Why don't you like brandables?

[domainer700]

I get the feeling most NP members don't like to deal with brandable names... almost every post I've read sofar has revealed a strong interest in keyword-based domains ... I personally am beginning to really dislike keyword based names because of the time-consumption in researching each and every one in order to find out if it's worth it or not... and when it's not, you've just killed popcorn and a movie tree times over. But I won't complain any further as it's not my style, just tell me why brandables ain't on the top of your wishlist.

 

[Domainace]

A buyer looking for productname.com has very few alternatives. However, a buyer looking for a cool brandable domain has a ton of choices if the first one is not priced to his liking. In most cases, the buyer is not tied to a particular brand name... and if he is, he has the option of simply taking the name from you.

On top of that, very few brandables actually get any interest at all.

On top of that, if you can't sell it, there are no great development options that will bring you easy traffic, as a product name might.

On top of that, popcorn and movies are mostly a waste of time.

 

[Name Trader]

I agree with Domainace. Just too hard to sell and pretty much zero parking revenue. Like a mug, I still keep a few

 

[twomoon]

It depends what you call brandable. It could be randomly chosen Badoozoo or BlueLeaf & GreenBamboo
Many companies use last two brands - so I like very much that kind of brandables

 

[Kate]

Who said we don't like brandables ?
I personally do, but real, strong brandables are not that many.

Domainers in fact tend to register poor brandables too often ie names like pryqu.com or frapko.com are hardly brandable :lol:

That being said, I think there is a perception that they are less liquid than generic names, because they are not for everyone. I think the end user must truly fall in love with the domain

 

[stankovic]

brandable is just good for seo.

 

[NetOctave]

I registered couple of brandables for my projects but not for reselling.
Brandables are like extreme luxury cars, once a while one or 2 gets sold for extremely high price. And keyword domains are like the daily use cars. Mention the high mileage (keyword search etc) and it sells fast.

 

[mwzd]

I lurve brandables and have more than a few myself.

While a generic can only be used for topic at hand a good brandable can be used for just about anything tbh.

And while SEO is tougher with a brandable, the ability to trademark the brand for a function and the 'curiosity' factor of a brandable which leads to 'word of mouth' promotion pretty much even that out.

 

[nrmillions]

a generic domain can also be a brandable domain. Apple.com and Amazon.com are not generic product domains, they are brandables. Apple.com does not sell apples and Amazon.com has nothing to do with the amazon rainforest.

 

[Erdy]

I think brandables are valuable if they are pronounceable and maximum 5 letter long.

4 letter made up CVCV domains are worth about $1900 at the moment. I think these are the best brandables. However their number is not much. In a few years I think 5 letter made up domains will become the new brandable domain category. Many people already invest in them. I have a few too.

In fact to make it easier for domainers to find 5 letter expired brandables, I added different combinations on my website (CVCVC, CVCCV, CCVCV, CCVCC, CVVCC, VCVCV). These are not worthless but they are low value at the moment. In a few years time you won't be able to find any available CVCVC or CVCCV which are two strong 5 letter categories.

Each of these categories with 5 consonants and 2 vowels has 231.525 domains. This is not too much considering that there are over 90 million dot com domains. You can still get some of these for ref fee. 5 letter combinations with three vowels like VCVCV have even only 55.125 domains.

Everybody here knows that you can not hand register a CVCV.com domain. Many years ago you could. I wasn't domaining back then. However about two years ago you could still hand register CVCV.net domains and now you can't. Actually once a few years ago I checked all CVCV.net and could still find a few available. The same will happen with 5 letter brandables in the future. Made up 5 letter meaning less domains have one clear advantage. You can register and protect them much easier as a trademark. That's why many companies use them to create new brands.

 

[romi2]

I think brandables are valuable if they are pronounceable and maximum 5 letter long.

4 letter made up CVCV domains are worth about $1900 at the moment. I think these are the best brandables. However their number is not much. In a few years I think 5 letter made up domains will become the new brandable domain category. Many people already invest in them. I have a few too.

