- Impact
- 1,678
What I am actually getting at with the title is what makes you decide to actually register one domain over registering or buying on the aftermarket another domain? I think it comes down to how we as domainers select to look at the myriad of information that is available to us and also that which we purposefully ignore from all that information.
One thing that amuses me personally is how some domainers reliance on valuations given by an automated computer algorithm. Now this I find understandable with newbies into the game who wish for some kind of assistance in valuing their domain choices thus giving them a false sense of assuredness that they are registering good names or discarding bad names. What I do not understand is when more experienced domainers continue to rely on such systems, and worse still then broadcast such predicted values as a guide to the real expected value of a domain name. (I sometimes wonder if they are simply trying to attract newbies who are gullible into purchasing their domain, but perhaps that's just me being synical.)
If though we ignore the automated systems (which I do unless I want a laugh for a few seconds) there is literally a library full of information that is available to domain investors, these range from previously reported public sales reports, through search engine reports for words and terms and even where those searches geographically originated, then we have news reports of every kind from pop music, to different crafts, different sports, politics, religion, economics, technology, medicine, education, new innovations, and this list just carries on. We have online advertising rates available, popularity of particular websites, etc. Hell's Bells, we can even find out how popular a certain name is. (I actually did this the other day and found out there were 572 people in the USA with my name, and I am in the UK, makes me feel sorry for the US if they are much like me! LOL)
There are two areas I think a lot of domainers let themselves down by not studying or taking into account sufficiently, these are:
1) I think most domainers fail to do is look at human psychology and try to understand people, or rather the way the psychology and physiology of the mind affect how people really do react to and with the outside world, and here I mean through their cognitive senses, mainly for domaining in relation to speaking and hearing (oral and aural) and much more importantly the area of reading (sight).
This is a now famous text that shows just how the brain can take information and then 'correct it':
"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Most English speaking people will be able to read the above paragraph, but there are also examples in many other languages as well. The reading is a little slower (single words with mixed up letters in the middle, i.e. not the first and last letters of a word, can take usually between 12 - 30 nanoseconds longer to read).
(The above text is usually credited to a group of Cambridge researchers, though there is doubt about its original source, if you want to learn more about this then I suggest Googling 'cambridge mixed up letters in a paragraph'.)
Or how about this:
the word 'Ghoti'?
I bet most of you read that and would pronounce the word as something along the lines of 'Go-ti'. But it could just as well be pronounced in the English language as 'Fish'! (Do a Google search for the word to find out more.) Oh, and by the way, the domain 'Ghoti.com is registered and on the aftermarket with a price of over $5,000 - I know I looked it up in the hope of registering it as purely an academic novelty registration. LOL)
But then again what about the use of numbers to replace parts of words, this happens a lot in texting on phones. Here examples are 'm8' or 'per4m', the spelling is different to what would be found in a classical dictionary but the pronunciation that results is the same. Indeed we do find this used in what I term numeric cognitive domains and these include the use of the number '3' to replace an 'e'.
Other forms of cognitive domains are those that include the suffix as part of the word or phrase implied by the domain name. This is because the mind sees the whole word it is familiar with, and no matter how hard some domainers try to be derogatory about domains such as 'Que.st', 'Inter.net', 'Hor.se' or 'Rent.it', 'Go.to' etc. the fact is that people cognitively do not see the dot, instead they see the complete word or phrase.
Whilst on about the conjoined cognitive domains as above it is worth noting that most people now do not listen to a name of a domain but rather see links in texts, adverts, or even newspapers, and once it has been clicked through to or entered once then the search bar will 'remember it and suggest it for the user in the future. The problem of the 'Radio test' has become almost redundant and becomes more so every day - just like Yellow Pages.
Hyphenated or dashed domains are another form of cognitive domain if, and I stress the word 'IF', they are applied correctly, and this is to separate words within the domain, then the human brain is the domainers friend and sees the hyphen/dash as a blank space making the reading and recognition of the domain name easier. Just as with the conjoined cognitive domains the hyphenated cognitive domain has little to worry about with the 'Radio test' whose importance applies just as much, or indeed little and reducing importance as described above.
