Finding a Domain Name

In this episode, Ashley Elliott and Mike Carr discuss the importance of domain names in the AI age. They talk about the history of the.com craze and how it has changed over the years, discussing the trend of startups straying away from the.com and opting for shorter.ai.io names.  Some do's and don'ts are also provided when choosing a domain name, such as avoiding characters like dashes or numbers and not overcomplicating or awkwardly pairing words. The team also emphasizes the importance of renewing domain registrations and checking for trademark infringement.  

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction the .com Era
• 0:32 Domain Evolution & Rise of Alternative Extensions
• 1:32 Digital Presence and Best Practices
• 3:20 Creative Strategies, Ownership, and Trademark
• 5:28 Future of .com Domains

Transcript

Ashley Elliott (00:10): 

Well, hello and welcome to naming in an AI Age. Today we're going to talk about the.com. Do we still love it? Did we ever love it? Do we need it? What are some do's and don'ts when we come up with a domain name and maybe some steps on how to register your domain? So Mike, welcome. Tell us your experience with the.com craze or how you think it's changed over the years. 

Mike Carr (00:32): 

Well, I think when the internet first started becoming established, folks didn't really understand what a website was, and so people would just put sales brochures out there, and it was just a regurgitation of what you would normally see in print. And then people got a little bit smarter about the power of the internet and the value of A URL and.com became sort of the defacto standard that is Google bias search results to where if you were the.com owner and someone were to enter in the name, they'd put you at the top of the list because you own the.com. 

Ashley Elliott (01:11): 

I know a lot more companies are now, especially startups, are straying away from the.com. Maybe because there are so many out there that it's less obtainable or there are other alternatives. I wonder what your thought would be on settling for a shorter.ai.io name versus a very lengthy.com. 

Mike Carr (01:32): 

I think what one needs to think about is your digital presence, whether that's a website, a Facebook page, a presence on X, or Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, et cetera. I think for most people today, and probably for the foreseeable future, having a website is important. It's not that expensive. And to have sort of a sign, it's like your sign in front of your business. If you feel like Facebook's a better place to take them or LinkedIn, you can sort of redirect them that where most of your content is having the.com versus the dot something else. While it's still important, it will become less important as AI gains more of a foothold in search and the search algorithms get a little bit smarter and answer your question. I would say shorter is better even if it doesn't have a.com on the end of it, as long as it's relevant, engaging and cuts through all the clutter 

Ashley Elliott (02:35): 

And cutting through that clutter is a good point and not misspelling or mistyping. So we do have some domain and don'ts when thinking of a domain name. One of those specifically would be not using characters such as a dash or numbers in your domain name just for the sake of clarity, not misspelling, not misusing or mistyping like FOR versus four can become really confusing. We also have, don't forget to renew your registration. Letting that lapse is just asking for an issue. Another thing that they said, don't overcomplicate or awkwardly pair words. They gave some faux pause of words that you would definitely not want to combine because visually it looks like an inappropriate word, and that was one tip I never had thought of. 

Mike Carr (03:20): 

Certainly you don't want to register something that could be offensive in another language, and that goes for your name itself. But we'll have clients where the shortest, most intuitively spelled form of the.com is unavailable, right? So instead of just having the name by itself, you put something like go in front of it. So now your URL is still pretty intuitive and pretty obvious, and now the.com almost plays double duty, right? It's still your URL address. Putting go in front of it all of a sudden makes it registerable because no one's registered that particular variation. And it's also a call to action and lets you do some pretty cool things in copy. The other thing is putting something at the end. Most of our B2B clients are sophisticated enough that they aren't overly concerned if you don't have the.com. But for B two b2c, especially if you're going after millions of people having that shortest, most intuitively spelled form match your brand without the go or without anything after it is sometimes worth more money. 

Ashley Elliott (04:25): 

Another thing to be sure to make certain of is that you are the owner of the domain that you register. This becomes important when you are looking to sell, when you're looking to make sure you're renewing. 

Mike Carr (04:39): 

More importantly, you want to make sure from a trademark standpoint that you're not infringing upon someone's rights. And a lot of folks don't understand this. They say, well, I've got the.com, I just paid a thousand dollars or $5,000 for it. I'm good to go. no.com registration has absolutely nothing to do with trademark registration. So you could easily be infringing upon someone else's trademark even if it's not spelled the same way, and you may have to stop using that.com. So I would say the most important thing to do is check trademark registration before you decide to buy a.com or before you put your shingle out there on the web with a.ai or.io, whatever it is, just make sure you're not infringing upon someone else's legal rights in that name before you move forward. 

Ashley Elliott (05:28): 

To tie into the do's and don'ts and really to wrap up length matters when it comes to a very, very long URL versus a short, easy to spell, easy to say URL without characters, without symbols or numbers. Specifically making sure that your domain is available and not infringing on someone else's trademark or specific brand name, as well as aiding in that cybersecurity by making sure that you're using a good domain registrar like GoDaddy domain.com or updating your renewal as you should 

Mike Carr (06:05): 

Register the.com for five years. For right now, I would still recommend doing it, but things are changing quickly. Come back to our podcast in six months and we may have a different point of view. 

Ashley Elliott (06:17): 

We've talked about domains, we've talked about domain names and registering, but we're going to talk a little bit more next week about social media handles and how do they relate? What should you do and what should you consider when you're naming social media handles, specifically targeted for your audience, whether you're B2B, B2C, and so on and so forth. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Mike. 

Mike Carr (06:36): 

See you guys.