In fact to make it easier for domainers to find 5 letter expired brandables, I added different combinations on my website (CVCVC, CVCCV, CCVCV, CCVCC, CVVCC, VCVCV). These are not worthless but they are low value at the moment. In a few years time you won't be able to find any available CVCVC or CVCCV which are two strong 5 letter categories.

Each of these categories with 5 consonants and 2 vowels has 231.525 domains. This is not too much considering that there are over 90 million dot com domains. You can still get some of these for ref fee.

Everybody here knows that you can not hand register a CVCV.com domain. Many years ago you could. I wasn't domaining back then. However about two years ago could still hand register CVCV.net domains and now you can't. Actually once a few years ago I checked all CVCVC.net and could still find a few available. The same will happen with 5 letter brandables in the future.

wow, i am totally agree with you, nice answer

 

[DNNinja]

Brandables can be very valuable once developed and traffic flowing just look at Google, Yahoo, Mashables, etc.

I'm with you Eric.

Go Zoobl!

 

[mwzd]

maximum 5 letter long.

I'm going to disagree with this except for the obvious exception of zipf's law.

In a few years I think 5 letter made up domains will become the new brandable domain category.

It already is imho, why you see four figures sales for them almost every week.

5 letter combinations with three vowels like VCVCV have even only 55.125 domains.

Actually if you consider Yahoo's case, cvcvv are probably the hottest category, followed by cvvvc where v is constant across the domain.

Made up 5 letter meaning less domains have one clear advantage. You can register and protect them much easier as a trademark. That's why many companies use them to create new brands.

And therein lies the long term value, but with the sheer number of LLLLL.coms out there (11,881,376), finding the right one is a lot tougher than relying on letter quality and / or placement, that concept has also failed in the LLLL.com segment afaik.

 

[Erdy]

mwzd,
You gave the number of all 5 letter combinations but there aren't so many 5 letter pronounceables. The pronounceable words are much less. I did some research on this.

These are pronounceable 5 letter combinations:
CCVCC
CCVCV
CVVCC
CCVVC
VCCVC
CVCVC
CVCCV
VCVCC
VVCCV
VVCVC
VCVCV
VCCVV
CVCVV
CVVCV

However you can not calculated the numbers straight forward without considering the syllables. There is much less in for instance CCVCV. Let me explain.
These two have both three consonants and two vowels:
CVCCV
CCVCV

However they are very different. The reason is because the location of syllables.
CVCCV : This one can be words like pablo, condo, etc where the double consonants are in different syllables like pab-lo, con-do. Therefore the two consonants can be anything. For CVCCV you get 21*5*21*21*5= 231.525 versions.

Now let's take CCVCV. This can be words like trace, crane etc. However the double consonants are in the same syllable like tr-ace, cr-ane. There are only limited number of CC variations that can come together in the same syllable. Here are the main ones:

bl
br
ch
cl
cr
dr
fl
fr
kn
kl
pl
sh
st
wh
tr

I have counted 15. Let's say there are 30 CC combinations. In this case the number of combinations for CCVCV is 30*5*21*5= 15.750

Now let's count again the total number of 5 letter pronounceables:

CCVCC = 30*5*30 = 4500
CCVCV = 30*5*21*5 = 15750
CVVCC = 21*5*5*30 = 15750
CCVVC = 30*5*5*21 = 15750
VCCVC = 5*21*21*5*21 = 231525
CVCVC = 21*5*21*5*21 = 231525
CVCCV = 5*21*21*5*21 = 231525
VCVCC = 5*21*5*30 = 15750
VVCCV = 5*5*21*21*5 = 55125
VVCVC = 5*5*21*5*21 = 55125
VCVCV = 5*21*5*21*5 = 55125
VCCVV = 5*21*21*5*5 = 55125
CVCVV = 21*5*21*5*5 = 55125
CVVCV = 21*5*5*21*5 = 55125
Total: 1.092.825

I could create a list of these 1.092.825 combinations and check how many of them are taken but this is too much work. Let's assume 200.000 of them are still available.

