[Question] - Domain - Promotion question

[ThreeD]

Ok to make it short and simple: Our company has recently registered a bunch of domain names. One set of domains is a 6 letter domain name, the other set of domains is a 16 letter domain name (two word domain).

The best example is networksolutions and their two main domains: networksolutions.com and netsol.com. We're in a similar situation with our domains. Our 6 letter domain names are the first 3 letters of each word in our 16 letter domain name. If you google the two words in our 16 letter domain name we get a return of 187 million results. The 6 letter domain name returns 40 million results.

The question is - when you promote/start a new project/website would you promote/invest in the short (6 letter) domain name, or the 16 letter domain?

Any feedback or information is appreciated

 

[fonzie_007]

Would you be able to give us what the short and long versions are? It may help in deciding which is more brandable.

 

[Damion]

I would go for the short one. But as Fonzie said the longer one could be an option too but without knowing this i would choose the short one.

 

[Jo]

Why would the short name already have such a high search return? Is someone else using it? Maybe you should go with the longer one with the generic words.

 

[ThreeD]

Would you be able to give us what the short and long versions are? It may help in deciding which is more brandable.

not until it's all up and running So far however, as stated, the networksolutions example gives you an idea of the situation we're in..

Why would the short name already have such a high search return? Is someone else using it? Maybe you should go with the longer one with the generic words.

The org was in use a couple of years ago, but not anymore The longer one is definately easier to remember - but at the same time 10 chars more to type when entering the URL manually

 

[accent]

How much (%) of your traffic do you expect to be type in - vs. search engine, links, bookmarks? If you do not get many people typing it in, then length (or extension, btw) do not matter.

 

[ThreeD]

How much (%) of your traffic do you expect to be type in - vs. search engine, links, bookmarks? If you do not get many people typing it in, then length (or extension, btw) do not matter.

In the beginning there weill be a lot of type-ins (about 75%+), but as the site gets more and more popular we believe the bookmarks, search engines and link hits will dominate.

The thought of promoting both names also occured to us. Maybe that would make it easier for people to associate both names with the same website.

 

[peter phillips]

Generally, the shorter the domain the better it is but if the longer domain has good keywords and is descriptive enough then the longer domain would be better. I think your choice should depend upon which of the two names is more brandable.

 

[ThreeD]

Generally, the shorter the domain the better it is but if the longer domain has good keywords and is descriptive enough then the longer domain would be better. I think your choice should depend upon which of the two names is more brandable.

thanks for the feedback Peter, the keywords are good and the long domain name is probably more brandable. We've been discussing back and forth today and we'll probably end up going for the long domain name, and try to incorporate the short domain name in some ads every now and then

 

[cjcjcj]

I would 100% stick to ONE domain.
It's very hard to promote anything online to the right audience and i feel this will be diluted through more than one name.

Register both, but use the one you feel is more suited to your traffic. If you were a cake shop then cakes.com or electricwheelchairs.com would attract traffic when you launch which can be built into your brand, ie "cakes.com" or "electricwheelchairs.com".

However if a lot of traffic will come through site promotion, I would use the domain which suits your ultimate aim more, for example DavesCakes.com or EleChairs.com
This will make the website a closer fit to the image you want to convey, but on the downside loses out on traffic before it's been promoted as such.

 

[nutzdaddy]

go for short one, cant lose, long one people cant remember

 

[houftie_bbd]

Do you already have customers, or do people already know you by one of the names? If many people already refer to you as one or the other, then I would suggest using that one at first.

 

[ThreeD]

go for short one, cant lose, long one people cant remember

hehe good thing it isn't always like that Some famous websites have long domain names and they aren't forgotton..

houftie, the site is already known to quite a few people - but we've not been running any ads, promotion or any kind of advertising so far.

cjcjcj - thanks for the input. We've already registered all domains possible, we just need to make the final decisions. Networksolution did the same thing with their domains when it comes to advertising.. They had ads and promos with different urls in their ads - depending on audience and where the ads were placed. (sometimes it was netsol.com, sometimes it was networksolutions.com)

I think the easier domain to remember is definately the longer one because it contains two great key words. The shorter domain name is just the first three letters of each keyword combined. What still makes us worry a little though is the fact that we're talking about a 16 letter domain. In the end though it comes down to what is easier to remember, and what returns more results in the search engine - and that is definately the longer domain name

 

[Dave_Z]

I was going to say go for the longer one if the words are worth remembering
more than the shorter one. But it appears others have beaten me to it. :D

I've seen many cases where the longer yet more "specific" domain names are
working great because they cater to their respective audiences. Here are two
at the top of my head:

ebooksecretsexposed.com

daytradinguniversity.com

They're long, but easy to remember. And they're targetting their respective
markets.

 

[ThreeD]

thanks for the feedback Dave I'm quite sure by now that we'll go for the long name. Lets hope it's the right decision he he..