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The year of the noun when it comes to startup naming trends?

September 1, 2020 by Raymond Hackney

Startup Naming Trends

Crunchbase published an article yesterday on how startup names are becoming less silly.

They tweeted out:

Call it the year of the noun. Funded startups are choosing brands made up of recognized words or names that describe what they do.

Some see this as a goodbye to BrandBucket type made up or invented names. Others see it as a potential boon for new gtld’s.

But I thought NickB and PB over at Namepros made a good point about repetitive names.

NickB wrote:

How does it overcome the issue when they are called the same name? – I think this was where the appeal of weird and wonderful brandables came from, they where unique and have very little chance of being confused with another company/brand, though it creates other issues like the radio test etc…..

PB added:

When there are several startups with the same name in different tlds, there’s only one big winner: google. They will all end up pumping VC money into adwords to come out on top.

Imagine calling your company “Magic” and not owning .com or at least .net. How the hell are people going to find you? Google? I don’t think so. Wikipedia beats you right off the bat. And then there’s two billion other results…

I tend to agree that if you don’t own the .com it will create some confusion, you will always have to stress that your brand is two words. You cannot be known as “Magic” but Magic Media, found at Magic.Media or MagicMedia.com.

There could very easily be one tech company calling themselves Magic at Magic.Tech while another uses Magic.Technology.

The article even mentions:

” There is at least one big downside however; these names are typically already being used by other startups. The Crunchbase dataset lists multiple companies called Mighty, for instance, along with several called Magic, Opus, Wise and Proper, which are also names of recently funded startups on our list.”

Awhile back I remember reading Backlinko.com:

1. Branded Domain/Site Name: Forget exact match or phrase match domains. The EMD update made it very clear that exact match domains don’t do jack. Instead of MostComfortableMaleThongsX.com, go for ComfyThongs.com.

Rocking a branded domain sends the message that you’re a unique brand…not some SEO-obsessed loser trying to rank for one keyword.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has this to say about brands:

“Brands are the solution, not the problem… brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

Will we be finding our way back to EMD’s?

I think MisterFunky had a good post when they said:

It’s been a hoot watching the domain business go the route of the fashion industry as far as trend chasing goes.

The nonsensical name trend has been a good one and now a single word that pertains to the core business is becoming the trend (saves lots of money on branding a made up word).

The next step will back to the EMD’s. As the saying goes, ‘everything old is new again’. But, I could be wrong.

Brandable marketplace are working on their algorithms, I am sure a lot of new gtld registries will be sharing this crunchbase post for awhile.

Domain investors will read the article in many different ways, settling on what best suits their current portfolio. There is the data, the myths and the debates.

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Filed Under: Branding, Domain trends, Domaining 101

About Raymond Hackney

Raymond Hackney has been involved with domain names since 1997. One of the most prolific writers in the domain industry and founder of TLDinvestors.com and 3Character.com

Comments

  1. Lifesavings.online says

    September 1, 2020 at 4:49 am

    It’s about CTR. Go look, very recently Google admitted CTR is playing a role in ranking. Something i’ve been trying to say for awhile. I am sure that they are preparing to make it even a bigger factor too.

    They are also able to give weight to EMD now too, as ‘span the dot’ exactness is actually likey to answer user query. 2 words ‘span the dot’ is a GREAT indicator that the site is relevent to user intrests. We all know there are LOTS of 2 word combos put in search everyday.

    They can revert back to EMD because their crawler can realize when a site is just spun or a link farm now. They can knock those right down the page no problem.

    EMD allows mom and pop websites to rank on NEW domains more easily. It takes away A LOT of the monopolies that some brand .coms have. Talking Amazon on down. EMD gives mom and pop a chance.

    If you aren’t a NEW domains believe today, come next major core update Q1 2021, you will be. If you’re not, well…just quit domaining IMO. You’re fighting Google, Amazon, Microsoft..all these have NEW TLD. Even Verisign.

    I have a lot to say about .web but, I don’t think it’s great.

    What’s great are the exacting tld that everyone laugh at for being ‘low registration’. These create those UNIQUE brands that ARE memorable to those with interest pertaining to the topic. It won’t take long and everyone will undersand a website could be “DOT ANYTHING” .Anything!

    People say ‘.com’ ALL the time today. It’s only a FEW huge company like amazon, google, they don’t say .com.

    So don’t act like people assume everything is a .com. 99% of ads I see / hear, they are EXPLICITLY calling out ‘DOT COM’. They will EXPLICITLY call out ‘DOT WHATEVER’ – and people will understand!

    Cut the crap .comrs. People are going to know. They’re going to know a .horse exist as soon as they hear or see a single domain. AT THAT MOMENT. It -wont- mater that they DON’T KNOW. They will know it can be .ANYTHING. That will be good enough!

  2. Snoopy says

    September 1, 2020 at 5:08 am

    The company name is seen as far more important than the domain. So a company called “Magic” on magicmedia.com or heymagic.com or magic.io is acceptable.

    This won’t be a big issue unless they are highly successful. Most only need a temporary url.

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