Since every website needs a name, Dr. Steve Baba has written a free e-book that will help you get a branded and memorable domain name at a reasonable cost that will contribute to your brand equity and your bottom line. The e-book, downloadable from Seemly.com, explains how to select and purchase an elite domain name. You will be able to get a better name than your competitors have.
There are at least 10,000 words in a dictionary that would make great domain names plus at least 10,000 proper names and 10,000 great coined short words. With a supply of 30,000 big names and millions of good names, getting a good name is easy.
You don’t need to pay more than a few thousand dollars for a great one-word domain name, and many good domain names are available for free. This book provides you with the information you need to beat the domain name speculators at their games.
Both the naming methodology to identify great domain names and the negotiation / purchase methods to get great domain names at low prices are covered. After a couple of introductory sections, the book begins with the domain name goals or criteria for choosing a great domain name: image, memorability, legal trademark, and price. Quality domain naming strategies are then discussed. Then the lower domain naming styles, which you want to avoid, are discussed.
The second half of this book explains how to buy a great domain name. Auctions, expired domains, speculators, and other sources are discussed. Finally, many other topics are expanded.
Steve Baba has a PhD in Economics and experience in ebusiness. The e-book on domain names is available at http://www.seemly.com, free of charge. No registration required. The e-book is a PDF file of approximately 250K. The free e-book is ad-supported. The following paragraphs are excerpts from books. Generic names, arbitrary dictionary words, made up or made up words, modified generic names (most generic), and unrelated two-word names are quality domain naming strategies. But every quality strategy has strengths and weaknesses. There is no such thing as a perfect name.
Generic names are very controversial and expensive. Examples of generic names are Hotels.com, Shoes.com, and Furniture.com. The generic name strategy was always controversial and peaked during the dot-com bubble.
The generic naming strategy is practically never used offline, but very few small stores operate under generic names like the “Mattress Store” in Annapolis, Maryland. Offline, anyone can use the same generic name and open a store name “Mattress Store”. Online, domain name ownership MattressStore.com can only prevent competitors from using the exact same domain name.
Since generic names cannot be trademarks, competitors can use Hotels.NET, Rooms.com, Hotelrooms.com, Motels.com, Hotel.com (singular), Inns.com Hotels.us, etc. Often there are half a dozen simple generic names for each industry not to mention generic names with a prefix (e, i) or a suffix like eHotels.com.
Since competitors can use similar generic names, it is difficult to develop a distinct and memorable brand. Memorability or the need to spend less on advertising is often an argument in favor of high domain name prices, but this argument is only half true. At the same time, with only a few top-tier generic names in each industry, generic domain names may not be available or are overpriced and rarely come at a bargain price. A generic name also hampers brand extension beyond the generic category: Does Hotels.com sell airline tickets?
Another quality strategy is arbitrary, unrelated words from the dictionary. Examples of unrelated dictionary word names include Amazon.com Yahoo.com, Google.com, Target, and Staples. Both the words yahoo and Google are in the Oxford dictionary, but they were rarely used before they became famous brands.
Compared to generic names, it wasn’t immediately obvious which business Amazon, Yahoo, or Google were in. On the other hand, Yahoo can legally prevent competitors from using similar names like FreeHoo through trademark laws.
SearchEngine.com would be the generic name for Google. Another search engine uses “Fast” and “All The Web” as trademarks. But “fast” and “the whole web” are not alien or arbitrary. Other search engines may also claim to be fast, speedy, fast, the whole web, or something similar.
The key to having the best trademark protection is choosing an arbitrary, unrelated word. Descriptive words, like fast, are unlikely to get much trademark protection. Instead of fast, it is possible to use a suggestive name such as jet, rocket, or race.
With 10,000 good, short, and easy-to-type dictionary words, it is always possible to find one for a few thousand dollars. Dictionary words shorter than four or five characters are more expensive. The words in the three-character dictionary are extremely expensive.
Coined or imaginative words are words like Exxon or Kodak that had no prior use. In theory, coined words are the best from a trademark legal standpoint, as no one has used the word before. Ideally, a coined word is totally new and is not related to any other word.
But memorability requires a short name, which has resulted in several similar coined names such as Duron, Enron, and Micron, which lessens the legal advantage as confusion is possible. LexIs sued LexUs.
While legal protection is not perfect, legal protection is considered the strongest of any category. But from a marketing standpoint, since no one has used the word, coined words can be just as hard to remember as nonsense syllables.
With a supply of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of short words minted, it is always possible to find one for a few thousand dollars or less, often for free.
Due to the lack of brand protection for generic names, the lack of distinctiveness, and the cost of many generic domain names, many companies have used a “generic plus” or “modified generic” naming strategy.
A prefix, suffix, or second word can be added to the generic name. Examples of this are Carmax, CarMart, eCars, CarDepot, CarOne, and CarLand.
This works if the generic word, like car, is short. Longer generic names, such as CarpetCleaningMax.com, can be too long. But many of the longer generic words have common abbreviations. For example, computer is often abbreviated “comp” as in CompUSA. Software is often abbreviated as “software” or “software” in the names. Tech is a common abbreviation for technology, overused in names.
These names range from practically generic, eCars.cars, to almost coined, QuanCars.com, with descriptive, suggestive, and arbitrary second words in between. Since the generic word lacks trademark protection, the strength of the trademark depends on the strength of the trademark of the “plus” part of the name.
The generic plus strategy is often an attempt to reap the benefits of a generic and distinctive name, but you can have the problems of both if you’re not careful. In the worst case, it could infringe someone’s trademark based on the second word, like CarsRus or CarBay. The generic part of the word is usually trademark.
Another strategy is to use two unrelated words in a name. Examples of two unrelated words are RedEnvelope.com and BlueTooth.com. The two-word unrelated strategy differs from the generic-plus strategy in that neither word is related to the generic product. Technically, red is related to the envelope by an adjective, but since it is not a word, it is closely related to the product or service that is being sold.
The main advantage of this method, two unrelated words, is that it is cheap and often free. With 30,000 individual words, there are 900 million combinations of two simple words (30,000 x 30,000).
The main disadvantage is that two unrelated words are twice as difficult to remember as one. Two words that are often related to each other, such as “happy birthday” or “hot wire,” are easier to remember, but rare and can be as expensive as single words.
From a trademark standpoint, it could be twice as risky. It could infringe on someone’s trademark based on the first or second word. If you sell computers on RedDog.com, Red Computers, or Dog Computers, you could consider a trademark action against you.