What You Can Learn From The Worst Domain Names

Maybe you cringe, maybe you laugh but if you register domain names that have inappropriate innuendos you’re doing nothing but crying.

Most companies who have made an internet domain gaff didn’t realise it at the time. While it may gain some initial publicity, unless you’re willing to incorporate the personality of the gaff into the brand of your organisation, (like masterbaitonline.com), registering a domain name that has a double meaning can cost a lot of money and time to fix. To buy domain names doesn’t take very long and while there’s some money to be lost in any marketing materials it may have been printed on, at the end of the day, they are easy to change. It’s the brand image that may never recover. Additionally, coming up with ideas about which new domain name register to go with creates headaches all around – again.

We’ve used a few of the well-known domain name muck-ups from around the internet to highlight areas of your own domain name you should check off before going ahead with the rest of your marketing. Before you think you’ve got a bargain with a cheap domain name, do your website domain names have any of these mistake-prone characteristics?

Words Starting With A Vowel

Note that many words that start with a vowel, when combined with other words look more like they belong to the partner word. Some examples include:

penisland.com – Pen Island

speedofart.com – Speed of Art

Ilovebigals.com – I love Big Al’s

Watch Out For That Sneaky ‘S’

‘S’ is such a common letter because it turns singles into plurals and is also used regularly to begin words. This becomes a problem when you start combining words together…

americanscrapmetal.com- American Scrap Metal

childrenswear.com – Children’s Wear

itscrap.com – IT Scrap

Anagrams

Double check the anagram of any website you’re registering with a bunch of people who aren’t aware of the full name. This is easy to do on the streets. Otherwise, you’ll up with website domain names as awkward as those below:

Mofo.com – Morrison & Foersterr

Nobs.com – North of Boston Jewish Singles

Endings other than .com

While we actually recommend using endings other than .com to get creative with your domain name if you’re struggling, don’t forget that it can work against you as well as it can work for you. Take these unfortunate companies below as an example:

Swissbit.ch – Swiss Bit

Budget.co.ck – Budget Cook Islands

If you’re having trouble coming up with appropriate domain names, check out our other article here or contact us for a brainstorming session.

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