Do you think that keyword domain names days ARE NUMBERED?

[NameOmnia]

Hi All,

I would like to hear from you about Keyword Domain Names vs Brandables.

Personally I think brandables are the future and the direction to take as more and more businesses and companies will spend money on making their name memorable and known. The only possible use I see for keyword rich ones is to redirect some traffic...

What do you think about this topic? Are brandables the present and the future of domain name industry? Or do you think keyword names will always be the main character of the movie?

I would love to post a poll with the thread but I have no idea about how to do it...

 

[bmugford]

There is going to be a strong market for quality keywords and brands going forward.

Keyword domains are very effective when it comes to marketing. Owning a keyword domain can also bring trust and credibility in a field, not to mention they often come with valuable targeted traffic.

The vast majority of businesses are small and don't have the budget or need to spend a lot of money branding a cute name. Often times if that is the case a descriptive domain has more value.

Brad

 

[NameOmnia]

There is going to be a strong market for quality keywords and brands going forward.

Keyword domains are very effective when it comes to marketing. Owning a keyword domain can also bring trust and credibility in a field, not to mention they often come with valuable targeted traffic.

The vast majority of businesses are small and don't have the budget or need to spend a lot of money branding a cute name. Often times if that is the case a descriptive domain has more value.

Brad

I see your point. But what about all Google changes too? Wouldn't it be a waste of money for a company to spend thousands in a keyword rich name knowing that it will be more and more penalized by Google? I would much prefer to spend money to make my brand known by the big public..

 

[Keral_Patel]

I think both will have its market share.

Brandable prices will be appreciated in future as keyword domains are limited but then keyword domains will have their place too.

 

[Kate]

It's not keywords vs brandables..
Brandables are not a new trend at all, they have always been. Generics are valuable too for credibility reasons, plus they are memorable and prone to get traffic etc.
And you can have the best of both words.
Apple is generic and brandable. Even cars.com can be branded.
When I choose a name for a business venture, it's not with seo considerations in mind.

 

[NameOmnia]

Nice inputs guys..

 

[gpmgroup]

http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2014/01/how-to-give-your-business-a-name-that-sticks.html?

 

[NameOmnia]

" MAKE SURE NO ONE ELSE HAS THAT NAME " it's actually a revolution for domainers who are used to considered more valuable those domains that have the majority of extensions taken...
this is all about being unique and I like it!

 

[AEProgram]

I see your point. But what about all Google changes too? Wouldn't it be a waste of money for a company to spend thousands in a keyword rich name knowing that it will be more and more penalized by Google? I would much prefer to spend money to make my brand known by the big public..

if you have a domain that's keyword rich google penalizes you?

more like if you have any domain and you use these nonsense backlink etc services you get sandboxed or worse.

For the foreseeable future there will be a need for both, one thing is for sure, it will be a long time if ever that anything other than .com will be worth anything. Sure could there be a .info or .whatever winner somewhere sure, but you could also win the lotto too, but chances are very low.

 

[Kate]

this is all about being unique and I like it!

Key point indeed. I have sold many brandable/semi-brandable domains made out of two-word combinations.
End users really like domains that are somewhat 'unique', that they can brand as they like.

 

[NameOmnia]

if you have a domain that's keyword rich google penalizes you?

more like if you have any domain and you use these nonsense backlink etc services you get sandboxed or worse.

For the foreseeable future there will be a need for both, one thing is for sure, it will be a long time if ever that anything other than .com will be worth anything. Sure could there be a .info or .whatever winner somewhere sure, but you could also win the lotto too, but chances are very low.

Yes that's what I understood from the last algorithm updates by google. Keyword rich domains don't rank as they were doing before.
But I might have misunderstood something and I would be happy to be explained better!!!!

 

[Honey Domains]

I think there is room for both. In 2013 and 2014, Exact Match Keyword domains do just fine if you have a good site with decent content. I have even some 5 word ones (eeew) that do just fine and rank for their terms, with zero back-linking. In Oct 2012, Google penalized (or removed a pre-existing bonus on) poor quality sites with exact match domains. Many valuable sites with good content were just fine. Since then, it seems they have relaxed their grip on them again, so EMDs are even "safer" to use.

