A New York web design agency took precautions when it decided to switch to a .rocks domain name.
Earlier this year, web design and marketing firm Huemor decided it wanted to switch its online presence from HuemorDesigns.com to Huemor.rocks.
“SEO folks told me I was crazy to switch from a long-standing domain,” Huemor co-founder and President Jeff Gapinski told Domain Name Wire. “However, the new extension really appealed to us from a branding perspective. It summarized how we feel in one little word.”
So Huemor went forward with the switch, but wisely put a lot of effort behind it.
“We took some important precautions with the switch, such as making sure all redirects were properly mapped out, and variations of the domain name were taken care of (huemorrocks.com or huemor.com for instance),” Gapinski said.
The company mapped out every page on its site and planned what pages these would correspond to on the huemor.rocks domain. This was more work than a full-site 301 redirect, but it paid off; Gapinksi reports that the firm didn’t see any noticeable search ranking problems.
To make the switch easier, the company also stuck with its @huemordesigns.com email addresses.
Despite the effort required, Gapinski is happy with the results.
“As a creative services agency, the extra flair helps us stand out from the very first impression,” he said. “Those who are less familiar with the .rocks TLD don’t have issues since we’ve essentially created ‘fallbacks’ between our old name and the variants.”
Huemor’s switch to Huemor.rocks is an interesting case study for a new domain name. Heumor has the best possible .com domain name, Heumor.com, but still went with .rocks because it believes it enhances its brand.
Is that Humor or Huemor as it never passes the radio test, etc. so good for them but will be an uphill battle. Get 1 or 100 companies doing this shift is not worth putting money into this tld.. Brands are brands because they deliver something of value not matter your URL but man, tell me to this great company called Huermor and im going to humor.com anyway..
A branding agency that doesn’t understand branding. What’s next? A doctor that doesn’t understand medicine.
What makes this even worse is that humour is spelt differently in British English, so the fragmentation is complete.
Check out their website — the brand image they’re trying to convey is creative, quirky and unique, so choosing a .rocks domain name perfectly reinforces that.
It also shows they understand great marketing is about standing out, not fitting in. The domain is remarkable enough to earn them this piece and probably a lot more sharing and coverage in the future.
I would gladly hire a creative agency that understands all of the above over one that treads the safe and boring route.
Good for them BUT ,and it IS a BIG BUT (or maybe I should say a big “BUTT” lol) they will likely find emails going astray. Friend of mine owns a particular com domain. He tried selling it to a company he thought might want it because it is their company name by chance. My friend has trade mark for the name anyway. The other company has hundreds of millions US$ but said no to $17k suggested minimum price. My friend uses a catch all email setup and gets lot of emails every day because they insist on using a .co and .fund tld rather than buying my friends domain. I cannot understand the logic behind that. I said once to someone (a prospective buyer of a domain) “you will spend $50k plus on a car , $10k on good night out, $2m for a house BUT you will not spend $7k to buy the name of the company that generates the revenue to pay for that afore expense” . He took offense at that direct comment . A hole.
This shouldn’t be a problem since they own the other corresponding domain names.
Unable to understand why we need to discuss an ignorant idiotic move by some.
https://45.media.tumblr.com/c2c64cf946989b9e1428939a8c856aeb/tumblr_nxzs5cZwHG1qlqlozo1_500.gif
LOL ,like it.
Jeff, your’re reply above is perfect. Congrats on the .ROCKS selection transition. Nicely done. Great name. Good luck.
All bases covered? What will you do if .ROCKS as a TLD goes under? Then you will have to go back to your original domain or find a new one. It might not be successful long-term.
You might be too young to remember but around 2000-2002 there was a big movement to drop the .COM from your domain and just advertise your brand or keyword. That was short-lived when the geniuses realized they were hurting the number of surfers going to their sites, and consequently their pocketbooks suffered.
Here we have somewhat a similar situation, meaning it won’t even look like a domain name to the public. You have to ask, how many people will look at your domain and not even realize it’s a domain name but instead two words with a dot in the middle? A typo. Yes, a typo is what many will think. Your competitors will not have this problem on .com. If you are willing to take a certain percentage of your marketing dollars and flush them down the toilet solely to train the public on how to recognize these new domains then go for it. But, also recognize that you will have to spend more than your competitors for the same result, assuming all things being equal.
It sure does not seem creative to me or even forward-thinking. You ever hear of death by 1000 cuts? With these new TLD’s there are lots of small cuts that most people and companies have not thought of. Maybe you have, maybe you have not, but many of us old domain owners have known about all these drawbacks for years in existing extensions like .info, .biz, .travel, .mobi, etc…. We know domains. You do not. Just like we are not creative people with your skills. Most any old domainer that tells you otherwise is trying to sell these new domains to you.
Most of you guys are just catching up and may never. Many won’t even know why they went out of business or did not prosper like they could have under the umbrella of these new TLDs.
Sure, there will always be some you can hold up as an example of success, but overall the old alternative TLDs are a failure and the new alternative TLD’s will be a big failure. Just look at history of these wretched failures, like .MOBI. Heated, angry arguments went on for 2 years about how.MOBI would take over the world. How about .INFO? How about .BIZ? They are all loser extensions overall. You’d be a fool to build your business on these. There is no reason to think the new ones will be any better, but I do sincerely wish you luck.
So instead of just using Huemor.com which is the better and shorter version of them three, they’re using Huemor.rocks, smart move (not really)!
Do they have Humor.com?
If not, emails are likely going astray.
However, companies choose such names all the time, which is good news for us!
🙂
While the brand name Huemor isn’t my cup of tea and not something I would have recommended to a client, that’s just Life. People will go their own way.
Sure, like a lot of folks, I’d be concerned about the ongoing need to explain the spelling and the pun. That’s a drawback. But Mr. Gapinski may regard the humor of the pun and the relevant meaning of “hue” as advantages enough to offset that disadvantage. Puns can be ear worms, an aid to memorability.
Adding .ROCKS complicates the name, which isn’t something I’d have advised either. But (again) c’est la vie.
What I’ve come to realize is this: It doesn’t matter that people (even paying clients) don’t always choose the brand name / domain I want them to choose. In fact, sometimes they know what’s best for themselves in ways an outsider like me can’t fully appreciate. When entrepreneurs love their brand name as THEIRS – whether it’s great for others or not – then they approach their project with more energy. Irrational but real.
What does matter is that people make branding and domain decisions in full awareness of their range of options and the pros and cons associated with each.
In the case of Huemor.Rocks, the important thing isn’t what Mr. Gapinski decided but how he undertook the decision. By implementing the rebrand as thoroughly and meticulously as he did – securing the matching HuemorRocks.com, mapping URLs, redirecting email – he shows others how it’s done. Clearly he took this seriously, took precautions, and weighed the pros and cons before making his choice.
And THAT is something I agree with.
Excellent response and I agree 100%. Not a fan of .rocks but if you’re going to do this, Mr. Gapinski did it the right way.
With big moves by big brands to the new gTLD terrain, I strongly believe that we will soon witness the end to .com dominance.
I don’t think .Rocks is better than .Com 🙂
Could you please explain the basic benefit behind the conversion from .com to .rocks? Where it actually exists.
I like the idea of switching from huemor.com to huemor.rocks this is how creative agencies need to thing. .com is so SEO thing.
Jeff, your’re reply above is perfect. Congrats on the .ROCKS selection transition. Nicely done. Great name. Good luck.