has been exhausted, and as reseller prices for expiring and dropping brandable domains are skyrocketing, brandable marketplaces have made the curious move of lowering their standards below the very basic guidelines outlined above, which enables the continuation of hand regging of names to be published. Across all the brandable marketplaces (BB, BR, NR, along with all the smaller ones), I am increasingly seeing
derivative versions of already brandable domains being published, but with the same, or even higher, asking prices as they would have put on the “proper” versions of those names. That’s going to lead to further quality confusion and dilution of the brandable domain space, which is going to hurt the marketplaces themselves, and for regular sellers (non-marketplace owners) it certainly lowers the value added to having a brandable domain listed with a brandable marketplace.