I personally think some types of businesses will always want EMD (or partial) and some will always want brandables. I can't think of too many dental offices that wouldn't have the word dentistry, dentist or dental in their name. I mean you can go cutesy with sparkling teeth or something, but it is just not that professional, and would be a tiny percentage overall in a very conservative field.

Conversely, a new social voting site won't want to be socialvotingsite.com when they could be Ubervote or something.

One thing that struck me with this past 2 weeks' sales reports is how many short brandables there were compared to longer keyword names, compared to previous weeks. I may be wrong, but I thought the proportion was higher than previous weeks. Maybe at year end there is a different sales demographic too, and as it is my first year, I don't know for sure.

I think with tablets and mobile use, shorter names will be easier for users to type in and why, unless Google has some kind of autocomplete for the new .whatevers, if they are long they will be at a handicap. The weird thing though, is how extraordinarily long the longtails are that people type in to Google when doing a search. I am guessing they are older users, but it is not uncommon for people to have 10 words. Maybe it depends on if you are on a computer or a mobile device, what you are prepared to type in.....

 

[AEProgram]

Yes that's what I understood from the last algorithm updates by google. Keyword rich domains don't rank as they were doing before.
But I might have misunderstood something and I would be happy to be explained better!!!!

after every update there is nonsense out there about what the update did, usually put out by seo companies with an agenda and people who lost ranking and resort to blaming whatever they feel like blaming, and its also possible people with brandable names might have an agenda as well.

 

[loredan]

Yes that's what I understood from the last algorithm updates by google. Keyword rich domains don't rank as they were doing before.
But I might have misunderstood something and I would be happy to be explained better!!!!

Put it this way:

Years ago the domain name was a big ranking factor in Google's algorithm. An EMD was much easier to rank and required less work (and less money) than a brandable domain. Thats why businesses and domainers bought EMDs like crazy...take it, work a bit to rank it on the 1st page and get a nice ROI.

These days the domain name still plays an important part in Google's algo but not as big as before. There are more important factors such as social media signals, website popularity, website overall strength, etc...

Keyword rich domains are still important and desirable but in order to rank well you'll need to put in quite a bit of work (same as any other brandable domain). You'll notice those crying that keyword domains are dead are actually people that used to register "buycheaptoshibalaptopaccessories" , throw a quick 5 pages site with wordpress and an amazon plugin, build 20 links and expect to rank on the 1st page and make money ...those days are gone imo.

 

[NameOmnia]

Thank you all; I really like what is coming out from people here.

I agree that google is penalizing those poor 5 pages websites and IMO it was about time to clean the web a little bit and to try to give it a more serious aura.

I also think that dental will be needed by dentists but maybe with their own name or surname attached to it which I think it makes the domain a halfway between a brandable and a EMD.

My point is that if, so far, we have been seeing EMD dominating the scene for all the reasons we said before, but with more and more businesses from all over the world wanting to be present online brandables will take a big slice of the pie. Also brandables are more international imo while EMDs have been very much English oriented until know. One example is that a lot of Italian surnames are taken by companies all over the world that aren't necessarily Italians.

This is one more reason why short and brandable names will be the kings!
http://en.siter.com/advantages

 

[alien51]

Keyword domains are very effective when it comes to marketing. Owning a keyword domain can also bring trust and credibility in a field

That was in the old days.

Because of the same reasoning you mentioned above, what happened is that Domainers scooped up keyword domains by the truckloads. I think about 90% of keyword domains these days are in the hands of Domainers.

And because they are Domainer property, these keyword domains end up as nothing but 1-3 page landers, parking pages, minisites, spinned articles sites, buy-me-now advertising page, or This-Domain-Might-Be-For-Sale page.

Domainers effectively destroyed the trustworthiness of these so-called keyword domains. To the point that when you see the link is pointing to some keyword domain, most likely it contains nothing but spinned content, not original material. Most likely not "authority" sites.

And also, if you will think about it, you will note that many keyword domains CANNOT be trademarked. They are too generic. Authority sites oftentimes are very protective of their brand. They want to get an identity they can trademark, so that copycats cannot ruin their image.

