Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I was about to being working on a website for my computer retail business when I realized the the domain was already in use. Using a godaddy.com domain search I found out some of the owners personal information. After viewing the site I can pretty much say that it is inactive and has been that way for well over a year. The owner also has not responded to any of my emails nor have they called me back after I left them a voicemail.

This brings me to my real question. How important is it to have a .com as a retail business. Pretty much every other option was available except for .com.  I would think that if someone came across the name it would be easier for them to remember a .com rather than a .net or .biz. What are your opinions on this? Would you say that it is slightly more difficult to market anything outside of a .com domain?

".com" is by far the most preferable domain for a business site. Because if it`s not a dot com then you get lost in .biz, .net, .cc, .us, .org etc. Try to find an alternative dot com domain name or try again to reach the owner of the domain name you are referring too.

Also, on GoDaddy sometimes you see an option of "backordering a domain" and it was $18 or so to do so. Once it worked for me. This site for bra dryer was used by someone else when I was trying to register it at first. Later, I guess in a couple of months, I saw this "backorder" option, I paid for it and... forgot about it. Then all of a sudden I get an email from GoDaddy saying that this domain name is now mine.

I have to admit though that couple other times it did not work. But what I`m saying is that if you see this option then it might be worth trying to use it.

One more reason why you should stick to a unique name that it`s not registered in at least few zones, is because if your web site / business becomes a success then pretty soon some people will try to register domains same or similar to yours in other zones - for example if you have whatever.com, they will register whatever.net, whatever.biz, whatever.us and so on and put AdSence there. So if you get a cool domain name, register it in a couple zones at least.

We used to deal with this all the time when coming up with names for bands. I was always in different bands, starting them....whatever...and so the name was a problem. But it taught me a very important lesson: The name itself will eventually be associated with the product.

The name doesn`t "cause" the product. Nor does the name "cause" success or failure (in most cases). Think about the "Beatles." Imagine them sitting around coming up with a name. One of them tosses out "beatles," and they fall all over themselves.

"Beatles!? What the hell kind of a**ho** name is that! C`mon, think of a different one!" LOL!

So presumably your company name is Lamparty Computers. And of course you`d like www.lampartycomputer.com. That`s fine, but it isn`t necessary. The domain name doesn`t "cause" the success of the company.

You could just as easily have www.buyagreatcomputer.com, or www.custompcs.com. The list is pretty broad.

The key here is your "branding" efforts, where you associate your product with the name, in the minds of the customers and potential customers. Think about AT&T or IBM, which translate to at least a meaningful product. But now think about State Farm, Ford, or Chrysler---none of which have the meaning of their business in the name itself.

That is my experience as well. Think of all the domain names that have nothing whatsoever to do with their products...

amazon.com
monster.com
del.iciou.us -- this one violates all the "rules" about domain names, yet it set the standard for web 2.0 domain naming conventions

The list is endless. It`s also true that most people won`t come to your site by typing the domain name into the address bar... they will either follow a link from somewhere, or will bookmark it. As long as the bookmark/backlinks go to the right domain, and the search engines index everything properly, you`ll probably be in good shape.

—paula

Well this one, hopefully, is a passing trend. An annoying thing is happening these days when everyone starts to follow leaders in their category and copy things that make them stand out. Flickr for example, the way it`s spelled with 3 consonants in a row - well now everyone thinks it`s cool to do the same, so we have tumblr, enablr, gtalker probably flippr somewhere too, and so on. Same with del.icio.us, ma.gnolia.com - I`ve seen a number of same domain names, can`t remember any of them. Thing is that when you`re the first one AND you are successful, then that makes you cool - all the rest is poor imitation - uncool.

So my suggestion is - try to come up with a domain name that makes the most sense (and not to you - but to your users) that`s available and don`t experiment with these little tricks that might just make you look silly.

BTW here`s a piece of an article explaining the above a little bit:

The flickr -r may well have started the game, but now completely unrelated sites are becoming Web 2.0 by not including the written vowel in words with syllabic endings. Pooln chose its site name over “Poolin” or “Poolen”, tumblr over “tumbler”, and I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the first sites ending in /l/ pop up (at the time of writing, rumbl, tumbl and bumbl were already reserved). Interestingly, I’m yet to see a syllabic M site (perhaps because we generally just write the m with now vowel, as in “chasm” or “orgasm”). Who knows, though, maybe “phantm” is the next Web 2.0 ghost hunting site

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I tried to call them again and I left another voice mail. According to godaddy.com they own the domain until March 2009.

While I was there I also saw the option to backorder the domain. I figured that I might as well go on a backorder it.

That leads me to my next question. With the domain that I want for my business being registered already how should I go about choosing a name for my website? Should I try to think of something that people would type in while looking for a computer or should I stick to something creative?

Well you have a couple options. If you are sure you want to keep your business name in the domain name then the only option you have is adding another word or extra letters, e.g. "yourbusinessnameco.com" or "yourbusinessnameinc.com" (as long as it`s relevant). Once you have a domain, after initial SEO your domain will most likely be #1 result in Google for example despite the fact that it has extra words/letters in it, and the domain registered by someone else might move to #2 position or lower - depends on how good is your SEO specialist.

Another way is what was already suggested - try to come up with an unrelated name. You won`t be able to keep your name in the domain but again, with little SEO initiative your domain will be the top result for your company name.

BTW so is this your domain? - http://lanpartycomputers.com/

That is the domain that I was hoping to get.  To me it doesn`t appear that the owner is very interested in the website. That being said they also don`t appear to be interested in responding to any calls or emails.