Which to promote... co-op or coop

[cmason]

Hey NamePros awesome people,

I have a few domains that have co-op and coop (just so that I would have both) in front of another keyword. For example, co-opfarm and coopfarm.

My question is, which would be more appealing if featured at an auction site?

Merci!

 

[owntype]

For such name, the best thing is to own both.

I saw some nice co-op sales though.

 

[cmason]

For such name, the best thing is to own both.

I saw some nice co-op sales though.

Thanks for the response owntype!

I *do* own both, I am just wondering which one should be "featured" at an auction site. I am sure it will work out to be a package deal, but which one would have you look at the offer page?

 

[yandig]

I'd feature the one with no hyphen. Co-op looks OK by itself, but looks strange when combined with another word.

Of course, without the hyphen it could be confused for "coop" a la Chicken Coop.

 

[cmason]

I'd feature the one with no hyphen. Co-op looks OK by itself, but looks strange when combined with another word.

Of course, without the hyphen it could be confused for "coop" a la Chicken Coop.

Good point, yandig. I was leaning towards the hyphenated, but it definitely does look strange with the word after it...frankly, it probably isn't a huge deal since it is the second word that will get all of the attention. It's also a huge plus to own both.

Appreciate the input thus far and welcome anyone else to contribute!

 

[Jaco]

This is one of the very rare circumstances where I believe the hyphen is actually the better choice.

 

[cmason]

This is one of the very rare circumstances where I believe the hyphen is actually the better choice.

Haha! I have a feeling this will be a 50/50 kind of question. Maybe I should make it a poll, just for fun-sake.

As I mentioned, I am leaning towards hyphen, but love to hear arguments!

Thanks Dongsman (again...epic name and avatar)

 

[Jaco]

As I mentioned, I am leaning towards hyphen, but love to hear arguments!

As long as you own both combinations, it's just a matter of which one to standardize into your branding scheme, which is a MUCH better position to be in than only owning one or the other.

If Rule #2 of domains is "In Most All Cases, Hyphens and Numbers Suck" (with rule #1 being .com, .com, .com), I think this is one of the extremely narrow cases that necessitates the "in most all cases" caveat, mainly because 1) co-op (hyphenated) is a standard way to communicate that particular abbreviation and b) absent the hyphen, co-op spells "coop" which could conceivably bear negative relevance to whatever condo/apartment/house related suffix that might follow.

Like, "coopapartment.com". Who the hell wants to live in a 'cooped apartment!'

Maybe during beta, you could vacillate between branding strategies and see which one has a better response (obviously, making sure to have both "co-op" and "coop" in your main text body and tags). The general level of sophistication amongst your target users (co-op buyers?) is going to be higher than average Joe, so I wouldn't get too set in stone with one or the other since they're going to understand that "coop" in this context doesn't relate to "cooped". With the hyphen, you should get a moderate SEO/url advantage in that you hit square with both co-op and co(space)op.

G yeilds "co-op" at 19.4m, "co op" at 19.6m with "coop" at 30.7m.
When you run "coop" -chicken , you shed a couple million results...

[/stream of consciousness drivel]

 

[cmason]

As long as you own both combinations, it's just a matter of which one to standardize into your branding scheme, which is a MUCH better position to be in than only owning one or the other.

If Rule #2 of domains is "In Most All Cases, Hyphens and Numbers Suck" (with rule #1 being .com, .com, .com), I think this is one of the extremely narrow cases that necessitates the "in most all cases" caveat, mainly because 1) co-op (hyphenated) is a standard way to communicate that particular abbreviation and b) absent the hyphen, co-op spells "coop" which could conceivably bear negative relevance to whatever condo/apartment/house related suffix that might follow.

Like, "coopapartment.com". Who the hell wants to live in a 'cooped apartment!'

Maybe during beta, you could vacillate between branding strategies and see which one has a better response (obviously, making sure to have both "co-op" and "coop" in your main text body and tags). The general level of sophistication amongst your target users (co-op buyers?) is going to be higher than average Joe, so I wouldn't get too set in stone with one or the other since they're going to understand that "coop" in this context doesn't relate to "cooped". With the hyphen, you should get a moderate SEO/url advantage in that you hit square with both co-op and co(space)op.

G yeilds "co-op" at 19.4m, "co op" at 19.6m with "coop" at 30.7m.
When you run "coop" -chicken , you shed a couple million results...

[/stream of consciousness drivel]

Wow! Thanks for that "consciousness drive"! I doubt it will make a big difference in what I am doing...plus I don't have a big desire to sell unless a good offer comes in...might develop these suckers a bit!

The co-op/coop is along the lines of partner-focused gaming so chickens shouldn't come into the mix too much. I will program it so that Google searchs of "co-op XXXXXX" and "coop XXXXXX" all come to the same place.