i work for an internet company that has over 30 sites with the most ridiculous names you've ever heard of, like (this one is fake: the-best-site-for-mechanical-engineers-who-like-webmasterworld.com)
but they work because they have a lot of content that people search for online and they rank high in searches
it seems, and this is interesting to me because my own site does this too, it seems that people are just going to websites via search engines to the direct info they are looking for and then leaving and searching via search engine for their next topic...
i think this is the way it's going to go? do you think sites should just format themselves for these search and go users?
Its difficult to project an authority site image with the-best-site-for-mechanical-engineers-who-like-widgets.com. It is a lot easier with widgets.com. Also assuming the long-domain-site has something to offer the only ways back to it are via the search engine entry or and a book mark, both of which can get easily get lost with time.
Successful selling is about a transfer of confidence and image and a frictionless sales process are very important.
2005 has seen an upsurge of generic names like property.com being brought to the market often for $100,000s, hardly a sign I would have thought that quality domains are no longer needed.
[edited by: Webwork at 10:57 pm (utc) on Nov. 11, 2005]
[edit reason] 'cause he asked (system glitch prematurely timed out editing) [/edit]
as for myself, besides maybe 10 major sites that i know the domain of, i just use a search engine to find what i want and then leave the site
many major companies have domain names that seem to have nothing to do with themselves, or are complicated acronyms, etc. whenever i am looking for a company website i go to a search engine and type in their name, rather than trying a www.companyname.com in the address bar, it tends to be easier.
i think most internet users do the same
The world wide web is a big numbers game. A small percentage of a very big number still tends to be a big number. :)
As more and more domains of significant generic utility get built out there's a decent chance that more, not fewer, people will engage in direct navigation.
Also, the domain parking lander pages have been increasingly optimized and the darned pop-ups/unders have been increasingly minimized so that "those disincentives" to direct navigation are starting to abate.
Bottom line: Large numbers and small percentages still add up.
One other way to look at this: What is the value of a sales lead versus what does it cost to register a domain name? Do the math.
Last idea: How many type-ins will you get via a decent domain and how much would you have to pay a search engine for clickthroughs? If the cost of the domain is less than the cost of the clickthroughs, again, you're ahead of the game. Since many people surfing via direct navigation are pretty tightly focused in their search it can also be argued that the conversion value of direct navigation traffic is higher than clickthroughs via AdWords, etc.
No one has a crystal ball but even the search engines are courting the domain holders. It's all about traffic that converts for advertisers.