2) The second area where a substantial number of domainers let themselves down, in my opinion, is looking at what a domain name can represent and therefore rubbish it. But domainers should look at domains as marketing tools, with the questions 'What, Where, and How can this domain when developed bring some benefit to an end user'.
I am sure every domainer will say they look at what end users can benefit from using a given domain, and that I will agree they do. But do they look at the consumer - website owner benefit? I do not think so. And this is important because often what the consumer wants and what the website owner wants are not the same thing, here is where the domain has to targeted if possible at both ends and hopefully satisfying both 'end users'. So it is not just saying that a steel company should own 'Steel.com' and they will be the most popular steel manufacturers. Rather it is the products that company makes and that the company's target market wants means that a longer more precise domain name might be more beneficial to both the website owner (manufacturer) and the other type of end user the prospective customers for the products offered. Here 'Rolled Steel.com' could actually be a far better investment for a producer of rolled steel than the domain 'Steel.com'. The prospective customers can rely that when visiting the site they should see what they actually want rather than what they do not want.
So, in my opinion, domainers should look at a domain and see the potential sites that could be developed with it and work through how effective the domain should be for both types of 'end user'.
I should say I very rarely register a domain without visualising potential end users usage of a developed site. I cannot say I never register without doing this, some are just instinctive registrations, but they are the minority.
As an example of the above I have registered a lot of US county domains today, it seems that some domainers are surprised by this. But have they looked at the logic here. These county domains (those with populations of 900,000 up to over 10,000,000 {LosAngeles-county.com}) are the basis of political elections at most every 4 years, the counties are referred to in the news every day of the week, the people register in their county, have major financial transactions with their county, and indeed most adults will know exactly their county boundary because they went to county schools, many of their police will be county officers, some of the prisons will be county prisons, etc., etc., etc.. Just because so few county names have previously been publicly recorded as selling does not mean they are not without significant commercial value - all it means is it has not been recognised YET, these domains are a much undervalued resource.
Right that should have ruffled a few feathers.
Let the debate (not arguing please) begin.
One thing that amuses me personally is how some domainers reliance on valuations given by an automated computer algorithm. Now this I find understandable with newbies into the game who wish for some kind of assistance in valuing their domain choices thus giving them a false sense of assuredness that they are registering good names or discarding bad names. What I do not understand is when more experienced domainers continue to rely on such systems, and worse still then broadcast such predicted values as a guide to the real expected value of a domain name. (I sometimes wonder if they are simply trying to attract newbies who are gullible into purchasing their domain, but perhaps that's just me being synical.)
If though we ignore the automated systems (which I do unless I want a laugh for a few seconds) there is literally a library full of information that is available to domain investors, these range from previously reported public sales reports, through search engine reports for words and terms and even where those searches geographically originated, then we have news reports of every kind from pop music, to different crafts, different sports, politics, religion, economics, technology, medicine, education, new innovations, and this list just carries on. We have online advertising rates available, popularity of particular websites, etc. Hell's Bells, we can even find out how popular a certain name is. (I actually did this the other day and found out there were 572 people in the USA with my name, and I am in the UK, makes me feel sorry for the US if they are much like me! LOL)
There are two areas I think a lot of domainers let themselves down by not studying or taking into account sufficiently, these are:
1) I think most domainers fail to do is look at human psychology and try to understand people, or rather the way the psychology and physiology of the mind affect how people really do react to and with the outside world, and here I mean through their cognitive senses, mainly for domaining in relation to speaking and hearing (oral and aural) and much more importantly the area of reading (sight).
This is a now famous text that shows just how the brain can take information and then 'correct it':
"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Most English speaking people will be able to read the above paragraph, but there are also examples in many other languages as well. The reading is a little slower (single words with mixed up letters in the middle, i.e. not the first and last letters of a word, can take usually between 12 - 30 nanoseconds longer to read).
