When a Good Domain Name is Bad
Posted by Michael D Jensen on August 21st, 2007
I just moved to Southern Utah (hence the lack of posts). We found a nice local furniture store, Boulevard Home Furnishings, that everyone calls “The Boulevard”. They seem to do everything right, the perfect furniture store. They have car shopping carts for the kids, candy for the kids, bottled water for the adults, sales people are friendly, large selection, good deals, a great return policy, etc. But there is one thing they missed the boat on, a good domain name.
Their domain BuySmartToday.com goes along with the store slogan “Buy Smart”. Initially you think, okay not too bad of a domain. Not too long, easy to spell, even a decent keyphrase (buy smart). But, I found myself googling for the store every time I wanted to look at their website because their slogan never stuck, especially their domain. It was too far removed from the name of the actual store as everyone knows it and refers to it as. Unfortunately the company doesn’t even own the domain for the full name of the store, BoulevardHomeFurnishings.com, although thats a handful to type.
Whilst doing a Google search, I found another domain for the store that points to the hard to remember one: blvdhome.com. Now we’re getting somewhere. The next day I found myself remembering this one even more than the actual one, because it has an association to the name of the store.
Lesson learned? While having a domain for one of your keywords is great, if it doesn’t associate enough with the name of your company, product, or service — enough to remember it — then it may not be the domain to go with.
Visited 1241 times August 21st, 2007 Michael D Jensen
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Entry Filed under: Advertising, Customer Perspective, Domaining, Marketing, SEO
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5 Comments Add your own
1. Derick | August 21st, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Great article… and a good reminder! iProspect released some research findings yesterday that said 68% of online searches prompted by offline influences began with company names. This would seem to further illustrate that point!
2. Headlines of Note for Aug&hellip | August 21st, 2007 at 3:12 pm
[…] When a Good Domain Name is Bad [SoloSEO] […]
3. Widgett Walls | August 21st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Back when Needcoffee.com first started growing into pop culture coverage, the site’s name was “The Sleep Deprivation Institute.” The URL was just Needcoffee.com because when we snagged URLs, SDI.com was of course taken. However, whenever we went to places people would say, “Oh, you’re the Needcoffee guys?” So it became very clear that SDI needed to go by the wayside. Thus, we’re just Needcoffee.com now. Moral of the story: sometimes the name or URL will lead down a path, and if so, don’t fight it. At least not too strenuously.
4. This Week In SEO - 8/24/0&hellip | August 24th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
[…] When a Good Domain Name is Bad […]
5. sachin jain | August 26th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
for my future projects - domain should be from one of your keywords .
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