If you consider that there are 456.976 LLLL.com domains and all are taken, the number of pronounceable 5 letter dot com domains that are still available is not so big. In a few years, I think in 6 years in 2016 they all will be gone.

 

[WordWalker]

IMO, a brandable can be any length. As long as it's easy to remember and has impact.

A few dotCOM brandables I've reg'd:

Bankinator

Textervations

Webtosterone

TalkRules

MovieAnytime

OrganicAssets

Windtopia

Pexta

WindshieldFactor

They all have the ability to stand out and create impact. Only one is 5 characters in length.

When I register a brandable, it's always for development. Registering brandables to offer for resale is not a great way to make friends in the business community. I'm in this for the long haul, so building a good rep. with non-domainers is important. :imho:

 

[Domainace]

I think we are talking about 2 kinds of brandables. There are the weird 5 letter names (I have a couple), and then are the more descriptive names. I just missed catching greenespresso.com, for example. That's a brandable I can live with. It suggest something, and has some meaning. And there's no question about the pronunciation.

 

[Erdy]

Your brandables are not all the same category:

Bankinator > derivation
Textervations > derivation
Webtosterone > derivation
TalkRules > two words
MovieAnytime > two words
OrganicAssets > two words
Windtopia > derivation
Pexta > made up words
WindshieldFactor > two words

I think we two word brandables you need very strong terms like colour names, animal names etc. Some time ago I created such a list:

bigBear
bigDolphin
bigElephant
bigFish
bigHorse
bigLion
bigMonkey
bigTurtle
bigZebra
blackBear
blackDolphin
blackElephant
blackFish
blackHorse
blackLion
blackMonkey
blackTurtle
blackZebra
blueBear
blueDolphin
blueElephant
blueFish
blueHorse
blueLion
blueMonkey
blueTurtle
blueZebra
greenBear
greenDolphin
greenElephant
greenFish
greenHorse
greenLion
greenMonkey
greenTurtle
greenZebra
littleBear
littleDolphin
littleElephant
littleFish
littleHorse
littleLion
littleMonkey
littleTurtle
littleZebra
orangeBear
orangeDolphin
orangeElephant
orangeFish
orangeHorse
orangeLion
orangeMonkey
orangeTurtle
orangeZebra
pinkBear
pinkDolphin
pinkElephant
pinkFish
pinkHorse
pinkLion
pinkMonkey
pinkTurtle
pinkZebra
purpleBear
purpleDolphin
purpleElephant
purpleFish
purpleHorse
purpleLion
purpleMonkey
purpleTurtle
purpleZebra
redBear
redDolphin
redElephant
redFish
redHorse
redLion
redMonkey
redTurtle
redZebra
smallBear
smallDolphin
smallElephant
smallFish
smallHorse
smallLion
smallMonkey
smallTurtle
smallZebra
whiteBear
whiteDolphin
whiteElephant
whiteFish
whiteHorse
whiteLion
whiteMonkey
whiteTurtle
whiteZebra
yellowBear
yellowDolphin
yellowElephant
yellowFish
yellowHorse
yellowLion
yellowMonkey
yellowTurtle
yellowZebra

There are also some common first words and last words in English. I think two word domains are a strong domain category.

However I agree with Domainace and other posters above. With brandables you have a lot of alternatives. It needs to be a really strong brandable name.

When I was looking for a name for my website I checked name***.com type domains and particularly domains that end with an animal name like namefish.com, namebird.com etc. These are very good brandables.

About 10 days ago namecow.com was on auction at namejet. I thought about getting it (not that I need it anymore but just because I like it) but didn't have spare cash. Brandables are a long time investment. You can register these domains and keep waiting for years. However I really like good quality two word domains that have one industry term and one colour or animal name.

 

[futuretaster]

i think brandable domains are like abstract art - it can take a while before they're appreciated.

 

[DNNinja]

i think brandable domains are like abstract art - it can take a while before they're appreciated.

there you go ... right on da kinipopo

 

[Domainace]

i think brandable domains are like abstract art - it can take a while before they're appreciated.

Yes... and like some abstract art, we look at it and say "My 3 year old could have done that!"