Domain/Business Names - Better to be Creative or Descriptive?

[DustinG]

Curious on people's thoughts on this. When deciding on a name for a domain/online business, is it better to go with something unique (think Amazon, Twitter, GoDaddy, Google) and build a brand around it, or to go with something descriptive that makes it clear what you do (such as giftbaskets.com or carsforsale.com)?

And then there could of course be combinations of the above (HostGator, Themeforest, SurveyMonkey, etc.).

I know there could be SEO benefits to a descriptive name/domain, but I'm more interested in what type of name you might be more inclined to click on in search results (or in an ad or whatever) if you had never heard of the company.

For example, if you were searching for local piano lessons (for a random example), would you be more inclined to click on PianoWhirl.com or FindPianoLessons.com?

Thanks!

 

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[Bushi23]

I'm going to paraphrase what I read in another thread not too long ago.

Basically, you want a name you can brand. You want customers remembering your brand. Anybody can come in to a new market, but once you establish yourself as a leader, it's a lot harder to take that away from you if you branded yourself. It's hard to brand yourself with a name like 'carsforsale.com' .

As far as clicking on a link in the SERPs, I really don't think people concern themselves with the domain name as much as they do with position and title/etc. I don't even look at the domain when I search for something on google.

 

[CommonCents]

how much weight does a relevant descriptive domain name have these days in search ranks?

 

[ableme]

I don't think it has anywhere near the weight it used to carry. But as with any domain, it's the work you do on it that counts. If you just put up smartcarsales.com and do nothing with it expecting to rank on the first page, then you will be very disappointed. But if you put up smartcarzsalez.com then market and promote the s$#t out of it, you will probably do great!

 

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[Vick]

lets say hypothetically the internet didnt exist.

what would you name your business?

you should never decide on a business name based on what google will do for you.

ranking will happen automatically if you have something good to offer.

name your business what YOU want.

period.