Google’s Brilliant Move: Not Buying NexusOne.com Domain Name
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
By not buying NexusOne.com, Google reinforces the power of Google search over direct navigation.
Over the past few days I’ve read numerous stories by my peers suggesting that Google messed up by not registering the NexusOne.com domain name prior to launching its new phone initiative. My initial reaction was the same. But I quickly changed my mind: not acquiring the domain name was actually a smart move. Brilliant.
Hear me out.
Let’s think about the company we’re discussing. It’s Google. What does Google hate more than anything else? Direct navigation and direct search. It hates that people type domain names directly into the URL bar rather than going to Google first to search for it.
By not using NexusOne.com for its phone domain name, Google has just taught web surfers a lesson about direct navigation not always working. And what happens when someone types in NexusOne.com and sees this?
Odds are the next thing they’ll do is go to Google to search for “Nexus One”. There they will find one ad, a Google ad for the phone, along with the first search result: Google’s official web page for Nexus One.
It’s not like Google is going to lose sales over this. People interested in the phone will still find it.
Now, normally I’d say the company is inconveniencing its customers, like I did when Dell didn’t buy Adamo prior to launching its new line of computers. This is different, since the inconvenience sends customers to Google’s flagship web site to find what they are looking for.
But wait, couldn’t the current owner of NexusOne.com put up ads for phones? Google could sue for trademark infringement. And if a competitor buys the domain Google can quickly pick up the domain name in UDRP since the registration date would be considered after Google got its common law trademark.
So I’m going to respectfully disagree with my peers on this one. By not registering NexusOne.com, Google didn’t make a huge mistake. It was a brilliant move.
Further Reading:
@Andrew,
The website is randomly changing using different websites by the advertisers.
Google spent $5million a day (of course through adsense) to promote Nexus One and posted in every Google online properties.
Oh, you smarty, you.
You make a good point Andrew, but keep in mind that Google, Yahoo and Bing are really about the only companies that Can do this
. Just so “others” don’t think they can get away with it. 
It’s not a brilliant move, it’s a Google maneuver, which has been generally anti-competitive. That doesn’t make it smart, just “Googlesque”.
“It’s not like Google is going to lose sales over this. People interested in the phone will still find it. ”
I disagree with this. They will lose some sales. A certain percentage of folks will drop off. It’s just like when you have a shopping cart and it takes two steps to make a sale and you add another layer to it to make it three steps then conversions drop off. Every little minute detail like this makes a difference in conversions.
Some folks will be pissed that they need to go to Google to find out where to get tech support, etc…. b/c is should be at NexusOne.com which is one easy step, not several like it will take at Google until those users get used to the exact location where Google will put the support/sales section.
I do agree with you on the branding thing though.
@ EM – thanks. None of them seem to be related to phones so far.
@ Jamie – yeah, and I doubt Yahoo and Bing have the market position to do it
@ Belmassio – I’d say that’s more a long term risk. Buyers right now are very tech savvy, and they won’t stop to they get what they need/want. After the early adopters, though, I can see that happening.
Good point Andrew.
brilliant move? i think not. nuff said.
for some bloggers who have registered a nexus one domains names eg http://www.nexusoneblog.co.UK where does thus leaves them?
where they messed up was not calling it the Gphone.
@ Tim – agree with your there. I thought Nexus One was just a “placeholder” name since it’s, well, a really bad name.
another failed move by google.in addition with bing/yahoo there will be a legimate competitor on the search landscape in 2010.30% market share.the last thing you want to do is confuse/upset your customers ie http://www.blackcard.com.
as i have stated before everyone will come to hate google in the future.
nothing brillant here except arrogance by google.you do not have consisant branding by google gmail and now nexis one.however google might correct this fiasco since nexus one does not have 3g and will loose subscribers and buy the domain after the launch like apple did with the iphone.
Andrew was Google.com also brilliant with
Knol ?
http://knol.google.com/k
Anthony – Isn’t Knol an all around failure?
On the other hand, Google messed up with Adsense, given that Adsense.com was a marketing company.
nexus1.in
nexusone.in all are in mark monitor
Its simple math, the bottom line.
How much would it have cost to buy Nexusone.com and how many phones moved to cover the cost and turn a profit.
If it makes sense they should have done it, if it didnt they made the right move.
Interesting that if you check the Internet Archive “way back” machine, NexusOne.com was a registered domain name with a web page on it as far back as 1999.
Andrew,
Thank you – yes, it was a brilliant move by Google – I completely agree. They will never lose to traffic to the owners of nexusone.com as people who want the phone will just google it.
You are 100% right.
If the nexusone.com domain was being used to sell advertising by showing one of a range of websites prior to Google’s announcement, what is there to stop it continuing to do so afterwards.
If the nature of the websites which want to advertise and the price they will pay changes, does that make it TM infringement, if there was prior and contemporaneous use in good faith. i.e. if it was not infringing use before Google came along, does it suddenly become infringing use just because they have chosen their mark?
[...] has began. Andrew nails it very well: Domain Name Wire News Google’s Brilliant Move: Not Buying NexusOne.com Domain Name – The Domai… Check my older thread on IDNF: IDN Forums – Internationalised Domain Names __________________ [...]
” They will never lose to traffic to the owners of nexusone.com ”
If there is one thing I have learned over the years, a large minority of web users are not the brightest and Google WILL lose traffic to nexusone.com and in turn sales, maybe a small number but a number that would over time outweigh the cost of the name.
‘Nuff Said…
http://imgur.com/42RLS
Another thing to consider…this isn’t really the “google phone”. It’s just their operating system. They’ll come out with a number of new phones, not called “Nexus One”. So the domain strategy would become more challenging as they release phone after phone.
It would be interesting to know if Google has at least tried to buy the domain/company, or if this strategy is their preferred one.
great take on an interesting topic, its a great position to be in and I almost think google would look at domains as insignificant when they are turning their attention to buying blocks of power…clearly they are planning to ramp up their do no evil approach of taking over the world..
for tech or any heavy users, I prefer –>
Nxus1.com which is simply and easy to remember!
I think its also easier to brand the URL with its unique URL. But then, we all know its Google and it would brand better with http://www.google.com/phone then nexus1.com or nexusone.com. Maybe GoogleNexusOne.com
Think about it, do we go to Apple.com for iPhone or iPod or iMac or do we try to goto iPhone.com or iPod.com or iMac.com even though Apple spent a lot of money to acquire the domain iPhone.com. Same point, a user looking for iPhone will find the Apple site either via Organic Search or via PPC. We don’t know if Apple would have saved money by doing that instead of buying iPhone.com or not, who knows.
Well, I’ve owned http://www.freegooglephone.com for 2yrs. I think people will just search “google phone” free google phone or cheap google phone etc..
Free iPhone has over 1.5 million monthly searches already!
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