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The Google Effect And Domain Name Speculation

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the mix-it-all-up-and-throw-it-together dept.

A reader writes "Google brought us the age of high quality searches, and with that may come the end of domain-name speculation. Good thing we paid for all those laws to punish cyber-squatters. Read the article and learn more."

3 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Pack your carpet bags, squatters by imrdkl · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As reported earlier domain registrations have declined steadily. Many hoarders and sheisters have packed up for a new scam, I suppose. Even the ordinary registration fee can add up eventually, especially if the squatter is not receiving any interest in the domain which they hoped to sell for big bucks just a year or two ago.

    I say good riddance. I'll keep an eye out now for the few domains that I was interested in back then. But I still wont pay a squatter. Not one cent. If I dont use google to search for my desired name once in awhile, maybe I'll try the Verisign Waiting List Service also discussed quite recently, so long as I can get my money back if I get tired of waiting.

    In general, I think this is a good thing. It seems that demand for and profitability of the service that lives on the domain name is just as important as the domain itself. What a surprise.

  2. New market for unique, short names by texchanchan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No matter which way this comes out, the professional namers will get new business. (These are the people who come up with names for vehicles such as Isuzu Axiom and new corporate identities like Verizon.)

    Memorable domain names and searchable business names both need these characteristics:
    - Short, or few elements
    - Unique
    - Memorable in itself, and,
    -- easy to associate with your product
    -- and just your product, not everybody's
    - Pronounceable on sight and spellable from memory
    - Without ribald connotations in major languages

    An excellent example: Slashdot.

    Ordinary business people are no better at making up names than they are at drawing their own logos. If you can do it for them, you've got a niche.

  3. Wrong for so many reasons by fleener · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Dan doesn't get it. Domain names are critical for so many reasons:
    1. People don't guess domain names, except in really obvious situations. Example: IBM.com, sony.com, etc. Having domains like "widgetworld.com" were never about guessability. They're just easy to remember and spell and rank better in search results when the keyword searched for is actually in the domain name.
    2. If your company or web site is not high profile, you don't get found in Google. If I'm a small-time widget seller, Google gives me no traffic because it places the big-time popular widget sellers at the top of the search results. I have to somehow gain popularity without search engines before being assisted by them. It creates a snowball effect where the big sites stay big by the little guys being pushed down.
    3. Web addresses are publicized many ways and need to be memorable when seen on billboards, spoken over the phone, etc. Many businesses have similar names - it's much easier to go directly to a web site than to rely on a search engine to determine which company you want.
    4. Dan Gillmor is obviously savvy at forming search queries. The average person is clueless. Google helps, but not nearly enough. It's always easier and faster if the user knows how to load a URL directly instead of relying on a search engine.
    5. Google could go out of business. Where's the Google-effect then? We're supposed to hope the next search engine to come along is as good and won't go out of business despite reliance on yet-to-be-proven economic models such as web advertising?
    6. His example of searching for "Dan Gillmor" is laughable. What if your name is John Smith, Bill Jones, David Chow or any number of highly generic names? Google is great, but many searches are still very frustrating for many users.


    I would like to see domain names publicized as they are, and by IP and by bar code, but for them to also carry other information, such as the company name and description. Then people carry a pen-like or card-like device to grab URLs off of everything (a can of baked beans, back of a cereal box, off a business card, in a newspaper, etc.) to take back to your computer later to load the appropriate page. Nothing proprietary like that CueCat crap. A real standard and simple technology to make addresses easily accessible.
    They need to be ubiquitous.