IDN Domains Talk

Things that only made sort of since in the domaining world, that no one else would understand.

This is a list of things that I always wondered about with in domaining. This of course is my personal opinion.

1.    .CC means credit card or .ws means web site
Turning a CCTLD into whatever you think it should be just to sell a domain is just plain wrong & makes no sense. Even if .CC did mean Credit Card how many keywords does it actually go with that makes sense. The only ccTLD that did make sense looking at it this way was .TV but when you leave the English market TV doesn’t stand for TV everywhere.

2.    Is it a Zero or the letter o l00k.com
These domains should be put out to pasture. They don’t have a place in the real world. People can only purchase these by mistake hoping to get the term they “think” that they purchased.

3.    Doma.in Hacks
Ok I understand that some great services like Bit.Ly or Del.icio.us started as domain hacks but most of them were hand regged & not bought on the after market. Is it worth you thinking up a great domain hack & sitting on it for several years waiting to convince someone to buy your domain instead of simply making something up & hand regging it themselves?

4.    Dictionary Term
The domain is in the dictionary so it has value. I saw this from a few years back & it made me realize that buying terms in other languages was a smart move when people marketed domains just because it’s in the dictionary. Words that you never heard of used before in your life.. Don’t register them.

5.    Looking for a Short, brandable Pronounceable Domain
Back when I had time to look at domain forums this actually was a great lunchtime activity & funnier than watching Dave Chappelle Show. This post was almost guaranteed to bring about words & letter combinations in English that I personally had no idea became pronounceable in the English language since I left the States. Domains like Brupr.com, or Xugta.com ,Fyfd.com. I believe a web site should live & be a home or city & your domain is a doorway to that living site. These domains are just plain ugly.

6.    Four Letters that make no sense
For God sakes make up a word or put two together instead of 4 random letters together. The human brain can remember more than 4 letters easily.

Anyway look for good siple commercial terms & you should be all right. Think about the target company for the domain & then say to yourself if I was the marketing manager in a recesssion would I buy this domain to start a campaign?

There is a lot of talk about IDNs but the most important thing to think about is the value they will bring to business’ that can use them. PPC & boatloads of free traffic doesn’t work the way most lay it out. PPC for domains is not going to suddenly get better. Traffic can come a lot easier for clients who own generics.

While we are at it can we actually start to give consumers credit to think that they are NOT going to suddenly think of a keyword, place either dot com, jp, ru, cn & actually buy something. Before IE6 used to direct the keyword by default to the dot com. This is something either people don’t know, or just won’t blatantly say. It still happens with Apple’s Safari even with IDNs but this is how people got tons of traffic. IE7 doesn’t do this, nor does most other search engines. People were not putting in dot com they were typing in the keywords & being automatically taken to the keyword plus dot com.

But with IDNs keywords for a business’s market can be bought. You can buy your category killer keyword. no misspelling, no translated version that your customers won’t understand. You get the word that defines your business. Some of the big boys will try to own these for the sake of not letting their competitors have the keyword.

Companies will get most of their traffic from PPC, SEO, banner ads, Social Media Marketing, & videos anyway. It will just cost less when consumers go back using an IDN.