Generic Domain Names

Citibank Gets It!

Shortly after graduate school, I worked at Wunderman, the direct marketing agency under the Y&R Brands umbrella. I was a Project Manager on the Citibank retail merchandising account, one of the agency’s largest clients. Wunderman created direct mail packages, financial center brochures and financial center advertising including displays, window slicks, sandwich boards, ATM machine screens, and many others.

In 2004, Citibank unveiled their “Thank You” program, a rewards program that thanked customers for banking with Citi. I worked with some great creative people at Wunderman (Gus Tejerina, Barry Dickson, and Terry Pierce among many others) who came out with some great catchy advertising based on the “Thank You” theme.

At the time, I hadn’t purchased my first domain name, so suggesting that Citibank should buy ThankYou.com was never something I considered. In retrospect, with such a huge branding initiative undertaken by Citi, this domain name was critical for Citibank to own. Up until 2006, the domain name was owned by a company called 800 Brands, Inc. Sometime in late 2006, the domain name was purchased by Citibank, where it now anchors the “Thank You” rewards program.

Because of the major branding done by Citibank and its advertising agency partners, ThankYou.com became an essential asset that Citibank needed. Although they probably ended up paying much more for the name than they would have paid had they bought it before the campaign, the fact that they spent the money shows that they are smart marketers.

When a company unveils a new campaign or marketing slogan, they should always prepare for the best case scenario. They should ask, “if this becomes huge, will people expect to find more information at slogan.com?” If the answer is yes or maybe, they should buy the domain name before the campaign is dropped. Not doing this can result in missed contact opportunities or added expense when the name is needed.

Real Estate vs. Domain Names

A great post on Sahar’s Blog this morning comparing the opportunity in Fort Lauderdale real estate to the opportunity in domain names.

“One of the interesting facts I picked up on is the land on Millionaire’s row (which now is being refered to as “Billionaire’s row” due to cheaper money) was given away for free back in the 20’s. The first thought of course is how people overlooked this great opportunity back then? Then the second thought took me back to 1994, when Network Solutions was still giving away any domain you wanted for free, if you just asked for it. Can you imagine? You could have picked up million dollar names only 13 years ago, as many as you wanted (could have structured within different companies at ease) as long as you asked for it.” — Source: The Conceptualist

Read the rest of Sahar’s post here.

Everything sells online. Even Duck Eggs.

Everything sells online. Even Duck Eggs.
Internet entrepreneur Sai Pola’s DuckEggs.com offers the perfect reason why people should buy generic domain names. People who navigate to a specific site like DuckEggs.com have one thing in mind when they arrive – to purchase duck eggs. Using partnerships with farmers whose ducks produce some of the finest quality eggs, Sai’s website allows users to get exactly what they want.According to the article,

“The right domain name conveys credibility, is memorable and can deliver potential customers directly to an ecommerce website without the site owner spending a penny for advertising. The best domain names are comprised of the generic name of the product or service being offered.” –Source: Press Release via Forbes

DuckEggs.com is a perfect example of a specific generic domain name giving direct navigators the product they want, building loyalty and revenue.

Good Unregistered Names to Be Found

I just found a couple decent names that were unregistered. I was able to register HMOCompanies.com and HMOCompany.com. Although there aren’t a ton of Google listings for these two names, there are advertisers on the top and side of Google. With some decent SEO, these names can possibly produce some valuable clicks.

Moral of the story: There are still good GENERIC domain names to be found out there without having to turn to the aftermarket. Keep on searching. Landing a decent new registration feels almost as good as reeling in a great one-worder in the aftermarket – with less financial risk.

Missed Opportunity: Subdirectory Direct Navigation


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Owners of generic domain names know the value of direct navigation traffic, but a quick review of some popular websites leads me to believe they aren’t considering subdirectory direct navigation on their websites. Briefly, a subdirectory is the word or phrase that follows a backslash after the extension on a domain name. In the following example, Boston.com/RedSox, “RedSox” would be the subdirectory.

I frequently navigate to a subdirectory hoping to avoid the front page. In my Red Sox example, I often directly navigate to the Boston Globe’s Red Sox page to save time. If I do this on the Globe’s website, I am sure there are other people who do the same thing on other websites. Oftentimes, a 404 Error page is displayed when directly navigating to subdirectories, proving that many website owners aren’t considering this type-in traffic. Below are a few examples of websites that take subdirectory traffic into consideration:

CNN.com/Sports (forwards to Sports Illustrated)
ESPN.com/Soccer (forwards to ESPNsoccernet.com)
Google.com/Mail (forwards to Gmail)
Yahoo.com/Finance (forwards to Yahoo Finance)

However, there are plenty of ecommerce websites that don’t take this into consideration, possibly to their detriment.
BestBuy.com/Speakers (404 Error)
CircuitCity.com/Speakers (The page requested was not found)
Ebay.com/Speakers (Page Not Found)

Just as some people directly navigate to specific domain names, I believe there are some people who directly navigate to the subdirectories. Although these browsers may not leave the website if they encounter a 404 error page, I think it would be an easy fix to give browsers what they are looking for if they do directly navigate to a subdirectory. It seems that many news websites anticipate this direct navigation, so I think ecommerce websites should consider this traffic as well.

Avi Gets It!

As Frank Schilling pointed out yesterday afternoon, the Swim.com auction netted $214,500. By clicking on the bidder ID of the winner, everyone could see that the email address was none other than the owner of ClubSwim.com, Avi Benaroya. Some quick research shows that Avi also is the owner of other swimming related domain names such as SwimOutlet.com, Swimmer.com, SwimLessons.com, SwimmingInstructor(s).com, and many more. With his purchase of Swim.com, it shows that Avi and his company get it! They know the most valuable domain name in their category is Swim.com. They fought off other bidders, and they won the crown jewel domain name. Very impressive.

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