The Grand Adventures of Daisy Donnie

I and my good friends once owned a domain. It was a nifty domain (think it cost us $30US for a year at the time). It was for a street magazine I’d conceived on the flight back to OZ from the UK.

We let it go. There simply wasn’t the time to keep the magazine going with our lives the way they were. C’est la vie.

I’ve thought a few times about resurrecting it, but have put it down as something I’d done. Looking back isn’t something I like doing these days.

Lately though, the idea is growing legs. They’re mutant legs to be sure, but legs are legs as they say.

So I looked around at getting the domain name again.

Someone had grabbed it. a company that upon enquiry asked for $7,000US for it.

Perhaps I’m naiive (wouldn’t be the first time it had been implied), but I find this kind of attitude to domain names not really what I thought the web was for.

It’s a free and open society, it’s something new, totally new. And commercial interests such as the current owners of the domain are very much old-paradigm, the Rupert Murdoch’s of the world.

And they try to (and often do) get away with vastly appreciated prices like this simply because in the real world they’d be told to stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine. The web — to many people — is a great unknown, somewhere to fear.

I was contacted again by these people and they posited the following reasons why they were happy to charge $7000 for a domain name:

You’re taking your business in the right direction by pursuing a premium domain name that’s short, memorable and descriptive.

You already know that building a strong online identity is critical in today’s market. We hear story after story of successful businesses built on the right domain names. They give our clients the competitive edge they need.

[Your domain] is still available, so don’t settle for just any domain name. Let us help you get the one you want. Call us now at 1-111-111-111 (US),+1-222-333-4444(Worldwide) to make an offer.

I would like to work with you on this, and hope to hear from you.

Best Regards,

My response was “good luck” and I’ve got a domain name that’s close enough for me.

While in a way it’s true that getting short, memorable and descriptive domain names is a good thing, but it’s also true that if you do your SEO and copywriting right, you’ll get visitors anyway. The comparison of people searching on a specific name versus keywords is blindingly different. If they’re searching on a specific name, then it’s likely they’ve already spoken with you, seen your shop or advertising already. The web works better for you if you do your homework with the content on your site, and research the search terms (keywords) that people are likely to use to find what they’re looking for: your services or products.

An easily remembered domain name only works once they’ve found you and want to visit again. And if you want to spend $7,000US, you’d be better doing it getting the content on your site up-to-scratch. Indeed, you probably won’t have to spend anywhere near that much for your site copy and SEO.

Maybe I’ve proved once-and-for-all that I don’t have a commercial bone in my body. Perhaps I now know that I am that struggling creative-type that produces arty stuff, but will never see bundles of cash.

Or maybe I just aren’t willing to play other people’s games…

You Be The Judge.