[...] ItzBig.com Had a Big Naming Problem A few years ago a new startup sprang onto the scene in Austin, Texas. Called ItzBig, it was a new type of job web site. It was backed by some big names in online job recruiting, including former executives of hire.com. Venture capitalists piled on board, throwing cash at the company. But there was one glaring problem: its name. When ItzBig.com was launched in stealth mode, I assumed the name was just a placeholder until the company unveiled itself. The problem with its name, of course, is that no one who heard it in conversation would find the web site. They’d go to ItsBig.com instead of ItzBig.com. More… [...]

And in an effort to prevent this post from usurping your search rankings, here’s a link:

ITZ Fixed Computers

I’m currently #1 in google for “itzfixed” and “ITZ Fixed” though I wonder how this comment will affect that since you are way higher page rank than me. Only 1 way to find out.

Regarding Its Fixed, I’d love to own that, and its not bad on its own as a domain name regarless of my business, however I’d rather put the money towards better domains than that as I’m sure the price Mr. Tim Griffen (who currently owns it) wants for it doesn’t make sense as a buy for a small, mostly offline, local based business. Its all about how much more $$ would that domain really put in my pocket per year. I’d proably pay 5x that amount for it. And Tim, if you are reading this, wanna make a deal?

I personally don’t see much of a problem keeping ITZ Fixed as the company name and use your good generic domain name. However, you’ll need to make sure ITZ Fixed (and perhaps ITS Fixed) will call up your site in the search engines.

In college I opened my IT Consulting & Repair company called: ITZ Fixed Computers, itzfixed.com. The name did do me justice in that I got and still get today tons of calls from the yellow pages (their computer is broken they can’t go online) for people that say they called us first just because they really liked the name of the company, however when it comes to reading someone my email address over the phone, it could take 10 minutes to spell such a simple 8 letter domain for them (after correcting them 3 or 4 times). The worst part is that I spell out itzfixed.com for them on the phone, and they read back to me, fixit.com, or fixeruppercomputers.com, or something way off base like that. Sometimes I think we are all seriously overestimating the general public’s intelligence.

Anyway, after getting tired of dealing with this problem, and I know that if I tell people I meet my domain name, they probably go home and get it wrong, I bought SanDiegoComputerRepair.com on sedo. Interestingly, now when I tell people my email address @SanDiegoComputerRepair.com, they always complain, “wow thats too long”, or “thats a really long email address”, however what is important here is they all get it right on the 1st time, without me having to repeat anything. If only they knew how much time and frustration I just saved them by not trying to give them my 8 charachter domain.

So here is my question for all of you, I have been back and forth on re-branding the entire company “San Diego Computer Repair”. I also have the exclusive rights from the county to be the only one in San Diego to use that DBA (Interestingly the DBA’s previous registration expired 5 days after I bought the domain so you can bet I was at the county recorders office at 9am that morning to snap it up). So do I change the company name on the business cards to “San Diego Computer Repair”, or leave it “ITZ Fixed Computers” and use San Diego Computer Repair as a DBA. Of course the domain name on my card is SanDiegoComputerRepair.com. When I poll my customers on their opinion, 100% of them prefer ITZ Fixed Computers, however I’ll bet that 100% of them couldn’t spell it if they wanted to.