Sorry, Mike, I have to call the University of Florida out for this domain name / website / branding issue I saw during today’s football game against the University of South Carolina. During a break in the game, there was a UF sponsored commercial, and it directed visitors to a website to learn more about Gator Nation.
Instead of sending visitors to the University’s main website (either UFL.edu or UF.edu since both are owned by UF), and instead of sending them to the athletics department and booster website (GatorZone.com), the commercial directed people to GoGatorNation.com. Mind you it’s not the privately owned website at GatorNation.com, it’s GoGatorNation.com.
Unfortunately, the school doesn’t own Gators.com, which would be the ideal website. Incidentally, that domain name is currently parked with Frank Schilling’s Internet Traffic.
To make matters worse for University of Florida, not mentioning the football team’s loss today, but GoGatorNation.com isn’t even the main website. No, it’s actually a forwarder to a different landing page: TheUFAdventure.com. Even worse, all of this traffic that was sent to the website is being turned away. The site is still apparently under development. There’s not even an email capture form to tell people when the website will be ready. What a waste.
From my perspective, the public University should have used its allotted air time to direct people to the primary website, or perhaps a page within the website. It really seems the University of Florida has a domain name problem.
I think you missed his post about college football teams and those ones who are getting it done and those that aren’t.
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/09/04/we-welcome-back-college-football-to-find-out-which-school-has-the-best-domain-come-to-some-shocking-findings/
BTW, if anyone wants SeminoleFans.com hit me up. I went to UCF, so I don’t give a crap about FSU. Just own the domain.
@ T1D
I did miss it, but he emailed it to me this AM.
But it’s a classic post about organizations getting it wrong!