Your age and tech savvy color how you look at the web.
19-year-old Henry Cooke, who blogs for Stuff.co.nz, says they are. At least generic ones like Sport.com
I won’t go through his laundry list of reasons that have already been beaten to death by countless others. Or that fact that he refers to a press release on WSJ as endorsement of WSJ of how you can make money with domains.
What I will do is focus on his age again. Not because being 19 means you don’t have internet experience. That’s definitely not the case. But it’s because one of his key arguments is that no one ever searches by typing a URL. For example, you don’t type recipes.com when you want to look for recipes.
Cooke is right — when it comes to his peers. Internet savvy teenagers.
I’m in the same boat. I’d never type recipes.com to find recipes.
But what many people fail to realize is that we don’t make up the bulk of web users. Take a look at the typical person leaving comments on YouTube. These people — who can’t spell and can barely type — make up the bulk of internet users. And a lot of these people search with URLs.
How many, I’m not sure. Every study I’ve seen on the matter wasn’t this specific.
But anyone who owns a good generic domain name knows these people exist.
(Thanks Justin)
JS says
Andrew I think you’re off a bit.
Most of Youtube commenters who can’t spell are in fact teens and tweens who just don’t bother with spelling. They are net savvy, they hang out all day on youtube and facebook etc. they know the “consummer web”, they have pirated version of all adobe products, they download movies via torrents, etc.
These people are just like you and I, while they may not type in recipes.com, they will direct navigate to nba.com, bmw.com and geekologie.com and other websites that they know and in which they have an interest in.
Andrew Allemann says
@ JS – you may be right about that
Puranjay says
Andrew, but this begs the question: are we in a business that is destined to go extinct, eventually?
As you said, younger people don’t type in domain names. Their moms do.
Guess which market will stick around for the next 10 years?
The next generations won’t give even less of a damn about domain names. Heck, they won’t even give a damn about websites. If it isn’t a shiny app on their smartphone screens, they probably won’t touch it.
The internet is changing in dramatic ways. Most of us haven’t quite grasped it yet.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Puranjay – it’s true that the way people surf the web is changing and will continue to change. In fact, the way people interact with parked pages has changed over the past five years. It will continue to change. Those that argue otherwise will eventually be blindsided.
RaTHeaD says
WoW… you’ve finally proven yourself. your argument against his moronic post almost rises to the level of dull normal… so i guess you win.
Bud Vaper says
They’re definitely not irrelevant, because as you said most of the internet is being surfed by morons. However, I do think that having a “keyword domain” is getting too much attention nowadays, especially with the recent news flurry about Mike Mann registering 14k+ domains in a day, and I think in the future people will avoid sites that sit on a keyword domain bc it’ll seem lame, and they’ll probably stop doing well in rankings also over time, just my opinion. The type-in traffic will be there for a while but will probably fade in time also.
So insertkeywordhere.com domains might be selling for a premium now, but sometime soon I feel things changing… how soon is left to be seen.
I was completely shocked when the bigtime dispensary site weedmaps.com 301’d their url to legalmarijuanadispensary.com, I mean seriously? It gives off the vibe of lameness to me… I’m not feelin it.
KhakiMan says
Having run a number of corporate websites, I can tell you emphatically that yes, people do search for keywordname.com. They always have.
I don’t know why, but I suspect it’s because of the Google mentality. Instead of typing directly in the browser address bar, a lot of non-tech savvy users go to Google first and then type in the name of the website they want to visit. Google knows everything in their eyes.
I remember seeing this in webserver logs back in ’95 and being completely stumped. Yahoo was the search “engine” of choice then.
Of course, a lot of people think every URL they type has to have “http://” and “www” in it.
Andrew Allemann says
@ KhakiMan – that’s true, when someone knows the web site domain they go to Google and search for it.
But I think the point is the other way around — if you don’t know there’s a site, just “searching” for it based on the generic term + .com.
Mark says
What happens with IBM’s new voice recognition system? The user just speaks the phrase and the search comes up? Who needs a domain?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Mark – whether you speak it or type it doesn’t really matter. You’re doing the same thing. So I don’t think that would affect domains.
Pete says
When your looking to search, you type in your search term. If you own the search term and wrap content around it, it becomes a website which is ranked favorably because if you own electricbike.com – odds are your going to have info about electric bikes.
