Do you remember the good old days?

[woop01]

When every possible combination of words that could possibly be put together to make a reasonably descriptive site name wasn't taken by some guy who is 'planning on developing it some day but might sell it.' (after ten years)

Or by an investor who has done a thorough evaluation of his portfolio and come to the conclusion that insanely obscure adjectivenoun.com is worth mid to high five figures?

[Leosghost]

When every possible combination of words that could possibly be put together to make a reasonably descriptive site name wasn't taken by some guy who is 'planning on developing it some day but might sell it.' (after ten years)

I resemble that remark :)

I also have a lot ( well a few hundred ) of short EMDs ..

Domain names are cheap, they are like seeds , you can plant them and they'll grow if tended or you can keep them "dormant" and they will still sprout and succeed , if looked after, and if given good content, even if you wait years to do so..

And there are still vast amounts of low hanging fruit, that others have missed, or dropped ( because they did not know what to do with it ) ..enough with the gardening metaphors..domains to develop..

btw..you must be thinking of around 1996-98 ..when it seemed ( to some ) that all the best ones were taken..and 32 megs of RAM was Ultimate Power :) and the echoes of Billy G saying that the interwebtubes would never catch on were still in our ears..

[lucy24]

I want to see Eminent Domain. Look, buster, either you do something with that domain name right now, or you lose it. Like trademarks. You can't squat on them forever.

:(

[Elsmarc]

I guess domain squatting is profitable sometimes. I won't opine on whether it's ethical or smart. I've never done it or been interested in it. Personally I get a domain name and use it to make an active site. I like a continuous income rather than to hope *maybe* I'll be able to sell a domain name some day to someone who wants it. I can always come up with a domain name for a new web site without having to buy one from a squatter. But then again I don't remember ever wanting a domain name which someone was squatting on other than the domain name for my real first and last name, but that was some years back.

[jecasc]

Descriptive domains are close to worthless nowadays anyway IMHO. The days were websites were called buy-cheap-widgets or all-about-widgets or buy-widgets-24 are gone anyway. Nowadays branding is more important and people register names like zapadoodles or wakawongo or whatever the want to call their business.

Zapadoodles and Wakawongo are still available by the way. So get them while they are hot.

[woop01]

jecasc, you can't make such broad statements about domain names as if every niche and industry is the same.

There's a big difference between the spammy stuff you're talking about and just trying to find domains that are the slightest bit more than random letters strung together.

[londrum]

the best domain names these days are ones that nobody would bother squatting... things like "twitter". it perfectly describes what its users do, and it's short and memorable too. if twitter started up fifteen years ago they probably would have been lumbered with a lousy name like mobile-messaging

[woop01]

Comparing the branding ability of companies with millions and millions of VC cash to sites attempting to fill very small niches has never really made much sense to me.

[jecasc]

Comparing the branding ability of companies with millions and millions of VC cash to sites attempting to fill very small niches has never really made much sense to me.

My webshop is small and in a small niche yet the most important search term for my website is my domain name, my brand. 30% of my visitors come to my website by searching for MY brand name and not for the brands I sell.

Having your own brand is especially and vitally important in the small niches. Being a "brand" does not necessarily mean that hundreds of thousands or millions know you. My brand is perhaps known to 15-20,000 people. But those are the ones that matter because they are my customers. Once people do not search for "niche-widget-brand" any more but for you - "nichewidgetaria" - then you have done it. The customers don't shop around anymore, don't compare prices, don't look at competitors special offers - they come directly to you because they trust you and your brand. Of course a brand is not just the name but it has to stand for something - for those things that distinguish you.

And what is true for shops is also true for normal websites. At least if you are in for the long run. The problem also is that "descriptive domain names" often shout "SPAM" or "Affiliate" from miles away. If I see something like "ultimatewidgetwebsite" I don't bother to click on it. For my own projects I'd prefer a fantasy name like "wapozoodle" to a descriptive domain name any day.

[woop01]

I understand that descriptive domain names CAN shout spam but that's not always the case.

We've got branded websites that do well within their niche. We've also got projects that do need something other than random letters.

[jmccormac]

I ran some stats a while back on the number of .com domains that were dropped and never reregistered over a period of about ten years. The result was 140 million. Some of the stuff that dropped in the wake of the DotBomb was just plain weird but domain tasting also pushed typos and off-by-one-letter registrations. The multiword domains really didn't start to appear until 2007-2008. Back in the good old days, the .com zone was only a few hundred megabytes or less. Now it is around 7G (I think). But the ratio of bad domains to domains that someone wants does not seem to have changed. Everyone seems to be able to come up with a reason why they should have a domain that someone else is not "using". :)

Regards...jmcc