 

[JB Lions]

Wouldn't it be a waste of money for a company to spend thousands in a keyword rich name knowing that it will be more and more penalized by Google?

This was never true. Not sure why this nonsense keeps getting spread over and over again.

From big keywords, like shoes, hotels, cars. Type those in, what comes up #1 in Google? shoes.com, hotels.com, cars.com.

To smaller ones, try balcony flooring, what comes up #1 in Google? balconyflooring.net

You can find those all day long. Go to Google, the source for the truth.

The other part of the equation was crap sites. Crap site + keyword domain is supposed to get penalized, just like Crap site + any other domain.

If you sell Diapers, it would just make sense to get Diapers.com, if you can get it, which happens to be another site ranking #1 in Google.

BTW, all the examples mentioned in this post, also rank #1 in Yahoo, cars, hotels, shoes, diapers, balcony flooring.

 

[AEProgram]

That was in the old days.

Because of the same reasoning you mentioned above, what happened is that Domainers scooped up keyword domains by the truckloads. I think about 90% of keyword domains these days are in the hands of Domainers.

And because they are Domainer property, these keyword domains end up as nothing but 1-3 page landers, parking pages, minisites, spinned articles sites, buy-me-now advertising page, or This-Domain-Might-Be-For-Sale page.

Domainers effectively destroyed the trustworthiness of these so-called keyword domains. To the point that when you see the link is pointing to some keyword domain, most likely it contains nothing but spinned content, not original material. Most likely not "authority" sites.

And also, if you will think about it, you will note that many keyword domains CANNOT be trademarked. They are too generic. Authority sites oftentimes are very protective of their brand. They want to get an identity they can trademark, so that copycats cannot ruin their image.

lol for every one guy thats looking to buy a brandable short name there are 5000 requests for keyword rich names. If your business is buying and selling names, focus mostly on keyword rich names unless you want to walk around pipe dreaming all day about a brandable sale.

Need more proof? just look at the majority of domain sales.

 

[McDuke]

I believe there was a thread where some of us discussed keywords vs brands and the topic of candy was used and after looking keyword domains where the majority in the search results.

Keywords are better for sales because companies don't have to teach the consumer what they do. thus as mentioned above could be more trustworthy.

I like brandables but lean towards keywords more.

Both in .com will continue to thrive.

The trick for a company brand is for it not to become generally used in language. When this happens the value of a brand diminishes. For this reason picking an obscure name for a company like google rather than searchengine will last longer over time. Now Google is a huge brand but slowly becoming generally used which google may not want because they can lose their TM. Remember though to use a name like Google it costs way more for start up. I remember when google came out i didnt use it cause i didnt know what the heck a google was.

You will be a pro in marketing, sales and branding if you listen and learn from all the radio episodes made by Terry O'rielly from CBC Canada.

This episode is about brands becoming generic

http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/e...nericide-when-a-brand-name-becomes-generic-1/

The Age of Persuasion "older episodes"

Under The Influence "current title"

Enjoy! :D

I'm now 3.3 months into this industry and I freaking love it!

 

[alien51]

lol for every one guy thats looking to buy a brandable short name there are 5000 requests for keyword rich names.

But how many of those 5000 requests for keyword rich names, actually turn in to "authority" legit websites that are useful to regular web surfers?

Domainers mainly focus on sales. But of course, the goal is to make money from selling. It doesn't matter if the buyer is naive or dumb, the important thing is you get his money into your wallet.

Like i said in the other threads, i did some research in the past about completed domain sales. A lot of them end up as dead sites, garbage content. A great chunk are also completed domain sales from one domainer to another domainer. You sell a domain worth $300 to another domainer, because the other domainer believes he can find an end-user who will pay him $1,000. So he pockets the difference of $700.

 

[Abdul Aziz R]

in my opinion, look around. see how many companies named themselves with keywords names and how many named with brandable names? That will help. it is sure that the keyword domains have free-valuable traffic and have lower advertising cost.

I see that most of keyword domains are offering products for some company else. Brokerage, searches, retails, or data for deterrent sources. But if a company sells a product that is created by it or a service that is made by it, then most of the time it names itself by a brandable name. Even if it wants to use keyword domain, there are no keyword domains for all the companies around the word.

