Website addresses, the unexpected things.

[woodbowl]

One of these days I would like to have a web site, just the way I want it, that has a good catchy name, some good main products and a lot of side products.

I've been looking up some addresses and have found that a lot of them are already taken. Even the ones that seem close are taken. There are still some good ones out there, but I am starting to proceed with caution.

I suppose the minor details of an address is technically correct and fair, but it can be frustrating for beginners that sink a lot into a name only to find out later that someone else has purchased the same identical name and has added or taken away an "s" at the end making it a completely different address.   >:(   If it is a close related product, a potential customer has possibly been lost. The only thing I know to do is buy all the surrounding and simular addresses that you can afford and have them routed to your site. What else can you do?

What other type of suprises are in store for us first timers?  :P

[Dan_Shade]

i read in an old gunsmithing book, which was comprised of lots of conventional wisdom columns, a set of basic business advice things.  In this the guy said you should always use your name in your business, your last name, that is.  you want name recognition to the masses when they see your name, or think of your trade. 

That doesn't mean that you can't be succesful if you don't use your name, but it sure makes getting things like websites easier (unless your name is smith or jones!)

[Don P]

And then there was the opposite theory, something meaningless yet easily remembered and unique, Kodak

[Slabs]

Many years ago there was a cartoon on the newspaper called "Hambone's Meditations".  An old black fellow with rural vernacular typical of antebellum days.  Lots of logic there.

"Woodbowl's Meditations" ????

[Tom]

One of my concerns was using a name that would make it difficult to sell the company.  Cadenhead's Whiskey would be a difficult name to sell to someone named Jack Daniel and expect the name to remain or fear for the cheapening of the product.

[Dan_Shade]

that's a good point, Tom.  I'll go broke before I ever sell out :D

[asy]

Just so you know...   www.bowlsofwood.com is available :D

What sort of name are you looking for?

asy :D

[WDH]

That is catchy .

[woodbowl]

What sort of name are you looking for?

I've got so many things I enjoy making that it's hard to settle on a single item name. Dough bowls are just one of those things. Before I made a living sawing wood, I did chainsaw carving and made eagles, owls, cowpokes, indians, bears, fish, slab furniture, cowhide bottem chairs ect. I got burned out and bored with it, I couldn't make any money, now it's starting to come back. I probably should have pursued log home building after I took Pat Wolfe's scribe fit course in 85.

So ..... I want to do em' all now, plus a few more. I suppose though, that the address should mainly suggest log cabins or cottages. I have a real passion for very small and well built log cottages.

These pics tell a story. http://www.customplayhouses.com/playhouses/logcabaron.html  Everybody needs one of these. You can call it a guest house, hunting cabin, mother-n-law house, office, reading room or pout house. It's a fine little place to hide out and get some peace.

[asy]

Well, m'dear...

Both  www.littlewoodcabins.com    and   www.littlewoodcottages.com   are available.

How much cuter did you WANT the url to be? :D

asy :D

[Cedarman]

I named our company Eastern Red Cedar Products to keep it simple and to state exactly what we do in a general way. I named our website cedarusa so that people know we sell countrywide and what we sell.  We get lots of calls from around the country and even overseas.  So a name is important. This is just my way of thinking.

My competitor named their company Carefree Cedar Products.  They are going out of business I think.

[woodbowl]

How much cuter did you WANT the url to be

I want that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with the impulse from seeing the web address for the first time.   :  It should tell all in as few characters as possible and  be distant from simular sounding addresses. I don't want it all, just a lot in a small package.   :D

[Jeff]

What you want is conducive with having a successful website. Problem is in this stage of the game, you may have to settle. Besides, the name is not what makes you, its what you make of the name. 

I see some internet marketing firm bought forestryforums.com  They tried to sell it to me this past year for $10,000  :D   I guess thier marketing people must figure the FOrestry Forum to be a whole lot more valuable then my local banker.  They consider me unemployed and won't consider the forum as anything more then a website.

[woodbowl]

I see some internet marketing firm bought forestryforums.com  They tried to sell it to me this past year for $10,000

Yep ... uh hu ... that's what I'm talking about. I guess the investment of putting a lock on surrounding domain names amounts to around $10 a piece per year. What does it take to route them to the main site?

[Jeff]

Its easy to point as many names to one website as you like.     All are simply aliases for an I.P. address. As an example, the Forestry Forum is at http://64.182.48.55/

[rebocardo]

> only to find out later that someone else has purchased the same identical name

Invent one or an acronym. Put -trademark- on the page. Copyright the page with the LOC ($45) and any printed material.

I have been using "treegone.com" just for my e-mail addy, but, I needed something truly unique for a series of games I wanted to produce. So, I thought hot topics, what names to combine, and went to GoDaddy and tested various things out along with Yahoo to see what popular sites had on this and that. Then I developed the game backwards from that.

Once done I had this website

www.cloneimals.com

Totally unique name for me to trademark and being a unique made up name, I do not have to register any close sounding URLs. I will just have the hosting ISP take it down with a friendly letter  ;)

Always get a strange look in person when giving that addy though  :D

[Jeff]

You can't have close sounding urls taken down anymore then ebay can have dbay or fbay or yahoo can have wahoo.com taken down. You don't own the alphabet.

[tcsmpsi]

Well, woodbowl, I'm not sure how 'catchy' tcsmpsi.com is, but it has certainly garnered many questions over the years.   Even more so once the abbreviation is transcribed.   :D

However, it is one that has little interference.   Now, as to how popular or how much traffic, not too sure if 'catchy' has much bearing.   Mostly will depend on what you offer and how many others offer the same.

For instance, google in, "Hiatt Ultimate Handcuff Certification", or "Personal Protection Instruction in Texas" 

Having unique offerings will help bring one to the 'top of the list'.  Who knows what other interests you might appeal to once they arrive.

[Engineer]

What burns me is the dirtbags who buy up unused names and then sell 'em to you at a huge profit.  I tried to get a website name for my company and did a whois search, and the top three names I picked were all owned by some kind of website broker.  They wanted upwards of $1500 just to sell me the domain name.   No work on their part at all, other than greed.  I'd understand if another legit company owned the name, but that's not the case.  I refuse to be scammed.

[tomboysawyer]

As a cybersquatter, most of the names I've purchased and held over the years I've intended to use in my business at some point in time.

I've had several offers for some of the shorter names I own.

Recently I started leasing one.

I have never taken similar names hostages or aggressively sold my names. I figure cybersquatting ain't much different than buying up land and sellin' the trees then selling the land - often for more money. I can use the names to generate traffic to my web site and I can sell them in the future (or lease them as the case may be).

Cybersquatting is not my primary business. The new "scummy" business people are in is buying up domain names while they are still on Registrar Lock but the previous owners, for whatever reason, have stopped paying for the registration. Had a new customer, even though I warned her repeatedly to DEAL with the ownership of her domain name before she left her last web developer, lose their company name dot com to squatters who wanted $1500 for her to get it back (whereas if she could have just worked things out with her last hosting/maintenance/registrar it would have cost her about $35 a year).

I watched that name for her and tried to get it. But when you let a name lapse, the major registrar holds it for a few days and puts it up for auction rather than releasing it back to the system (like they used to).