Are “Good” Domain Names Overrated?
Short, catchy, and memorable are three great qualities in a good domain name. And as most of us know, a good domain name is key to a web page . . . or is it? I’m of the opinion that a good domain name is vastly overrated in today’s blogging world. I won’t deny that a good domain name can give you certain advantages, but I think that these advantages are not as great as they once seemed. Back before the inception of social bookmarking, easily accessible RSS feeds, and massive linking, a good domain name probably meant a lot more than it does today. But if you think about it, how many visitors visit your site directly? How many visitors take the time to compeltely type your your domain name? I’m willing to bet that the majority of your traffic comes from search engines and referrals. I know that when I look at my google analytics, direct traffic makes up a miniscule percentage of my visitors
Why does this matter? Why do we care about a “Good” domain name anyways? This matters because every “Good” domain name has been taken over the course of the last couple of years!! I remember when I first tried registering my domain name. Every name I tried was already taken. It was quite the fustrating experience. I probably spent like 4 days to come up with a decent domain name because I thought that the domain name would make or break my web page. Well, I have come to realize that this is certainly not the case. With new bloggers and veteran bloggers incoporating a myriad of ways to generate web traffic, there has been a paradigm shift away from the importance of a good domain. For example, new bloggers usually start advertising their blog by commenting on other blogs and leaving their blog URL. People find these new blogs by clicking on links, not by typing in the blog URL directly. And with the wildly successful social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, etc., you don’t need a “Home-Run” domain name to make it big in the internet world. I mean, just look at www.johnchow.com . . . enough said!
In conclusion, are good domain names overrated? Yes. Would I still want a kickass domain name that was short, catchy, and memorable? Yes. But its no longer a requirement to become successful in the blogging business, although it certainly helps. What do you guys think? Is a good domain name critical to success anymore? Or has the blogging universe evolved beyond this?
gale said,
November 19, 2007 at 4:11 pm
what an eye-opener on domain names! it certainly makes me comfortable reading your opinion that the perfect domain name is not key to “become successful in the blogging business”. I think a good domain name is of course one that relates to the niche and is simple. I was actually really surprised that no one took my domain name