I found on Wikipedia Types of brand names it will help thinking about this topic.

• Initialism: A name made of initials such, as UPS or IBM
• Descriptive: Names that describe a product benefit or function, such as Whole Foods or Airbus
• Alliteration and rhyme: Names that are fun to say and stick in the mind, such as Reese's Pieces or Dunkin' Donuts
• Evocative: Names that evoke a relevant vivid image, such as Amazon or Crest
• Neologisms: Completely made-up words, such as Wii or Kodak
• Foreign word: Adoption of a word from another language, such as Volvo or Samsung
• Founders' names: Using the names of real people, (especially a founder's name), such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell or Disney
• Geography: Many brands are named for regions and landmarks, such as Cisco and Fuji Film
• Personification: Many brands take their names from myths, such as Nike; or from the minds of ad execs, such as Betty Crocker

 

[alien51]

in my opinion, look around. see how many companies named themselves with keywords names and how many named with brandable names? That will help. it is sure that the keyword domains have free-valuable traffic and have lower advertising cost.

I see that most of keyword domains are offering products for some company else. Brokerage, searches, retails, or data for deterrent sources. But if a company sells a product that is created by it or a service that is made by it, then most of the time it names itself by a brandable name. Even if it wants to use keyword domain, there are no keyword domains for all the companies around the word.

I found on Wikipedia Types of brand names it will help thinking about this topic.

• Initialism: A name made of initials such, as UPS or IBM
• Descriptive: Names that describe a product benefit or function, such as Whole Foods or Airbus
• Alliteration and rhyme: Names that are fun to say and stick in the mind, such as Reese's Pieces or Dunkin' Donuts
• Evocative: Names that evoke a relevant vivid image, such as Amazon or Crest
• Neologisms: Completely made-up words, such as Wii or Kodak
• Foreign word: Adoption of a word from another language, such as Volvo or Samsung
• Founders' names: Using the names of real people, (especially a founder's name), such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell or Disney
• Geography: Many brands are named for regions and landmarks, such as Cisco and Fuji Film
• Personification: Many brands take their names from myths, such as Nike; or from the minds of ad execs, such as Betty Crocker

Yes, of course. That is what branding is all about.

Domainers have their minds wired differently. Domainers are no different from your ordinary telemarketing salesman trying to sell you some non-stick cooking pots. They are mostly interested only about making a sale. So their eyes are trained at looking on what makes a sale. And they usually quote the small statistics like domains that sold XXX,XXX dollars and base their inspiration on those "rare" sales. After a few months, they go to Namepros and create a thread saying they are frustrated with Domaining, "i have not made any sale the past 6 months".

 

[JB Lions]

in my opinion, look around. see how many companies named themselves with keywords names and how many named with brandable names?

With that, you have to factor in if those companies existed for some time, like before the 90's or something. They would all pretty much have brandable names or should I say, non-keyword type names.

 

[McDuke]

you cant get TM's on generic keywords this is why companies pick random.com. keyword domains sell products better.

if i want to start a online shoe store that i can get immediate sales i choose TheShoeStore.com i wont pick aldo.com or nike.com nonrelated.com . the majority of sales will be to smaller players for xxx - xxxx rather than the dream of selling Quiglo to a shoe giant for 1,000,000$.

keyword domains are what will flip faster imo.

 

[NameOmnia]

This was never true. Not sure why this nonsense keeps getting spread over and over again.

From big keywords, like shoes, hotels, cars. Type those in, what comes up #1 in Google? shoes.com, hotels.com, cars.com.

To smaller ones, try balcony flooring, what comes up #1 in Google? balconyflooring.net

You can find those all day long. Go to Google, the source for the truth.

The other part of the equation was crap sites. Crap site + keyword domain is supposed to get penalized, just like Crap site + any other domain.

If you sell Diapers, it would just make sense to get Diapers.com, if you can get it, which happens to be another site ranking #1 in Google.

BTW, all the examples mentioned in this post, also rank #1 in Yahoo, cars, hotels, shoes, diapers, balcony flooring.

I am sure it's true but I am also sure that those people spend millions to rank..