Finding the Right Domain Name

Recently Jeff Atwood wrote about his startup's struggle to come up with a good name:

I've been brainstorming names for the web site we're building. I've surveyed some of the finest minds in the software developer community (for very small values of "fine"), and we've come to a collective realization: naming a website is hard. Really, really hard.

No kidding. This isn't just true of websites, or even of companies, but of ventures in general. That's why there are firms that charge tens of thousands of dollars to do it for you. And it's hard to blame them - would BlackBerries be quite as popular if they were called LeapFrogs instead?

But Jeff shoots himself in the foot from the beginning by (almost) eliminating any name that isn't available as a .com. Anyone reading this has some inkling of the sheer volume of domains that have already been registered, and no guess at what percentage of those are squatted would be too cynical. When practically every common and obvious .com name is already taken, companies have to resort to more and more contrived names just so they can say they have theirname.com. But is it really worth it?

In their book Getting Real, 37signals discusses their emphasis on names that make sense:

Give your app a name that's easy to remember. A big mistake a lot of people make is thinking their app's name needs to be ultradescriptive. Don't worry about picking a name that vividly describes your tool's purpose; That usually just leads to a generic, forgettable name. Basecamp is a better name than something like Project Management Center or ProjectExpress.

The name should be simple, with a blend of familiarity and uniqueness - Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, etc. are all familiar word-phrases to English speakers, but are unique enough as product names to stick. Here's the really interesting part - they don't have the .com for any of those products. Basecamp is basecamphq.com; Campfire is campfirenow.com; Backpack is backpackit.com. 37signals doesn't exactly need publicity by now, but they weren't always known. How did they violate the common domain name wisdom and still succeed?

Jason et al recognized something that most of us just can't seem to get past: the precise domain name really isn't that important:

[D]on't sweat it if you can't get the exact domain name you want. You can always be creative and get close with a couple of extra letters

They looked past appearances and went straight for use. How do people use domain names? If you have a great service, people are going to

• Bookmark it
• E-mail it
• Twitter it
• IM it

What people will almost never do is try to remember the service by name and retype the address from scratch. At worst, they will Google it, which should be easy because it's an easy, short, memorable name. In every case, it doesn't even matter what the domain name is. Your users will never have to remember it or type it. People love or hate 37signals for one reason or another, but I've never heard of anyone begrudging them or their services because their domain names are slightly off. If a service is delivering value, the particular domain name just falls into the background.

Ultimately, I think people get too caught up in selecting "the right" domain name because they are insecure about the website behind that name, and they feel like they need every bit of help they can get, like agonizing over SEO and having "the right" name. If there's one thing 37signals is not, it's insecure. And although their word is thrown down as gospel way too much among bloggers, a bank statement is hard to argue with.

Be confident with your service and your name, and success will follow. Your .com is only as central to your business as you make it.