Morning Folks!!
The size and value of your audience decide your future before you do. Targeting an audience is the key to the success of any business, organization, or even charity. A profitable audience.
MainStreet.com (Not a domain I own or even looked up) has value. It's obvious because it represents commerce. If it's not obvious to you, find a job. It has an audience. That audience has the potential to be increased and specifically targeted.
ManeStreet.com (Not a domain I own or even looked up) has value. It does not pass the radio test, but still has value. That audience has the potential to be increased. But probably has less value than MainStreet.
DanielQSysemskiMemorialBridge.com (Not a domain I own or even looked up because I made it up as well as this non-existent person) has NO value and never will. NO AUDIENCE!! In 1 MILLION years that domain won’t have value. It’s a Liability not an asset!
Most domainers have the majority of their domains that will never have an audience. ZILCH!! NO CHANCE!! Those are all liabilities. Just bills!
We are talking tens and probably hundreds of millions of worthless domains. Worthless because they are not capable of getting an audience. And when I hear SEO guru's and every answer is the same about optimization, I have but one word.....BULLSHIT!!
Domaining is about getting memorable, meaningful, and important domains. If they are not, that's not domaining. That's not domain investing. That's not anything but a waste of time, money, and energy. SEO really has nothing to do with domain investing. It's nothing you talk about until there is a profit-making site attached.
So the MainStreet test is just another test that should be added to the test of my last post.
Do I have to explain those names? Will people misspell them? Will they easily forget them? Will they be able to tell others? Can content be matched to that domain that is intuitive? Is that content profitable? Is there a market for that content? Is it confusing? That's a lot of filters but a domain that I buy MUST meet ALL those standards and more! If I am doing it, why aren't you?? That's the path to success. To find domains that have the ability to be a successful business. And I focus on domains that have face-value. That has obvious value and uses. That has 1 and 2 words. WORDS!! WORDS!!
If you are ignoring this stuff or want to vehemently disagree.......I can't help you. Nobody can! These are simply the most basic, most important, and most imperative hurdles a domain name must pass if you want to filter out pigeon shit.
Even a brandable has to be spellable. How many MONTHS did it take takl.com to go out of business?? WTF was that?? They spent TENS of millions on Kathy Lee Gifford and endless commercials everywhere advertising a name nobody could spell or remember or even meant much. Everywhere! Until they went belly up and broke! They blamed it on Covid! Here's a memo from me to them, had nothing to do with covid. Had everything to do with a PIGEON SHIT domain name! They failed before they started. And remember, almost all failure happens at the start! The start of the Internet is the Domain Name and many times, that will dictate your success or failure before you take your second step!!!!
Rick Schwartz
Bill Roy
Rick, as always, great post.
(And I have never even heard of ‘takl.com’ by the way, or if I have I really do not remember it! LOL)
John
Yes, great post. Never heard of “takl” either, and what a horrible blunder.
Anyone remember or heard of the “Cuil” search engine (pronounced like “cool”) that many millions of dollars were spent on and that was going to compete with Google? Exactly. I had literally almost contacted them myself about that before the all but inevitable fade to black.
jeff schneider
Hello Rick,
When are corporations going to learn that their Google SEM
Rep. wants your domain name to fail in getting traffic. Its just like a doctor who has no sick clients. They are out of business.Same situation with SEM Reps. They need Start-ups with no Organic system for receiving Traffic. So invariably
they promote a name with NO ORGANIC Traffic, that needs Extensive Advertising over long periods of time. BINGO trapped in the Google Traffic stealing Corridor. Sad but true.. These Carpetbagging SEM-CENTRIC advertisers have job security often for life. JAS 2/12/2021
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (CONTACT GROUP) We don’t Follow, We Create
steve
takl — wtf?
and they probably paid some branding company like Landor 500 K to come up with the name.
what about QUIBI.com which launched in April 2020 with 1.8 BILLION (with a B) funding and dissolved in Dec 2020? I remember Katzenberg had to keep explaining the meaning of the name on Bloomberg, etc
it was a short video streaming service that wanted to compete with TikTok which had a platform that went viral thru social media and teens and music.ly
did they go belly up due to the name? Probably not the main reason, but that name didn’t help. You tell your friend — hey check out Quibi — wtf — Kweebee — Kwebye — where is it?
get a good name, guys — 1.8 Billion flushed away in 7 months
Andrew Hyde
Even worse when the extension isn’t .com and isn’t a word. Throw a hyphen in it just to make sure it dies.
Antonio
Something I never understood is why it is ok to spend billions in a campaing and fail and not invest a million in a good name that almost guarantees digital superiority, supremacy and success in that niche. How many more years till it becomes evident?
Gig economy app Takl shuts down after burning through over $37 million in investors’ money | Tech News – Leadership
[…] or even meant much. Everywhere! Until they went belly up and broke! They blamed it on Covid! Here’s a memo from me to them, had nothing to do with covid. Had everything to do with a PIGEON S%%% domain name! They failed […]
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
The Google Centric Marketing Platform spent $438.5 million on marketing last year, up from $345.6 million in 2019.These are figures that they put out. These are the kinds of Marketing Expenses that are tied to using SEM Centric Marketing Platforms. Avoid the Google SEM Platform at all costs.
JAS 2/16/2021
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (CONTACT GROUP) We don’t Follow, We Create
Jeff Schneider
Addendum CORRECTION Above = The Google Centric Marketing Platform(Go-Daddy)spent…………. JAS