Domain name strategy – generics
It seems business.com was doomed from the start due to the hype surrounding its name. How much money did the Earthlink founder pay for this domain name? Was it $7 million or $12 million? It was somewhere in that range.
Other generic domain names (generics) have failed, too. Mail.com’s ownership has changed multiple times, yet is still not profitable. And, if it is at last profitable, it’s not near what anyone expected, back in 1997 . Auction.com can’t approach the popularity of eBay. There are many others. www.com never really saw great success. iWon did well but was sold twice. Now, it is part of IAC.
I don’t know one major site with a generic domain which is still independent or successful w/o outside help (let’s except Amazon here since they lost money forever before turning a profit). Heck, even Google needed venture capital to get going. But, at least Google was an obscure enough word to be brandable.
MSN has lost millions in its time. Is Search.com as big as Yahoo? Is download.com equal to peer-to-peer sharing? Is news.com as popular as ABC, CNN, or Fox? Shopping.com changed hands so many times, it ended up, TA DA, owned by eBay.
Since internet commerce began, you needed more than a generic domain name. There needs to be money behind it (or at least lots of people). It is a shame the way companies wasted all that money on a single domain name. Just because it’s generic, doesn’t mean it’s a good value.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment