Domain names may be thought of as an alternative investment vehicle.
Some say, “Books.com . . . it will NEVER be used as a primary site. It’s just traffic.” A business needs its catchy name, AND it needs its keyword traffic domains, either to direct to a subdomain of the primary domain, or to lead to a page of content which references the company site. Like the tentacles of an octopus, which lead back to the head.
I DO suggest that B&N survived, and Borders didn’t, because of the traffic from Books.com, and more. It’s a combination of adapting to digital early on: more sophisticated, internet-ready inventory software (while Borders was glitchy and couldn’t function in real time), Barnes and Noble’s early adoption of the eReader with the release of the Nook, and several great books domains, such as Books.com, the singular, Book.com, and more I can’t remember. Barnes and Noble has BN.com and Nook.com – it has done many things right! Also, it bought Borders.com and its domains, so that Borders.com redirects to Barnes and Noble. It kept up with digital, so that is perhaps its primary business now! Or its most valuable business. Maybe the in-store part is fading, and it will close some stores, like K-mart.
Some suggest people do not trust keyword domains anymore. Funny! The domain industry shot itself in the foot, probably due to lack of standards. The domain industry dumped on its own market! But savvy startups realize the need to own the correct spelling/non-hyphen dot com of the company name. Flickr finally bought Flicker.com to control bleedoff. If they’re smart, people who market businesses realize they should own some search term keyword domains on which small webpages are built which link to the primary business. See guestpost venerable domainer Stephen Douglas wrote on: Finally, A Writer Outside the Domain Industry GETS IT!
Many agree a short, memorable domain is better for branding. Few one-word dot coms fit that bill . . . that are both meaningful and catchy. Maybe that is more significant as regards the dot tv extension, since it doesn’t rank as well for keyword . . . Personally, I took someone’s advice to register a short, more easily spoken dot tv to build on, instead of the more popular search keyword. I don’t have that talent to come up with a catchy name. Candy.com may be an exception of a meaningful, descriptive keyword domain which works well as a brand. Congrats to Joe Melville, CEO of Melville Candy Corporation & Greg Balestrieri, Vice President of Melville Candy Corporation on the purchase of Candy.com, and Rick Schwartz for its sale. A domain such as, WashingMachines.com, is large enough category search term to bring value to Whirlpool. It’s the concept Marketing Strategist Ivana Taylor promotes in her article, Why You Need Multiple Domain Names.
The conclusion is: you need your brand, then you need to market under the product/service keywords people are searching to find your product, the generic, until your brand becomes synonymous with the generic, I suppose, like Kleenex. Those are few and far between.
Amazon paid big bucks for Soap.com and Diapers.com for a reason! It created separate sites for each domain. Designing pages is more creative than just redirecting. As Stephen Douglas points out, better to keep your competition from using the domain. It must be better to own it and redirect, than allow your competition to own a popular keyword type-in generic! Bras.com redirects to Calvin Klein, but it’s better than allowing someone else the domain!
The climate is changing. Google announced it would give less authority to keyword domains in its pagerank algorithm. It’s another aspect of the domain industry influencing its own market in a negative way. Since all the domainers held out only for big bucks on some keyword domains and parked them, people aren’t used to seeing actual great content on a great domain. It’s rare. Business has come up with workarounds, and Google respects that. Now, there is less demand than perhaps if domainers would have just done BUSINESS with end users! If there were better sites on great domains, instead of great domains parked and de-indexed, the domain industry would be in better shape. The owner of Links.com listed it for 3 million, but the owner is really holding out for seven figures. That time may have passed, due to the influence of the domain industry itself!
Internet users are trained to suspect a meaningful domain as not having authority, or representing a company, because of domainer’s refusal to do business, is my theory. It is thought CatFood.com sold low at $40,000 instead of six figures, because generics are on their way out. That has some truth. Recently, OrangeJuice.com sold for about $25,000 after it was put at auction at zero reserve. That is another example! Type in traffic isn’t the selling point of dot tv, as far as I ever heard. But dot tv is short and makes a keyword a brand. Seems like lots of companies are building their brand on a one-word dot tv, that wouldn’t make sense as a dot com, such as: Spaghetti.tv, Drastic.tv, Umbrella.tv, Gestahlten.tv, Medici.tv, even Ora.tv. That is, those one-word dot tvs have a different meaning from what the company is about. Those are some that I came across.
On a positive note for keyword dot tv, there is a nice site on Shoes.tv, which is affiliate for different shoe companies.
In conclusion, short or one-word dot tv domains are brandable, even if the meaning of the word doesn’t have anything to do with the company. Dot tv is very brandable. But generic dot com and long tails still have their place, as long as they are exact match for type-ins or searches, which inform as to product or service.
Since I have some development and SEO skills, I approach any domain from the developers’ perspective. The content I post on MobileTech.tv is what raises the brand of MobileTech.tv. It’s like creating value the old-fashioned way: I worked for it!