(The above text is usually credited to a group of Cambridge researchers, though there is doubt about its original source, if you want to learn more about this then I suggest Googling 'cambridge mixed up letters in a paragraph'.)
Or how about this:
the word 'Ghoti'?
I bet most of you read that and would pronounce the word as something along the lines of 'Go-ti'. But it could just as well be pronounced in the English language as 'Fish'! (Do a Google search for the word to find out more.) Oh, and by the way, the domain 'Ghoti.com is registered and on the aftermarket with a price of over $5,000 - I know I looked it up in the hope of registering it as purely an academic novelty registration. LOL)
But then again what about the use of numbers to replace parts of words, this happens a lot in texting on phones. Here examples are 'm8' or 'per4m', the spelling is different to what would be found in a classical dictionary but the pronunciation that results is the same. Indeed we do find this used in what I term numeric cognitive domains and these include the use of the number '3' to replace an 'e'.
Other forms of cognitive domains are those that include the suffix as part of the word or phrase implied by the domain name. This is because the mind sees the whole word it is familiar with, and no matter how hard some domainers try to be derogatory about domains such as 'Que.st', 'Inter.net', 'Hor.se' or 'Rent.it', 'Go.to' etc. the fact is that people cognitively do not see the dot, instead they see the complete word or phrase.
Whilst on about the conjoined cognitive domains as above it is worth noting that most people now do not listen to a name of a domain but rather see links in texts, adverts, or even newspapers, and once it has been clicked through to or entered once then the search bar will 'remember it and suggest it for the user in the future. The problem of the 'Radio test' has become almost redundant and becomes more so every day - just like Yellow Pages.
Hyphenated or dashed domains are another form of cognitive domain if, and I stress the word 'IF', they are applied correctly, and this is to separate words within the domain, then the human brain is the domainers friend and sees the hyphen/dash as a blank space making the reading and recognition of the domain name easier. Just as with the conjoined cognitive domains the hyphenated cognitive domain has little to worry about with the 'Radio test' whose importance applies just as much, or indeed little and reducing importance as described above.
2) The second area where a substantial number of domainers let themselves down, in my opinion, is looking at what a domain name can represent and therefore rubbish it. But domainers should look at domains as marketing tools, with the questions 'What, Where, and How can this domain when developed bring some benefit to an end user'.
I am sure every domainer will say they look at what end users can benefit from using a given domain, and that I will agree they do. But do they look at the consumer - website owner benefit? I do not think so. And this is important because often what the consumer wants and what the website owner wants are not the same thing, here is where the domain has to targeted if possible at both ends and hopefully satisfying both 'end users'. So it is not just saying that a steel company should own 'Steel.com' and they will be the most popular steel manufacturers. Rather it is the products that company makes and that the company's target market wants means that a longer more precise domain name might be more beneficial to both the website owner (manufacturer) and the other type of end user the prospective customers for the products offered. Here 'Rolled Steel.com' could actually be a far better investment for a producer of rolled steel than the domain 'Steel.com'. The prospective customers can rely that when visiting the site they should see what they actually want rather than what they do not want.
So, in my opinion, domainers should look at a domain and see the potential sites that could be developed with it and work through how effective the domain should be for both types of 'end user'.
I should say I very rarely register a domain without visualising potential end users usage of a developed site. I cannot say I never register without doing this, some are just instinctive registrations, but they are the minority.
As an example of the above I have registered a lot of US county domains today, it seems that some domainers are surprised by this. But have they looked at the logic here. These county domains (those with populations of 900,000 up to over 10,000,000 {LosAngeles-county.com}) are the basis of political elections at most every 4 years, the counties are referred to in the news every day of the week, the people register in their county, have major financial transactions with their county, and indeed most adults will know exactly their county boundary because they went to county schools, many of their police will be county officers, some of the prisons will be county prisons, etc., etc., etc.. Just because so few county names have previously been publicly recorded as selling does not mean they are not without significant commercial value - all it means is it has not been recognised YET, these domains are a much undervalued resource.
Right that should have ruffled a few feathers.
Let the debate (not arguing please) begin.