Acro says
As I said at Shane’s blog who covered the same article two days ago, it doesn’t matter if you own a generic unless you develop it, to reap the benefits of organic traffic. Example: why is Stuff.com nowhere to be found when searching for stuff in Google? Because Stuff.co.nz is developed and Stuff.com is a URL forward.
John says
One still needs a domain in order to have a website and showcase their product or service.
One needs to be online & .com is what people have always and will always remember.
Todd from LeadRefs.com says
The most important thing you said: “But what many people fail to realize is that we don’t make up the bulk of web users.”
Chris says
Domain names aren’t going anywhere.
Companies’ Facebook pages probably will be when the next new “hot” thing comes along.
From my early Xenix days..to Compuserve using TOPS-10 PPNs…then Genie…MCI Mail…BBS’s…x.25 networks…Prodigy…The Well…AOL…West Coast Online…then UUCP…Usenet…The Web.
The more things change – the more they stay the same. Technology marches on but from the beginning, there is always a need for easy nomenclature. Domain names fit the bill.
Alan says
I type in very few urls and use a search engine like Google. Now a developed web site that I enjoy………that is a different story.
Shane says
Ha Acro. Andrew certainly doesn’t read my blog. No way he knows I did this exact same story. Hell I can barely get him to talk to me when I’m standing next to him 🙂
Andrew Allemann says
@ Shane @ Acro – doh! Read the date of publication of article as today, checked domaining, didn’t see anyone else writing about it…
Sigh. I guess I’ll have to subscribe to Shane’s RSS feed 🙂
Jonathan says
he generic is about seamless marketing& the keyword is about the root domain that is the code, nothing to do with the general public perception of prefix, the prefix is the trusted brand for international multinationals that carry the com brand.
John Berryhill says
“Andrew certainly doesn’t read my blog.”
That’s only because you have a crummy domain name that nobody can remember, lol.
rs says
The 19 year old is correct. Most people type in search terms to Google. If you had sport.com you need to have good content so that google’s algorithm will rank you high. They use the domain name as part of their algorithm which is one reason the domain is important. The domain is also important from a branding aspect so people who want to come back again will know how to get there easily (if it is parked then you can forget that as nobody will want to come back). If your only plan in getting a domain like sport.com to just wait for lost people to type in “sport” then you are not going to make your money back.
M says
Keep in mind that HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS of dollars worth of companies/businesses around the world have been building on domain names for the past 20 years. Major corps. and small businesses/ventures alike. These are long term investments in online brands.
Even if there were an alternative, an amazing alternative at that, you can’t just “get out.” The .COM is part of the brand/identity … cars.com, apartments.com, hotels.com xxxx.com, etc.
An app will no doubt be superuseful for mobile-oriented businesses, but it won’t be able to replace the brand that is focused on it’s internet domain.
@Domains says
Anything on the web has to run on a domain (apps included), even if you can’t see it.
Not to mention email.
The internet ran just fine before apps started getting popular a couple years ago.
Let’s take all the existing domains offline right now and see how well the internet runs.
Speed dial didn’t kill the need for phone numbers. Even with email, direct messaging, skype, cam 2 cam, the majority of us still have a phone number we can be reached at. Domains will be around for a long time, just like phone numbers.
domain guy says
have you tried to carry a conversation with a 20 yr old? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD ONE INTELLIGENT THING FROM A 20 YR OLD?
when you look at at 20 yr old where is there head? in their phone.
did you read mc domain bias report?
with over 200k+ apps you are lost in the fields..
when you read fb have you seen anything worth reading?
domains need to be constructed with revelant content thats where the failure begins its ppc.
Interneteur says
Andrew, you deff saw it on some one elses site 😉
Jeff says
Domain names are irrelevant if you have strong branding.
Jeff says
Domain names are irrelevant if you have strong branding,
Sandra@What'sYourVapeTemp says
With Panda 3.0 cooking in Google’s backburner, I am sure these exact-match, keyword-rich domains will take a hit. One should look into branding and providing valuable information to your audience. Instead of thinking how you can get a backlink or SEO your website, think about how you genuinely help someone. Get more utility and focus on building relationships instead of backlinks.
Vape says
With algorithms always changing, some say google changes theirs every 8 hours, but the current trend shows that it does matter. I think by the end of the year, this will not have a heavy weight on it
Justin says
Ever since Google changed how they handle EMDs it has been much less of a factor. These days the best way to make use of SEO in a domain is to use the keyword phrase along with one additional word. So if your keyword was “blue widget”, then from an SEO standpoint an ideal domain would be something like “bluewidgetshop.com”.
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