Trust & Goodwill of a Category Defining Domain Name

Andrew posted some commentary on Monday from ABCsearch CEO Daniel Yomtobian on why the company went out and acquired Advertise.com. According to Yomtobian, Advertise.com “is the perfect brand name to attract new customers and make them feel comfortable if they had not heard of us—which translates into a much higher customer acquisition rate.”

TRUST is a huge aspect of a category defining domain name. People might not have heard of a particular company operating on a category defining domain name, but they generally trust that company until the trust is broken simply because of the domain name. As the saying goes, “perception is reality,” and people automatically think that with a category defining domain name, the company must be trustworthy. Yomtobian knows this, and his results should reflect this.

One thing that is not frequently discussed in the purchase of a domain name is a small thing called “goodwill.” According to Finance-Glossary.com, goodwill is defined as “The value of a business to a purchaser over and above its net asset value. It reflects the value of intangible assets such as reputation, brand name, good customer relations, high employee morale and other factors that improve the company’s business.” A category defining domain name has a considerable amount of good will associated with it, and that alone can help catapult a brand like ABCSearch onto the radar screens of their target clients.

People may not have visited a particular website in the past, but because the name rings a bell, they might think they have. Trust and goodwill are not things that can be very accurately quantified, but they have considerable value to a company.