IT.COM

discuss Why do plurals kill value.

Spaceship Spaceship
Watch

Jonathan MacDermid

Socially CorporateEstablished Member
Impact
409
Hi All,

You may have seen that I picked up telecoms dot co dot in recently. After speaking to a couple of people, they both stated that it being a plural kills the value.

Now I do not disagree with this but as I have worked around the telecoms industry for over 18 years, I know that telecoms as a plural is used far more when discussing products.

So the question is why do plurals seem to kill domain values in most instances even when the plural is more widely used?
 
0
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Hi All,

So the question is why do plurals seem to kill domain values in most instances even when the plural is more widely used?

I personally think that plurals do not kill value when the plural makes more sense than the singular. I think this is one rule of thumb "plurals kill value" that is overstated.

I think Namebio support the idea that plurals when sensible can go for high value. e.g. even though not in .com, phones*co*uk sold for $344,700 (yes I know that the .com went for $1.2 million).

Plans*com sold for $70,000. The singular is in use, but no recorded sale.

The name homes*forsale went for $75,000, whereas there is no comparable home sale even in .com, except of course for the recent huge home*loans sale.

I feel the rule of thumb should be does plural or singular make more sense, and that is the higher value.
 
3
•••
Singular domains are mostly more popular/sellable/brandable, but definitely not in all cases.
 
6
•••
So the question is why do plurals seem to kill domain values in most instances even when the plural is more widely used?
They don't always 'kill' a domains value, it just depends on the word that it's used with.

ex.- Shoe or Shoes.
You don't buy a pair of Shoe, you buy a pair of Shoes.
and
You go to a Shoe Repair shop, not a Shoes Repair shop.
However both versions have value, just not the same.

So it depends on the correlation of the word and its' usage of it.

Also one must take into consideration 'who' the 'couple of people' are that say it has no value, and their knowledge/insight of what is valuable or not. Too many want to give their uniformed opinion, to make it seem they are 'experts' ( :rolleyes: ). imo.
 
9
•••
Agree with all the above responses. A plural can often be the preferred domain, particularly if your looking at muti-product supply or division of products. And as mentioned a lot of domain sales are built around a 'Branding' concept and therefore often two-words, so the plural tends to be less popular in this usage.
 
Last edited:
2
•••
Hi All,

You may have seen that I picked up telecoms dot co dot in recently. After speaking to a couple of people, they both stated that it being a plural kills the value.

Now I do not disagree with this but as I have worked around the telecoms industry for over 18 years, I know that telecoms as a plural is used far more when discussing products.

So the question is why do plurals seem to kill domain values in most instances even when the plural is more widely used?

MapleDots.... I never registered mapledot because it made no sense to my application at the time.

Telecoms is great if you are a review site reviewing telecom companies

Telecom may be an end user and therefore has exponentially higher value

Plurals can surely be more valuable than singular domains and the other way around as well, it is highly dependent on a number of factors.

Canada.com - write your paycheck
Canadas.com - hmmm, don't want it

Hotel.com - good value for a hotel
Hotels.com - insanely good value for a hotel chain

See, both apply in the right circumstances.
 
8
•••
MapleDots.... I never registered mapledot because it made no sense to my application at the time.

Telecoms is great if you are a review site reviewing telecom companies

Telecom may be an end user and therefore has exponentially higher value

Plurals can surely be more valuable than singular domains and the other way around as well, it is highly dependent on a number of factors.

Canada.com - write your paycheck
Canadas.com - hmmm, don't want it

Hotel.com - good value for a hotel
Hotels.com - insanely good value for a hotel chain

See, both apply in the right circumstances.
Well said @MapleDots
 
3
•••
If I am searching for a new hat I don't type in "hat" for the search, I type in "hats" When it comes to plurals I normally expect a shop/supplier of some kind, suits me fine.
 
1
•••
Most of the time plurals are only good to sell whatever the name is. Lamps.com will do nothing more than sell Lamps but Lamp.com can be used as a company name with thousands of applications. Pen.com can be anything Pens.com will most likely only sell Pens. Run a bunch of names through your head and it will make more sense.

Light or Lights?
Table or Tables?
Phone or Phones?
Talk or Talks?
View or Views?
Vase or Vases?
Speak or Speaks?

Both singular and plural can become a brand but the singular will always have a much wider base for application which raises its value.

There will always be outliers that can go either way but for the most part the singular will always have hundreds if not thousands of applications and the plural will normally only have the one exact application.

Bigger pool of uses equates to higher value.
 
Last edited:
3
•••
1
•••
Really depends. I definitely don't think plurals are bad. Just look at the forum, it's NamePros not NamePro. :)
 
3
•••
In my younger days and probably only here in the UK 'Pros' used to be the descriptive for certain ladies of the night. -

same may say there's an analogy still to be had there
 
1
•••
Really depends. I definitely don't think plurals are bad. Just look at the forum, it's NamePros not NamePro. :)

Most businesses that deal in multiples will like the plurals.

If I'm an apple farmer selling apples I would love the domain Apples.com.
If I was naming my company and not selling apples then I would want to use the name Apple.com
 
Last edited:
3
•••
1
•••
Yea it really depends on fit.

For certain types of domains a plural ending is better than a singular and vice versa. I think this is magnified even more when looking at two word .com domains.

For example:
UsedCar.com vs UsedCars.com- Plural is better.
HomeBuyer.com vs HomeBuyers.com- Singular is better.
GoodHotel.com vs GoodHotels.com- Plural is better.
CryptoWorld.com vs CryptoWorlds.com - Singular is better.
 
Last edited:
2
•••
Yea it really depends on fit.

For certain types of domains a plural ending is better than a singular and vice versa. I think this is magnified even more when looking at two word .com domains.

For example:
UsedCar.com vs UsedCars.com- Plural is better.
HomeBuyer.com vs HomeBuyers.com- Singular is better.
GoodHotel.com vs GoodHotels.com- Plural is better.
CryptoWorld.com vs CryptoWorlds.com - Singular is better.

What about

Cryptocurrency.com
Cryptocurrencies.com?
 
0
•••
What about

Cryptocurrency.com
Cryptocurrencies.com?


Both are good it's tough to say with that as you could develop a strong online presence in the crypto niche with each one, however, if I had a preference I would choose the plural since in this case the meaning is exponentially more expansive.
 
2
•••
Back