Naming your company isn’t as simple as it once was. Back in the day, as long as there wasn’t an established brand in your vicinity, you essentially had the pick of the lot. Nowadays, it’s difficult to ignore the notion that your customers and competitors may not take you quite as seriously without a .com domain. After all, if you’re thinking big and want a global brand, a .com URL is near essential.
If you’ve set up a company before, you’ll know the agony of finalising the company name. Finding something that not only sounds and looks good, but also has a .com (or at worst .net) URL available. If it’s a one word brand, you’ll struggle and possibly find it impossible to find anything remotely suitable.
At this point it might just make sense to work backwards and discover a list of URL’s that you know you can definitely acquire, and select from those what ultimately becomes your brand name. That’s how BrandBucket works, the site provides a number of premium domains at fair prices, along with a logo you’re free to use if it picks your fancy. The site displays URL’s and logos that range in price from $495 to domains in the “request price” neighborhood.
BrandBucket’s search functionality is pretty neat, letting you search by price range, theme or number of letters. The site also offers user-friendly tools like a free, downloadable spreadsheet where users are able to rank the strengths of a brand name for a domain. The spreadsheet uses a point system to determine the total brand score under criteria such as word length, top-level domain (.com, .net, .org, etc), and spelling.
Personally I’m disgusted by websites/companies like this. When you’re a struggling starter who is trying to make something of him/herself and the first thing you run into is having to buy a domain name off of a bunch of domainsharks… It’s hard enough to get things started let alone having to fork over money for a domain other people aren’t even using..
I’d love to see a law passed that prohibits this domain abuse. If you’re not using it and someone else has a propper use for it, they shouldn’t have the rights to it.
.com domains are sooooo 90-s!!!
Be really cool and just use .NL if your company is located in Holland. And use .US if your company is based in the states.
The whole .com domains are simply put overrated.
If people want to find you, they just type your brand / company into Google.
The next big thing will be sentence URLs:
e.g. http://www.show-me-the-top-movies-now.com
or http://www.box-office-hits-in-xxxx.com
And in 10 years time all sentences that start with show-me-etc will all be taken by domain squatters. :D
So start buying all those show-me domains :D
Man, your funny. I mean half the names they have there are either random or the genetic abnormalities of two words who got together on a drunken night out.
So someone has had the foresight and done work to help people build a brand. Get over it. Think of a better name. Think of a better idea, if you having a name clash it is because someone has probably done it before you and better.
All of those names won’t be trademarked and if they were the trademark probably won’t be worth anything. They are allowed to develop a brand for you to buy around that…. they have done a lot of people a service.
We would highly recommend the following reading
http://www.brandbucket.com/blog/archives/choosing-name/
In particular this post regarding .com and why it is still king.
http://www.brandbucket.com/blog/choosing-name-top-level-domain/