Gabriel Harper's Blog

It has been 24 years since the first domain name was registered. The days of scoring a good domain name at registrar rates are quickly fizzling out. It’s only a matter of time before the fluffy Web 2.0 namespace runs out of heat too. Is the next breed of domain names going to ditch short and catchy for big and bold?

ICANN is opening up custom generic Top Level Domains (.com, .net, etc.) – but with a hefty price tag. The .com era is still far from over, and the namespace is getting more crowded by the day.

You might say there is an endless variation of “-itters” and “-iggs” and “-ivo”’s, but how many Twitters and Diggs are really left? All the happy, senseless Web 2.0 names are nearly gone as well. It became clear to me when I discovered every single domain name in the following list is already registered. Yes, all 88 of ‘em.

vigle.com, vizle.com, vido.com, vivo.com, veegle.com, veezle.com, veedo.com, veevo.com, bigle.com, bizle.com, bido.com, bivo.com, beegle.com, beezle.com, beedo.com, beevo.com, yigle.com, yizle.com, yido.com, yivo.com, yeegle.com, yeezle.com, yeedo.com, yeevo.com, digle.com, dizle.com, dido.com, divo.com, deegle.com, deezle.com, deedo.com, deevo.com, jigle.com, jizle.com, jido.com, jivo.com, jeegle.com, jeezle.com, jeedo.com, jeevo.com, nigle.com, nizle.com, nido.com, nivo.com, neegle.com, neezle.com, needo.com, neevo.com, pigle.com, pizle.com, pido.com, pivo.com, peegle.com, peezle.com, peedo.com, peevo.com, rigle.com, rizle.com, rido.com, rivo.com, reegle.com, reezle.com, reedo.com, reevo.com, sigle.com, sizle.com, sido.com, sivo.com, seegle.com, seezle.com, seedo.com, seevo.com, tigle.com, tizle.com, tido.com, tivo.com, teegle.com, teezle.com, teedo.com, teevo.com, wigle.com, wizle.com, wido.com, wivo.com, weegle.com, weezle.com, weedo.com, weevo.com

Most of these names make absolutely no sense, and are only registered because they are speakable 5-letter domains. Let’s face it, most of them are just plain stupid.

So it leaves us asking what’s next. Plenty of domainers and big players will continue to fight over the big domain names, but the rest of us are left with only one option: get creative.

Which brings me to rock bands. Long ago, band names seemed so much simpler. The Doors. The Beatles. The Who. Now it seems like every day a new band comes along with some outrageous and incredibly long name. The fact of it is, like domain names, that most of the good band names are already taken. But rock bands don’t care much about keyphrase targetting their audience, mainly just having a memorable and kickass name.

With URL keyphrases becoming less and less important in SEO, and context and anchor text being increasingly important, Webmasters can look at this as an opportunity to break out of the box and come up with some wicked new names.

Think about making it memorable by painting a vivid picture with your words.  I’m thinking something like “SuperBadassShoeStore.com” could contend with the likes of Zappos.com!

Just some food for thought. It’s interesting to consider similar trends we see in seemingly unrelated areas of life, and sometimes we can even learn a thing or two.

(Note: for those of you who are wondering, the first registered domain name was symbolics.com – registered March 15, 1985).

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 2:07 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.