This is an older piece written by Dennis Forbes It has some interesting charts and graphs that give insight into the human behavior around naming. I’m particularly struck by the propensity for website owners to create domain names in certain character length and relative name length-distribution.
Hope you find something in here that interests you.. Enjoy!~ 
This entry was posted by Frank Schilling on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 9:22 AM and is filed under
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I love this kind of logic, but then I am biased. I own too many single characters not to be.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. New to domains and noticing how much there is to learn. I just finished reading your incredible blog (thanks again) and I am still waking up to the fact of how in the world most of us missed the domain opportunity.
About this post, do you believe this distribution will change once VR gets implemented and longer pronounced domain names become the norm, as you pointed out in a recent post?
***FS*** It may, I’m honestly not sure about on this point.
And going on a tangent, if I may… I read about your disdain for domainers who purchase expired traffic and understand the reasons, but how about “expired links”?
***FS*** Not so much disdain.. as refrain.. as in I’d refrain from that because the falloff is great and if you focus on generics you get something with legs. Ditto on expired links. But I know of folks who buy expiring names that look patently generic (but aren’t keyword style names) and then monetize traffic to build cash in order to buy generic names.***
Those will still be sending traffic way after the search engines bring down the parked pages… Wouldn’t that alone be enough of a reason to acquire already developed sites, in addition for their type-in value?
***FS*** Development can blow away when the plates stop spinning or google changes their algo to blacklist the name.. Focus on generic’s in the secondary market then devlop on the back of the generic intent traffic. Thats what I’d do.
And a final inquiry please, what is your view of playing the game in a foreign language where phrases are constructed differently, say french or spanish or german (meaning that prepositions are added unlike in english)? Can you offer any perspective?
***FS*** I like foreign languages, particularily in ccTLDs If you speak the lingo, more power to you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
> or google changes their algo to blacklist the name…
So close to home, he. Another good reason for *becoming interested* in domaining and starting to appreciate the work businessmen like you have done. Nothing like bypassing someone who may turn against. The beauty of direct navigation.
About your ccTLDs preferences… Some languages spread into too many countries, notably spanish (Colombia, Paraguay, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Spain and many more {latin US doesn’t count as they tend and prefer to speak english). In such cases, wouldn’t it make perfect sense to just go with the good and ole’ .com?
And about foreign markets, the anglosaxon online world, in particular the US, currently has wide infraestructure (broadband) and commercial support (credit cards). This is not the case with the hispanic world. Would you just sit on generics and wait it out?
Finally -and excuse my bombarding you with questions but I find your writing highly enlightning- could you say what is the difference in terms of value for the generics “jewelry”, “weddingrings”, “pearlnecklaces”? In a type-in situation, would visitors go for the top vertical or perform more specific searches therefore confering more value to more detailed generics? In SEO, long tail searches (equivalent perhaps to the more obscure type-in domain “pearlnecklaces”) have traditionally held more value than trophy words. So far, I only see the opposite in the domain industry.
Looking forward to your comments.
***FS*** You have good instincts.. while the big words always get the main street value .. in many circumstances the compound phrases have more intrinsic value and actually generate more paid-search revenue as advertising vehicles. In this example I’d still take the big world jewelry, but you could probably make more money per visitor on the latter two descriptive terms.