One of the selling points for a one word .com domain name is email deliverability. What I mean is that many people assume a company called X will be found at X.com, and their associated email addresses will be email@X.com. A company called X that uses X.io or GetX.com will almost certainly lose at least some emails that were accidentally sent to @X.com instead.
Carl Hancock is the CEO of Gravity Forms. His company recently acquired Gravity.com and immediately put it to use. According to a tweet this morning, Carl enabled a “catch-all” email for Gravity.com meaning all email sent to any @Gravity.com email address will end up in an inbox. Here’s what Carl shared about that:
One thing i’ve learned from just a few days of owning the https://t.co/gtXVsKSRLz domain name with a catch all email address is if your company begins contains the word “Gravity” people assume your email address is https://t.co/gtXVsKSRLz. The single word dotcom effect is real.
— Carl Hancock 🚀🇨🇷 (@carlhancock) March 11, 2022
“The single word dotcom effect is real”
When I operated DogWalker.com, the info@ email received many emails meant for other companies that either used different extensions or had additional keywords in their domain names. People would quickly type out an email and accidentally send their email to me instead of their intended target. Typically, I would let them know they reached the wrong business, but I am sure I did not reply at times. I also didn’t have a catch-all email enabled, so emails sent to an address like steve@dogwalker.com were not delivered.
Branding is the most critical reason for owning a one word .com domain name. It’s so much easier for a single word brand to market itself when it has the brand match .com domain name. There’s no need to really remind people where to find the website. It’s assumed and there are no surprises. A close second place is email deliverability.
Carl is probably receiving a lot of email meant for people at other companies called Gravity. I am sure there are dozens of companies that go by Gravity and probably thousands that have Gravity in their branding. With the catch-all enabled, the senders aren’t receiving a notice that their emails weren’t delivered. Perhaps they think their intended target is blowing them off. Perhaps they are just assuming the information they sent is received. Whatever the case, the intended targets probably have no idea what they are losing.
Personally, I don’t use catch-all emails for my domain names. I don’t need the extra spam emails. I also don’t want to see emails intended for other people. For domain names I developed and used email addresses associated with those websites – info@ or support@, I agree with Carl’s assessment that “The single word dotcom effect is real.” Of course, it is different when someone who isn’t looking to sell domain names says it than a domain investor.
The catch all will definitely be temporary for this reason. Once we incorporate the domain name into our existing company email setup we will remove the catch all. There is just too much legacy related email going to that email address from previous owners (ex. newsletter subscriptions, etc.) on top of emails being directed at other companies that use Gravity in their name. It would be unmanageable. But it was definitely eye opening.
Thanks for sharing your perspective on the added brand value of purchasing Gravity.com.
I suspect this time next year, you’ll have noted MUCH greater benefits.
Thanks for sharing Carl.
Best testimonials of the value of exact brand match dot-coms come from startup leadership after buying their EMD.
Powerful statement: “The single word dotcom effect is real.”
Wall Street, Silicon Valley and others are you listening?
“Wall Street, Silicon Valley and others are you listening?”
Sadly (for them), in the large majority of cases . . . crickets. Only crickets.
I gotta problem. I have a few one word .in domains.
Godaddy told me they are not the place to sell .in domains. Any suggestion of more appropriate market places to sell my .in puppies?